Leicester woman shares genius hack to cut shopping bill in HALF

A woman has shared a genius shopping hack that could save shoppers half of the price they pay for products in stores. 

Do you ever choose the more expensive item, even though it looks pretty much the same as others on the shelf? You might be wasting your money.

Maneet Kaur, 28, from Leicester, has revealed how you can use batch codes to find out if food sold for different prices – pasta, for instance – is actually all from the same supplier.

Maneet had watched a video on how medication is marketed and decided to look into the food industry – and was stunned at what she found.

In a clip shared to TikTok, the process technologist compares a 500g packet of penne pasta from Tesco, which costs 53p, with a packet by Hearty Food Co – also owned by Tesco – and shows how these appear to have identical batch codes.

She suggests that this means the products are from the same place and that shoppers are spending 24p more – nearly double – for the packaging alone.

“I work in the food industry so know that whatever product we make will have a supplier code on it for traceability,” Maneet, who has 10,000 followers on TikTok (@minsmeals), told Jam Press.

“I went into a supermarket and looked at staple foods like beans, pasta and bread and looked at the codes.

“It didn’t surprise me but essentially it’s all about how these brands market it to the consumer.

“The only thing I can do is make people more aware that buying branded is not always the best option and we need to be more conscious about the tricks supermarkets use.”

She also has another top tip for shoppers: “Branded food will most likely be at eye level while unbranded, cheaper items will be either on the top or bottom shelf.

“I’m sure if people had the time and were interested, the same could be applied to many other food items.”

Maneet loves sharing hacks and hunting down new snacks for her followers to buy, such as fun finds like popcorn-flavoured KitKat bars and punch-flavoured cans of Fanta.

She also went viral last year after discovering a cheeky hack for opening a tub of Heroes without breaking the seal – meaning chocolate lovers could pinch sweets for free.