Quick answer: No! (if you compare our prices with sustainable equivalents).... And Yes (if you don’t…but is someone else paying the cost?). Check out our price matches! Long answer: The answer to this is complicated. We won’t ever be able to price match some of the big supermarket chains on the cheapest staples, with their huge global supply chains and massive bulk buying power. However, when food is very cheap, it is usually because someone else is paying the price along the way - either through unfair wages, or the environmental impact of intensive farming practices. It is really important to remember that not everyone has the same luxury of choice though - and everyone can only make the best choice for themselves and their families if they need to choose these options, particularly after the incredibly tough year we've just had. Our mission at Jar is to make sustainable options available and affordable to as many people as we can. We opened Jar because we wanted Plymouth to have more environmentally friendly ways to shop, with the confidence that everything is sourced ethically. Reducing packaging waste and also reducing food waste - by buying just as much as you need - have a positive impact on the environment. Buying organic makes a huge difference too, and that is why we choose to stock organic products wherever we can. We want shopping with us to be really affordable so that it is accessible to as many people as possible. Supermarkets sometimes inflate the price of sustainable and organic products, making them less affordable. We made the decision to prioritise affordability over profit, and once we cover bills for the shop and pay our team fairly we aren’t under pressure to make profits for shareholders in the same way the supermarkets are. We were really excited to find out that using this approach, even though we are a very small business, it is possible to stock organic products at prices which are often the same or lower than you would find at the supermarket. There will be some items where our price will be higher, but overall the average will be the same or less. The best way to show this is with real examples so we will start with this week’s Jar Pantry Box. The Pantry Box is designed to go alongside our Good Earth Growers Organic Veg boxes, and to give a good range of staples to make meals for two people. The fact we can weigh the right quantities for meals for two means that we can have a lot of variety in the box. Plus some luxury chocolate - everyone needs chocolate! Our box is £16 (and the current contents would cost £17.02 if you came in and weighed all the items out individually yourself). The equivalent price for the Supermarkets would be £23.56. That is the direct weight for weight comparison if you could weigh out just what you needed. In reality you can only buy larger quantities from the supermarket, so the basket cost to give the same variety of staples would be £41.79. We compared the closest (Organic) supermarket products we could find, mostly Sainsbury’s and a few from Ocado where Sainsbury’s didn’t have an equivalent. Here is a summary of the comparison table (price checked on 02/07/21). …...So in summary, we are really proud to say shopping with us plastic free, for sustainable organic foods, is cheaper than shopping at the Supermarket. We want our thinking behind the choice of products we sell at Jar to be transparent and visible to everyone that shops with us so always feel free to ask us questions either in the shop or in the comments 🙂