Buy One - Get One Free - it's Not What it Pretends to Be

Image copyright Janet Cameron

I live alone. It costs me more to feed myself than individual members of a couple or a family - and the reason is that it's no longer possible in the United Kingdom to buy economically in smaller quantities. Single and retired people are discriminated against in British supermarkets and eating places. And it's unjust.

"Buy one get one free" sometimes translates to "Buy one for £2.00 or buy two for £2.50."  Except, I can't eat all that in one sitting and I can't store much in my modest single person's freezer. Nor do I want to eat the same thing several days running so as not to waste it. (I'm retired and single, but I'm still human, and human beings like variety.)

Buy one get one free isn't really getting you a free one. It's just that two are offered at the same price as one and how do you know the extra cost isn't factored in by the retailer. It's a ploy, a clever play on words.  If you're part of a couple or a family, no doubt you can use up two quite easily. Not me. Again, I can't eat the lot at once, I can't store, and I don't want to have the same thing three days running.

The same with meals out. At certain off-peak times or on certain days, you can get two meals for the price of one. Sometimes it's one meal for the usual price of £4.50 and another meal, bought at the same time, for just £1.00 extra. 

So each person in a couple situation will be paying £2.75 ~ I will pay £4.50. How is this not discrimination?

Never mind all the bandying about of "free" and "extra for the same price."  In real terms it just means that single people are likely to be forking out a darn sight more to eat than the rest of society. Even popular Wetherspoon's, a chain I rarely complain about - finding them reasonably priced and consistent in quality of food and staff - offer these two for one deals. My individual curry is always a couple of pounds more expensive than the couple on the next table pay for theirs. 

The only time I can find this acceptable is when a meal is a speciality project and cooked in the kitchen from scratch and it is genuinely not viable to cook a single portion.

Those not in possession of a huge budget and an equally huge freezer, are paying over-the-odds for their weekly food bill. It's getting harder and harder to find single items or sensible portions, especially in the areas of meat and dairy, to suit the appetite and budget of single people.

That doesn't seem all that fair to me. I respond, as far as possible, by not buying anything on deal-type offers, but searching out better options by shopping around or buying frozen or tinned. 

Of course, the same thing happens when booking hotel rooms with single supplements rife across the board, but this seems less exploitative as obviously single occupancy is a good deal more expensive for the venue to provide. 

But this can hardly be the case for ready-meals heated up in the microwave.