Can you eat healthy on the cheap? Really healthy, really good quality food? I think not. I’ve said as much in many interviews radio and press interviews: it’s cheaper to buy a frozen pizza than fresh meat; it’s cheaper to pick up a packet of fish fingers and a few tins of beans than fresh vegetables [...]

Tesco has been fined €600 for charging more for goods at the tills than the price displayed at the shelves. But much like you or I would be oblivious to a one cent piece at the back of a drawer of odds and ends, Tesco won’t miss this €600. Ireland’s largest retailer was convicted for breaches [...]

This is spooky. A journalist from The Guardian newspaper reports that he was accosted by Tesco staff last week for the “crime” of writing down prices on a notepad. The manager told him that Tesco policy forbids people writing down prices. Presumably, they’re afraid that people will discover they’re not such good value after all. [...]

I get a lot of press releases. Here’s one I thought deserved some attention. SuperValu recently announced a grand plan to reduce the cost of an average weekly shopping basket from €132 per week to €102. Price cuts and promotions form the backbone of the Spend Less campaign, with the focus on everyday items like cereal, [...]

You’ll all have heard the news by now about Superquinn being bought out by the Musgrave group, owners of Super Valu and Centra. On the positive side, it’s very good to hear that they have pledged to keep all 2,800 Superquinn employees in jobs.  On the downside, it could mean reduced competition in the Irish [...]

Grocery prices have risen in the past year, according to a report by Conor Pope in today’s Irish Times. Pope points to a report by the National Consumer Agency which shows that prices have risen by five per cent since July 2010, significantly higher than the rate of inflation. The report also found that little [...]

Exciting news… Crackbird are teasing us all with this picture on their Twitter account. Rumour has it that they’re reopening tonight on South William Street. Fingers crossed… Thanks to Rebecca for the tip off.

A Dublin diner has been charged with theft and public order offences after refusing to pay for a meal,  writes Andrew Phelan in today’s Evening Herald. The man was eating at Harry’s on the Green on South King Street. It’s another answer to my question of what happens if you refuse to pay for a [...]

The fast food industry is a major employer of minimum wage workers, and it is also one of the few industries that sees increased profits during a recession.  Supermacs saw their pretax profit increase by 18% last year, yet they are still cutting their staff’s wages.  Advocates of cutting the minimum wage say that it’s [...]

The people behind Jo’Burger in Rathmines have come up with a clever idea for a pop-up restaurant in Dublin city centre. They’ll be serving chicken dishes for 12 weeks at Crackbird, 19 Crane Lane in Temple Bar.  The chicken is being billed as addictive (hence ‘Crackbird’!). They’ve put a further interesting twist on it by [...]