Are you wasting money on foodie fads?


Updated on 14 May 2012 | 0 Comments

Nearly £50 for a fizzy drink? And £25-odd for a litre of ice cream? Surely not.

According to a recent survey run by shopping comparison site PriceRunner.co.uk, we Brits are wasting up to £920 million on faddy ‘must-have’ items.

Fizzy pop and ice cream

PriceRunner has worked out the cost per unit (CPU) of the most wasteful kitchen items, revealing that it costs a whopping £48.39 per fizzy drink when using a Soda Stream, for example. Pop down your local supermarket, and you’ll get a six-pack of fizz for less than £3.

Hold steady if you’re thinking of buying an ice cream maker this summer, too. The CPU shows that a litre of ice cream can cost up to £26.92 when making it in a machine – that’s over £20 more than a standard shop-brought tub.

Bearing in mind that nearly 40% of Soda Stream owners use it only once a year, and the same percentage of ice cream makers only come out of the cupboard every 3-6months (according to PriceRunner), it seems bizarre to waste pennies on such frivolities.

Gadgets to get instead

But all is not lost, gadget geeks. The survey, which was run by YouGov, also  indicated that the espresso maker is one of the most useful and cost effective machines. 51% of people who have one use it at least a few times a week, and at 65p per espresso (Starbuck’s will charge you more than that) it’s a pretty low CPU, too.

Surprisingly, spaghetti measurers are also well worth investing in. Cheaper than a bowl of pasta in a restaurant, the CPU is 24p per use and it will help us avoid saucepans full of sticky leftover pasta.

Top 3 foodie 'fad' items

#

Item

Most typical amount used

% of nation with this in their household that uses it this often

Annual CPU

Average cost of product

1

Fondue set

Less than once a year/never

56%

£41.65

£41.65

2

Soda Stream

Less than once a year/never

37%

£48.39

£48.39

3

Melon baller

Less than once

35%

£5.95

£5.95

Which faddy kitchen gadget do you use the least? Or are you one of the few who uses their Soda Stream or ice cream maker every week? Talk to us in the Comments box below…

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