This week my usual trip to the supermarket has left me feeling that I might have been conned. 

The item responsible for this is orange that you dilute with water to drink.
I usually buy the supermarket’s own brand - it’s cheap and it tastes OK.  But this week they’ve changed it.  It has been replaced with ’super-concentrate’ which costs more.  The old was 59p for 1 litre.  The new is 83p for 750ml.  But you are supposed to only need half as much.  So when you do the maths it works out at almost exactly the same cost.  The trouble is that it’s really hard to put less concentrate into your glass - so you use more - so it costs you more.
And on top of this, they have removed all the other orange juice from the shelves - they are forcing me to buy this product or go to another shop for an alternative.
No choice and a rip-off.  This isn’t the first example of this kind of behaviour over the years - and it certainly won’t be the last. 

But I keep on shopping there.  I suppose the bigger picture is that the supermarket has so moulded my habits that I find it hard to imagine an alternative - now that’s real power.

I’ve noticed how grumpy I can get when shopping - especially in the supermarket.

I approach it as a military operation: I decide my menu for the week, write the list to reflect this, then write it in order of the goods in the local store.  I could whizz round and have it done in fifteen minutes.

But there are a few things that get in the way:  firstly, the family - they are always looking at things that aren’t on the list; secondly, other shoppers - they get in the way, stopping to chatter and letting their trolleys block the aisles; and thirdly, me! - yes that’s right - I distract myself, I just can’t help it.  That’s the trouble with all these places - all that temptation.

But it does make me grumpy.  Maybe if I shopped on my own and there were no other people in the shop then I’d stay focused and just get on with it - but there again, maybe I wouldn’t…