5 ways supermarkets scam us every day

January 14, 2026

Supermarkets don’t rely on deception in the obvious sense. They don’t need to. They rely on familiarity. On the fact that most of us are tired, hungry, juggling budgets, children, and dinner plans, and simply don’t have the time or energy to interrogate every packet we put in the trolley.

So instead of deception, they use suggestion. Language. Placement. Familiarity. Small nudges that guide decisions without ever feeling forceful. Once you start noticing them, it becomes clear how consistently they shape what we buy (or what we assume we’re buying).

Here’s some to look out for…

1. The 'Finest' range illusion

(Same ingredients, better font)

You’ve seen it...the matte black label, the serif fonts, the moody food photography that looks like it belongs in a Michelin catalogue. 'Finest', 'Taste the difference', 'Luxury'.

Everything about it implies craftsmanship and higher quality. But look closely, and the illusion often collapses. Many of these products use identical ingredient lists to the basic versions sitting just a few shelves down.. Sometimes there’s a token tweak, a splash of cream, a hint of butter, but rarely enough to meaningfully change nutrition or quality.

The product feels premium, so we stop questioning it. That feeling of reassurance is the value being sold.

2. Unregulated ‘farm fresh’ language

The same dynamic plays out with so called 'farm fresh' language, particularly on eggs, meat, and dairy. Cartons covered in rolling hills, wooden fences, and smiling animals promise a kind of pastoral care that most of us want to support. Labels talk about 'happy hens' or food being 'humanely raised', inviting us to imagine something close to a small, local farm.

The problem is that many of these phrases aren’t regulated in any meaningful way, or at all. 'Farm fresh' has no legal definition. 'Humanely raised' doesn’t require specific welfare standards. A product can look ethical and reassuring while still being produced in large-scale industrial systems using globally sourced inputs. The language does the ethical heavy lifting so the supply chain doesn’t have to.

3. Familiar products quietly reformulated

Products change constantly, but consumers are rarely told. A sauce you’ve bought for years suddenly uses different oils. A yoghurt now relies on extra thickeners. A snack swaps sugar for sweeteners. The front of the packet looks identical, so you assume the food is too.

Then something feels off. Your digestion changes. Your skin reacts. Your child suddenly “can’t tolerate” a food that was always fine before. It feels random because, from your perspective, nothing changed. But something did.

As costs rise, recipes quietly change. This isn’t usually dramatic enough to notice from one shop to the next, that’s intentional. Expensive ingredients like meat, dairy, cocoa, or nuts are slowly reduced and replaced with cheaper fillers... modified starches, vegetable oils, gums, emulsifiers.

Brands rely on habit, on the assumption that you won’t re-read the ingredient list every time you buy something familiar.

4. Fortification as a disguise for poor food

Once processing strips food of its natural nutrients, fortification steps in as the solution. Cereals, breads, plant milks, snacks, all proudly announcing added vitamins and minerals. It looks generous. It sounds responsible. But fortification is usually corrective, not beneficial.

Nutrients removed during processing are added back in isolated forms, without the fats, enzymes, and cofactors that help the body absorb and use them. On paper, the food looks nutritious. In the body, it often isn’t experienced that way.

5. Who pays the price...

And finally, there’s the part of the system most of us never see: how supermarkets make their money by squeezing farmers.

Milk is one of the clearest and best-documented examples in the UK. By the time a litre reaches the supermarket shelf, it is typically sold for more than twice what the farmer is paid to produce it (the farmer is only paid around 30p).

The farmgate price, what farmers receive, has to cover feed, labour, energy, veterinary care, equipment, land costs, and loan repayments. It leaves very little room for profit, even in good years. Meanwhile, supermarkets sit at the most powerful point in the supply chain. They negotiate contracts at scale, dictate terms, and can afford to treat milk as a pricing tool rather than a livelihood.

This pattern repeats across fresh food. Beef, lamb, vegetables, fruit, farmers are often paid a fraction of the final retail price, despite carrying the highest risk. Weather, disease, fuel costs, fertiliser prices, labour shortages, all borne at the farm level. Supermarkets, with their buying power and centralised control, externalise that risk while maintaining consistency and profit.

The result is food that appears affordable and abundant, but is propped up by farmer debt, environmental shortcuts, and the steady disappearance of small and mid-sized producers. According to a recent survey, over 60% of farmers trading with supermarkets fear they will have to give up within the next 18 months because of pricing pressures and unfair buying practices.

The system doesn’t break loudly. It just quietly pushes the people feeding us closer to the edge.

So what do we do instead?

Start where the food is closest to the source. When you can, support local farmers directly. Farm shops, farmers’ markets, veg boxes, local dairies, butchers, and bakeries keep more of the money in the hands of the people doing the work. You don’t need to do this for everything. Even one or two regular swaps, eggs, milk, vegetables, meaningfully shifts the balance.

Need help finding your local farmer? We've mapped them all here.

Then accept that yes, you’ll still be in the supermarket, but there are a few ways to avoid the most common traps when you’re there...

Flip the packet over. Ignore the front (that’s where the story lives). The ingredient list is where the truth is. Compare “finest” products with their basic equivalents, you’ll often be surprised how similar they are.
If a familiar food suddenly doesn’t sit well with you, re-read the ingredients. Reformulation often explains changes in digestion, skin, or energy better than a sudden “intolerance”.
Choose shorter ingredient lists over better marketing. Fewer ingredients, recognisable ingredients, and minimal processing remain the most reliable signals to look for, even when the packaging is plain and unconvincing.
Follow sourcing further than the label. If a brand genuinely prioritises farming standards, welfare, or locality, it will tell you how, not just imply it. Named farms. Regions. Standards. If that information isn’t easy to find, assume the language is doing the work instead.
Be wary of food that claims to fix modern problems it helped create. “Added fibre.” “Added protein.” “Added vitamins.” These usually signal that something was removed first. Whole foods rarely need to repair themselves
Notice where the food is placed. Eye-level is premium real estate, and these displays are paid for. The most processed, profitable foods are positioned to be seen first. The quieter staples often sit lower, higher, or further back.