In some cases, it may be true. But more often than not, what you end up paying more for is the additional chemicals in that seemingly ‘higher quality’ product. Now, who would want to pay more for something that harms his or her body? Someone who simply does not know.
The results of the recent study implemented by Baba Shiv, Sanwa Bank, Limited, Professor of Marketing at the Stanford Business School showed that when customers were offered wine which they believed to be more expensive, their brain pleasure centres were more active than when given wine labelled as being cheaper, implying participants derived more pleasure from tasting wine perceived to be expensive. The shocking reality - both wines were identical.
Keeping this ‘higher price’ effect in mind, we decided to run a test. We scanned a few quite commonly purchased food products with JollyGut app that are high in price, but not necessarily nutritional quality. To notice the difference, these four products were compared with the products of the same food category that were lower in price, but higher in nutritional quality. So, read carefully and don’t be fooled by the psychological tricks employed by the market. JollyGut app or browser extension won’t let that happen.
1. Chicken thighs
Tesco Asian Style Chicken Thighs costs £6.67/kg while consist of NOVA-4 (ultra-processed ), 4 additives, saturated fats and salt. Well, adding chemicals to a seemingly natural product costs money, right?
Compared to the Asian Chicks Tesco Bonelles Chicken Thighs costs £4.70/kg for no additional processing (NOVA-1), no additives, quite decent amounts of saturated fats and low amounts of salt. Sometimes less is more, don’t you think?
2. Chicken wings
And we are back to the tricky Tesco chicken. For Tesco Chicken Wing Selection Pack you pay almost twice more - £2.68/kg - for what? Ultra-processing (NOVA-4) of that seemingly natural chicken wing, 3 additives, extra amounts of saturated fat and salt? That doesn’t sound like a fair trade.
Compared to the fancy wing selection, Willow Farm Chicken Wings requires paying twice less - £1.49/kg. In return, the farm offers you no additional processing (NOVA-1) of innocent chickens and 0 additives.
3. Fish pies
The same type of pie and amount, but more than twice higher price? That does not sound right. For Tesco Finest Creamy Fish Pie you'll pay £8.75/kg for additional product processing (NOVA-3), saturated fats and salt.
Compared to the Tesco fish pie, Heart Food Company pies nutritional facts seem pretty similar, but contains far lower levels of saturated fat and costs half the price - £3.00/kg. Paying twice less for the same product sounds like a good bargain, but throw in the 5-fold lower levels of saturated fats and we have a winner.
4. Ketchup
“All natural”, “vegan”, “keto-friendly”, “sweetened naturally”, “gluten-free”, “feed unicorns”...oops, don’t mind the last one. But that sounds pretty good, right? Well, you must pay almost twice as much for what is made to sound natural and healthy. Dr. Will’s Tomato Ketchup charges £1.16/100g for ultra-processing (NOVA-4), and high amounts of added sugar and salt. Oh, and well the packaging looks stylish too, right? Does that justify the price?
Compared to the stylish, natural, and all types of goodness labelled ketchup, Tesco Organic Tomato Ketchup is appreciably less aesthetical, but what you pay for here is exactly what you get - £0.37/100g for an organic product with less harmful food processing (NOVA-3), less salt and twice the quantity.
Final note! We are completely independent of any outside influence. This research is objective, with no influence from any food producer or grocery store. The intention behind the analysis was to reveal the “higher price effect” and to prevent customers from paying extra while getting less for the same type of food products.
