Stuart Coverley's News Roundup
Expensive Groceries.
Newspaper accounts suggest that we are paying more for our groceries than on the continent or in the USA. The original survey included such expensive items as smoked salmon and freshly squeezed orange juice but failed to promote the fact that potatoes, corn flakes, tuna and dairy products are cheaper here.
ASDA commissioned their own survey using everyday items of a normal week's shopping which showed the UK is cheaper for both branded and own brand items. Supermarket profits are much greater here, reportedly 5% to 8% compared with 1% to 3% elsewhere. The difference is largely made up on added-value items like ready prepared meals, where demand is said to be increasing and so, it appears, is the price. Other items that seem expensive to the casual observer have been confirmed as having high mark ups. Instant coffee can be as high as 60%, the more attractive biscuits, 25%, tinned vegetables, 30% (very expensive compared with fresh or frozen as shown in a consumer group survey) and fresh fruit, 40% (bananas in the supermarket are around 49p /lb compared with 20p to 35p in markets).
Farmers claim that though meat prices are at rock bottom, supermarket prices have not followed. In fact cans of cat and dog food, made up of mainly leftovers, are priced above the cost of buying prime fresh meat! We wonder what the Office of Fair Trading will make of these prices in their enquiry into supermarket profits.
Chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs).
One of the last products to use these gases will be changed gradually before the year 2000 to meet international law under the Montreal Protocol of 1987. This committed developed countries to phase out CFCs by 1996, but aerosol inhalers for asthma have been allowed to continue polluting the atmosphere with CFCs as propellants.
Now, at last these are being phased-out and all inhalers will have to be renamed. The spray may feel lighter, leave the inhaler at a slower speed, or taste and feel different. The Department of Health circular gives no clue as to what gases will be used in these replacement inhalers.
Vehicle of the Future.
It may appear that there is little advance in producing mass-market less-polluting vehicles. However, Daihatsu are already producing vans that will run on gas or petrol; Shell is said to be introducing gas pumps onto their forecourts.
Now the government has produced funding of over £5 million to support further research which is being undertaken by over 150 organisations that have joined the Foresight Vehicle LINK programme.
The new technologies should be intelligent, clean, efficient and lightweight, blending the best of computing with traditional quality automotive engineering. No light problem, it seems!
Health Insurance.
People who have paid into health insurance policies for years have become unhappy with limitations on payouts that were not implicitly stated in contracts, as well as impositions of increased charges above annual inflation or when they get older or start to claim.
The Office of Fair Trading has been examining the matter since 1996 and had set a September 1998 deadline for insurers to come tip with a code of practice defining core terms. This will be designed so that policies can be compared, which will be a considerable improvement. At present, they may have a bewildering array of levels of cover, exclusions and even different ways of describing the same features. The definition of disability that leads to benefit payments may vary widely (is it the inability to carry on in your own occupation or in any occupation at all?). Some policies exclude claims for some pre-existing conditions for two years after taking out the policy. This could persuade the insured to delay seeking treatment. Changes making policies easier to understand do not come into force until next summer or autumn, so the small print needs to be studied very carefully if you are taking out a new policy before then.
We can only wait and see whether the Office of Fair Trading will be satisfied with any changes made.
Stop Press
Food Hazard Warning
TIN PRESENT IN CANNED CHOPPED TOMATOES
At the end of October Safeway alerted the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (MAFF) to the results of tests it had carried out on its own brand of canned tomatoes. They showed a higher than usual level of tin. Similarly high levels of tin were found in other brands.
MAFF's Joint Food Standards and Safety Group issued a warning to Environmental Health Chiefs, promising an extensive survey of canned tomatoes to discover the extent of the problem.
The identified brands are:
Safeway, Tesco and ASDA have withdrawn the affected batches from their shops. Princes have informed customers who received the affected batches (Costco, Booker Foods and Nisa Foods) and have asked them to withdraw the affected batches. Consumers who have bought any of these Tesco, ASDA or Safeway brand canned tomatoes should return them to any store where a full refund will be given. Members of the public who have bought Princes should dispose of the can, first removing the label from the pack and sending it to:
Princes Foods, Consumer Services
Dept., Royal Liver Building, Liverpool L3 1NX
for a full refund, including postage.
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