Doing the weekly shop?

When VOLKER SOMMER, a German citizen living in Cambridge and working in London, suspected that he paid more for his groceries in the UK than in his home country, he did more than merely moan about it.With academic thoroughness (he is professor of evolutionary anthropology at University College London), he researched the cost of his weekly grocery bill and found that a trolley-load from his local Tesco cost more than half again what the same shopping list cost in Germany.This is his report

TESCO asks: "Why pay more?" I wonder, too, because their prices are 56 per cent more than in my home country. We all know that the glorious pound sterling has to be protected from the evils of the European market - unless we want everything to be as expensive as in Germany. But we are wrong.

Because I am one of the "we" who live in both Britain and Germany and I figured out that we in Britain are being ripped off. My gut feeling was that goods cost about one-third or so more here in the UK. Alas, my guts deceived me. To fill them up, I have had to shell out a staggering 56 per cent more. Most of my daily foraging is done at a Tesco store in Cambridge, walking distance from my house. Subconsciously, I have felt the drain in my wallet ever since I started work in Britain two years ago. But I became really suspicious when my economy-conscious German parents came to visit a second time - dragging with them a suitcase full of food. Thus, during my last visit to Germany I went to a local grocer near the town of Kassel which goes by the name of REWE. The store is not known for the cheapest, low-quality products, so is quite comparable to Tesco. I ignored the items which were on special offer and filled my basket with 34 products, mostly food, and paid Dm125.72. Back in Cambridge, I bought the same products at Tesco. Twenty items were identical to those found in Germany they looked alike (such as similar-sized kiwi fruit) or had brand-specific packing (like Colgate or Bounty bars). The remainder were very similar. The bill came to GBP 66.94. This sounds much less than Ein- hundertfunfundzwanzigmark zweiundsiebzig - but only before the exchange rate. I divided the German prices by an exchange rate of Dm2.93. This exchange rate favours Tesco because at the time, the pound was on average quite a bit stronger - more like Dm3. Now make sure you're sitting down - because I am going to tell you that not a single item was cheaper in Britain. The best I could achieve was an innocent Granny Smith apple which cost just the same as in Germany: 17 pence. At the other extreme was kitchen foil which cost not double, triple or quadruple but 12.4 times more at Tesco. National pride may tempt you to suspect that a non-native raided Tesco for goods made in Germany. Yes, I did - and paid 46 per cent more for 500g of Onken-bioghurt, 163 per cent more for 100g of Ritter-Sport chocolate and 172 per cent more for 500g of dark rye bread. But the flipside reveals a similarly depressing picture. A refill for a Soda-Stream gas cylinder (made next door in Peterborough) was 17 per cent more and the price of smoked salmon from Scotland? Plus 246 per cent. Allegedly, there is still no Customs between England and Scotland, which might make one raise an eyebrow as to why Glenfiddich pure malt whisky is 33 per cent more in Britain. You may argue that our caring British government wants to keep us from drinking and therefore taxes alcohol highly, spending the revenue wisely to keep higher education free. So, you may nod your head at the news that Guinness is also a whopping 115 per cent more than good beer in Germany, and feel free to find it utterly agreeable that a bottle of Martini Rosso imported from Italy is 56 per cent more. But can you help but wonder why the more frugal necessities are also steeply priced? Are you up in arms, like me, about non-British, non-German imports like Irish butter (nine per cent more), American long-grain rice (plus 16 per cent), Chiquita bananas (plus 17 per cent), Buitoni spaghetti (plus 24 per cent), Heinz tomato ketchup (plus 25 per cent), Galbani mozzarella (plus 27 per cent), Dutch yellow pepper (plus 33 per cent), New Zealand kiwi fruit (plus 43 per cent) and Toblerone chocolate (plus 100 per cent). Tear your hair with me over home products such as a whole cucumber (plus 15 per cent), whipping cream (plus 30 per cent), fresh whole milk (plus 41 per cent), eggs from happily free-range chickens (plus 60 per cent), Philadelphia cream cheese (plus 67 per cent) or apple juice (plus 122 per cent). There is also no consolation to be found in the consumption of non-food items like four AAA Energizer batteries (plus 28 per cent), coffee filter papers (plus 47 per cent), a bar of soap (plus 56 per cent), a soft-tone Philips lightbulb (plus 72 per cent) or Colgate Total toothpaste (plus 72 per cent). The chief executives of Tesco (or Sainsbury's or Marks & Spencer's - where the goodies are certainly not mind-bogglingly cheaper) like to complain about the allegedly high overheads involved in storekeeping. An alternative explanation is one of these (admittedly fashionable) conspiracy theories: the fat cats of various retailers secretly