FROZEN

The truth is out! In today’s edition of the Sunday Times there is a report that much of the bread, rolls, donuts and cakes, on sale in the Supermarkets, have been frozen prior to being on sale. What has been advertised as “fresh” bread etc can be up to a year old. Often the thawed bread is reheated to give the appearance of being fresh. I’m afraid that my wife and I had already found this out when a loaf we purchased went stale within 24 hours. The EEC are trying to make supermarkets clearly mark items that have been previously frozen but, surprise, surprise, supermarkets are trying their best to defeat this move as “it would confuse shoppers”. No it wouldn’t – I would like to know so that I can avoid frozen and thawed bread etc. Often we buy bread to freeze so when we aren’t able to get to the shops we have some put by. As any fool knows you shouldn’t re-freeze items. I think they whole thing is a disgrace. The answer is to boycott those supermarkets which do this and patronise the independent bakers, whose product is so much better any way.

 

WAS IT WORTH IT

I understand that prior to the Budget being delivered in the House of Commons by the Chancellor of the Exchequer, a number of garages were busy increasing the price of their petrol by 1p. The reduction in petrol tax had been widely reported prior to the budget so this gave unscrupulous garages the opportunity to profiteer. Having put the price up in the morning, they reduced in the evening; which, of course, was no reduction at all. It is also clear that a number of garages did not reduce the price of their petrol as they were supposed to using the excuse that they would have to wait until they received a new delivery. It seems to me that the motorist is often exploited like this and nobody does anything about it. As far as the Government are concerned the motorist is their milch cow. And now we learn that some of the petrol companies, unhappy about the tax imposed by the Government to fund the 1p reduction and the temporary removal of the tax increase designed for April, are intending to increase the costs to the motorist, at the pumps, despite the Chancellor’s promise that wouldn’t happen. So it looks as though the 1p will be going back so the reduction was a waste of time.