I’ve been on the hunt for yellow sticker labels recently, visiting various supermarkets including Sainsbury’s, M&S and Asda to discover the best time to find discounted goods. I decided to try Waitrose recently, in the hope that some of the more expensive food items would be reduced to a good price.
Discount stickers, which are often bright yellow, are used to alert shoppers that the item has been reduced in price. Supermarkets often do this if the product is nearing its expiry date, and they’re often used on items like meat, ready meals and bread.
The labels are typically applied to the goods at different times of the day, as I have learnt on my visits, contrary to popular belief, the best ones are found in the evening.
I visited Waitrose seven times across one week, visiting at different times of the day to see if I could find any reduced goods.
On the first visit to Waitrose, I found lots of bread items discounted, and this was around 4pm.
It included some crumpets, sliced bread, as well as some tea cakes, but the discounts weren’t that great.
The Hovis tea cakes were reduced to £1.20 from £1.44, and considering they were going out of date that day, I thought this price would have been a lot lower.
Waitrose’s crumpet people were reduced from £1.60 to £1.26, which was slightly better, but still not that great.
The same goes for Waitrose’s super soft white farmhouse sliced bread, reduced to £1.23 from £1.50, which is just a 27p saving.
A few of the other times I visited, I didn’t find any discounted goods at all, and on one of the evening visits, I found a few ready-made sandwiches reduced.
There were never really any ready meals or fresh meals up for grabs, which I did find in my other supermarket shops.
I have to say, overall, the discounts were disappointing. On one hand, it’s good that they didn’t have surplus food to reduce, as it means there is less waste, but I was really hoping to get some good bargains.