fix their prices. How else could it be that even an international gold-standard such as Coca-Cola costs 66 per cent more in Britain than in Germany? Whatever they tell me or you, we are being ripped off - in that "every little helps" the rich to become richer. Even the notoriously expensive Cote d'Azur is cheaper. I spent a week in St Tropez which harbours a Giant Casino superstore. A third of the items were more than at Tesco. But two-thirds were less yielding a 14 per cent lower price tag than in Britain. I could tell you about my non-Tesco world, too. For example, the annual train ticket from Cambridge to my work in London costs almost as much as a network card for all trains in the whole of Germany. Or I could tell you that my five-year-old son and I sailed from Hamburg back to Harwich by ferry. The two-berth cabin cost GBP 121 - if I had booked it in England. Booked via Hamburg it was only GBP 84. But wait - there is good news, too. Some things in British supermarkets are not only cheaper but free. And this may explain the puzzling pricing. The first is politeness - from cashier to customer. German treatment is at best grumpy indifference - more likely is that you will be shouted at for not unloading your cart quick enough. The second good thing in Britain is plastic bags. No decent German requests one unless risking a lecture in environmental Ramboism. If you ask, nevertheless, for a bag, you are charged 5p. Tesco bags, on the other hand, are thrown after us. And we throw them right in the bin - from where the rubbish is taken to the landfill. Which, at least in Cambridge, is right behind the Tesco store. The merciless Fen winds blow the bags back into the parking lot of Tesco. Of course, somebody has to be employed to pick up the eyesores. And surely, it is that person's salary which makes my milk so expensive. WHAT TESCO SAYS TESCO'S immediate response to Professor Sommer's shopping trip was that "this survey is utter rubbish". A statement from the company went on to say: "The global leader in market research, A C Neilson, finds no differences between the UK and Germany, except for tax, on food prices. "In fact, A C Neilson found the basket to be 40 pence cheaper when it included a mix of own label and branded products." Prof Sommer's basket of groceries did not represent a typical basket of shopping, said Tesco - with a spokesman stating: "Smoked salmon, mozzarella, leerdammer and rye bread are not everyday purchases for British customers." He pointed out that different rates of VAT and excise duty apply in Britain and Germany. If excise duty and the VAT imposed on duty which are outside the supermarkets' control are taken into account, the difference between the British and German grocery baskets is just GBP 4.21 - or nine per cent, he said. He added: "Price baskets are difficult to set up between retailers in the same country, quite apart from different countries, because of differences in products' stock and quality. "A typical basket of shopping differs significantly between European countries what is regarded as a staple in one is a luxury in another, or not even sold." The spokesman said that, if British supermarkets were so much more expensive than those on the continent, then there would be a flood of foreign operators moving into the British market. Tesco did not explain, however, the growing number of British shoppers crossing the Channel for cheap continental shopping. PROFESSOR SOMMER'S SHOPPING BASKETS Item bought at Tesco Quantity UK price German price How much more store, Cambridge, on 27 August in UK (%) Cucumber, whole 1 0.39 0.34 15 Kiwi fruit (New Zealand) 1 0.19 0.13 43 Heinz Tomato Ketchup 700g 1.27 1.02 25 Fresh Whole Milk 1.136l 0.55 0.39 41 Apple (Granny Smith, S. Africa) 0.28lb 0.17 0.17 0 Guinness beer (4 x 0.5l) 4-pk 3.79 1.76 115 Butter (Kerrygold, Ireland) 250g 0.89 0.82 9 Bananas, loose 0.86lb 0.42 0.36 17 Apple juice 1l 0.75 0.34 122 Cheese (Leerdammer) 250g 1.79 1.10 63 Martini Rosso (0.75l) 125g 4.25 2.73 56 Mozzarella (Galbani, Italy) 125g 0.82 0.65 27 Bounty bar 2-pk 0.30 0.29 3 Spaghetti, Buitoni 500g 0.76 0.61 24 Toothpaste (Colgate Total) 100ml 2.05 1.19 72 Glenfiddich whisky (pure malt) 1l 25.99 19.49 33 Soft tone lightbulbs (100W, Phillips) 2-pk 1.75 1.02 72 Long-grain rice 1kg 0.99 0.85 16 Smoked salmon, sliced (Scotland) 200g 5.65 1.63 246 Yellow pepper (Holland) 1 0.69 0.52 33 Coca-Cola 0.330l 0.39 0.24 66 Eggs (free-range) 6 1.09 0.68 60 Dark rye bread (Schneider) 500g 0.92 0.34 172 Soap (Tesco pure) 125g 0.42 0.27 56 Coffee filter papers 1 x 4pk 80 1.09 0.74 47 AAA batteries (Energizer) 4-pk 3.49 2.73 28 Chocolate (Toblerone) 100g 0.88 0.44 100 Chocolate (Ritter Sport) 100g 0.89 0.34 163 Cream cheese (Philadelphia) 200g 1.19 0.7 67 Kitchen foil (Tesco) 30m 3.49 0.26 1242 Cucumber spears (670g) 1 Glas 1.05 1.02 3 Whipping cream 284ml 0.65 0.50 30 Bioghurt Onken 500g 1.09 0.75 46 Soda Stream gas cylinder refill 1 3.19 2.73 17 Total percentage difference 55.5 (All prices in pounds) (Some products were not sold in comparable quantities so prices have been calculated proportionally ) Based on exchange rate of 2.93Dm to GBP 1

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