Post-Brexit, it is cheaper and easier to buy most food in Germany on the way (not Austria). But see Instant Stuff and In Austria below for things we absolutely need but are hard to find outside the UK.
It can be more cost effective to order online and get the order delivered than to drive to a supermarket and get it yourself. Delivery costs can be only £2.50 if you pick the right time. The following deliver (2018) to addresses in Cambridge:
| Food | Food/Person night (pkt) | Food eaten 2016 (pkt) |
|---|---|---|
| Curries | 0.72 | 272 |
| Noodles (dried) | 0.77 | 291 |
| Soup | 0.64 | 241 |
| Food | Food/Person night (g) | Food eaten 2016 (kg) |
|---|---|---|
| Couscous * | 60 g | 22.5 kg |
| Smash | 13 g | 4.9 kg |
| Oatso * | 17 g | 6.5 kg |
| Milk powder | 10 g | 4 kg |
| Hot Chocolate | 14 g | 5.4 kg |
| Instant custard | 18 g | 7 kg |
We buy a lot of "Ashoka" brand curry packs (liquid pouches) which are supplied by almost everyone.
For dried noodles, we generally get "Indomie" brand, see in context
For dried soups, Elaine says (2017) "don't get the basics ones, they are horrible. Get the own-brand one-step-up ones". But also be very careful to get the ones which are instant and not the ones which have to be cooked in a saucepan for 10 minutes - which look just the same - so read the instructions.
Any friendly asian food supplier will order ~300 curries for you, e.g. down Mill Road or Cherry Hinton High Street in Cambridge. Sophie did this in 2014. Wookey did this in 2015 when the price was about £1.05 each.
We took advantage of a two-for-one offer on Ashoka curries with The Asian Cookshop in 2017 (Elliot) and 2018 (Philip S.). This is a BOGOF but the process is a bit odd: when you order N curries of flavour A, you also specify that you like flavour B; and they will then send you N curries of flavour B for free. See 2017 invoice and 2018 invoices for examples. In 2018 there was a time-limited offer on selected Ashoka curries from Morrisons which we took advantage of, taking up the slack with The Asian Cookshop.
When buying dried noodles from Spices of India beware: when it says BOGOF it only means for the first 12 items of that type. So you can pay much more than you expect. For reference, Indomie dried noodles are 38p/pkt individually in Cho Mee, Mill Road and £14.99 for a box of 40 from The Asian Cookshop (i.e. 37.5p/pkt), but you do get free delivery when ordering online. This price is hard to beat.
Use the online shopping systems for the big supermarkets to compare prices for things we are buying a lot of, and look for discount offers.
Think about calories as well as cost per kg or per packet. (Luke S. calculated that the curries on offer at Morrisons in 2018 were work out at 3.5p per calorie.) Milk powder is cheapest if it is is skimmed milk but this might not be what we want (even though skimmed milk has proportionally more protein in it).
This also goes for instant soups: see above.
Mornflakes Superfast rolled oats have the same cooking instructions as Oatso, but do use *hot* water.
See the special note The Wrong Porridge on this and how to decide whether what you are buying is properly "instant".
We always need instant coffee (and lots of tea-bags). The issue of ground coffee arose during 2017 as personal supplies were raided and the general appreciation of the stuff raised the possibility (in 2018) of providing this as standard expo fare.
While buying coffee beans would be cheaper (64p/100g), having yet another piece of equipment (a grinder) at the crowded tatty hut would be awkward. Hitting socks full of beans with rocks at top camp would also be amusing when un-ground beans would inevitably get carried up. The tentative conclusion is that Sainsburys Basics ground coffee for filters would be adquate, e.g. "Sainsbury's Fairtrade Continental Style Coffee, Strength 5". A number of strength grades are available all at the same price of £1.01/100g.
In 2019 we brought out lots of Sainsburys' Basics strong and medium-strong ground coffee and hardly any instant coffee was drunk: none at base camp.
In 2019 we tried to source more food locally but failed completely to find local supplies of milk powder, couscous, instant porridge, ordinary porridge, instant chocolate drink. Local noodles are the same as UK but twice as expensive. Instant Chai Milk tea was greatly enjoyed at top camp.
Knorr instant (1-minute - read the label!) soup was good, so we don't need to buy that in the UK.
Supplies of other food and ingredients, such as dried fruit: sultanas etc. and other flapjack ingredients can be got from specialist online suppliers such as Buy Wholefoods Online or going to Arjuna on Mill Road (which has a bulk store off Gwydir Street) or The Daily Bread cooperative in King's Hedges (Cambridge). Daily Bread have an online price-list and here is the June 2018 copy.
Back to Expo Planning Guide.