We’re definitely coming to the end of the Mandarin season here and all of a sudden the fruit & veg department in a certain supermarket seems to be flooded with a single variety. I have never tasted this variety so I’m not judging the fruit itself…..my favoured one is Imperial which is available just for a short while early in the season.
Anyway you can buy this particular fruit loose (complete with its own little plastic sticky identifying label) from the market style displays doted around the fruit & veg dept. The fruit is as it comes from the supplier – as picked, various sorts of sizes so you’re free to choose how many you want/like the look of.
Keep that $3.90 kg price in mind…..
If you want your fruit all the same size and don’t want the hassle of picking through and choosing, just wander to another section and you will find these there. For just a little more you can have all the same size bagged ready to pick up and pop in your trolley….
But hang on, did you noticed the weight. It’s only 750gms not a kg……
……..which if you look at extra price on the label (mandatory unit pricing) means it works out to $6.43 kg
I wonder if the actual fruit inside the peel tastes any different to those that cost about $2.40 kg less
Still Waters 
You really do have to watch those prices!
Here, no need to buy. My mandarin trees are laden, so plenty of juice – but as it is bucketing down with rain not very helpful for drying the skins for putting into stews.
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Once aagain, it’s a case of let the buyer beware. We always try and buy loose fruit and vegetables. You can’t beat ‘choose your Own’.
No citrus here yet. We’re still eating grapes
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I prefer the imperials too but if I was buying these, I totally would get caught on that 750 gram price.
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I’m not usually a ‘bag lady’ Kylie so have no idea how they managed to catch my eye. Providing a choice for those who want no squabbling children I suppose
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I love mandarins, but we haven’t bought it lately. We’ve had wonderful grapes though. We tend to buy our mandarins at Sam’s Club in bags.
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Mandarins tend to appear in our stores in December. They probably come from Florida, which means we won’t be consuming them since as good Canadians we are boycotting things American as much as possible.
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Yes they’re a winter crop so December would be your time – as a child in England the highlight of my Christmas Day would be finding a mandarin or orange at the toe end of my stocking ( one of dad’s socks)
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The supermarket would argue that the pricing is quite clear, and it is but there is the human expectation factor. I would have thought the packaged mandarins would be one kilo. I didn’t know the packaged ones are superior. I like to choose my own. Once Imperials have finished, I buy Afourer but after they finish, I stop buying mandarins. Afourer are still at my local Woolworths.
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Shopping is always a challenge. Since there are only two of us, I prefer to buy in smaller amounts. As always, it is buyer beware.
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Did you try them all to find out?
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I am fascinated by the video information! (we in the Northern Hemisphere are a couple of months away from Mandarin Season … and for some strange reason we call Mandarin’s “Cuties” here… ) That pricing is key to all shopping, right?
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Kiwi supermarkets are obliged to put the price per kg somewhere on the price label alrhough some cringe at the high price per kg and put price per 100grams (simple maths to convert – so you can work out that whitebait is $140 per kg for instance)😱 I can always be seen fumbling for my specs to read the very small print they use. So often it turns out to be cheaper to buy 2 small packs than 1 big one – how does that happen?
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