A cafe located in one of London’s most prestigious addresses has been caught in a cost of living crisis row after charging customers £1.50 for only a half-dozen blueberries to go alongside their morning porridge.
Coffee shop Blend, which has a store situated within the 62-storey 22 Bishopsgate tower in the City of London, offers the tiny 20g pot of fruit as an optional topping.
At that rate, someone purchasing a kilogram of blueberries from the cafe would end up paying a staggering £75. By comparison, a nearby Tesco Express sells a 150g punnet of blueberries for just £2.20, The Sun reports.
As such, the £1.50 charge represents roughly an 800 per cent to 900 per cent markup compared with supermarket prices.
One London cafe is charging customers £1.50 for only six blueberries
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22 Bishopsgate, the skyscraper that also hosts three Gordon Ramsay restaurants, has become the latest venue to attract attention for its premium pricing.
The pricing has sparked outrage on social media, with one user declaring: “Anyone who buys a pot of six blueberries deserves to be ripped off.”
Another critic wrote: “This should be illegal. Not just the cost but the utter waste of material.”
One parent added: “If blueberries cost this much everywhere, my toddler would be working through around £20 worth of blueberries per day.”
The skyscraper is at the heart of Britain’s financial centre
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The cafe is under fire over its pricing
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22 BISHOPSGATE
It could be estimated that six blueberries cost around 15p based on typical UK supermarket pricing and standard portion data. A standard basket of blueberries, usually around 150g, retails for roughly £2.00 to £2.20 at major supermarkets such as Tesco, Asda and Waitrose, which equates to about £13 to £15 per kilogram.
Food data from sources such as the USDA and horticultural references indicate that an average blueberry weighs around 1.5 to 2 grams, meaning a 150g punnet contains approximately 70 to 100 blueberries, with a reasonable midpoint of around 80 to 85 berries.
Dividing the price of the punnet by the estimated number of berries gives a cost of roughly 2.5p per blueberry, meaning six blueberries would cost around 15p. This estimate is supported by a cross-check using weight-based pricing, where blueberries at around £14 per kilogram equate to roughly 1.4p per gram, and six berries weighing approximately 10 to 12 grams would cost in the region of 14p to 17p.
Based on typical supermarket prices and average berry weights, six blueberries would usually cost between 10p and 20p, with around 15p a reasonable midpoint estimate.
The current Consumer Price Index | ONS
Grocery price inflation climbed to 4.3 per cent in February, based on Office for National Statistics (ONS) data, reversing four consecutive months of decline ahead of the Chancellor Rachel Reeves’s Spring Statement.
Nicola Morgan, personal finance expert at Confused.com, described the increase as “disappointing news for households, especially after several months of gradual improvement”.
Research from the comparison site reveals the typical UK household now spends nearly £119 weekly on groceries, amounting to more than £6,000 annually.
The financial strain is widespread, with 72 per cent of adults reporting that rising food prices have affected other financial commitments, while 42 per cent have been forced to reduce their savings.
GB News has contacted 22 Bishopsgate/Blend for comment.