Diddled On The Canal

[minesapint]

I like canal holidays and I've just returned from a fortnight doing the famous Four Counties route. There are two well known so-called "honesty boxes" on route in which a farmer or canal side householder place food goodies for sale on the basis that you drop the cash into a cash box or tin on the display unit. Needless to say, the cash box is usually screwed down! I stopped off at one of these honesty boxes a few days ago and they had glass jars of raspberry jam for sale at £3.50 a jar. The jars just had a white, Avery type label across the centre with the words "Raspberry Jam £3.50". The top and rim of the lid was covered in more plain white Avery labels with no writing on them. Foolishly, I bought one of the jars not thinking where they could get raspberries to make home made jam this time of the year.
I was curious later about the white labels on the jar lid and carefully peeled them off. The name Maribel was there along with pictures of raspberries. A quick web search revealed that the jam was a raspberry conserve from Lidl worth £1.09 per jar!

[Bazile]

lol - enterprising , entrepreneur

[aelmpvw]

hopefully yours was the only jar paid for and all the others were nicked

[hc4361]

Maybe they just re-used jam jars, as I do. I still have plenty of very good raspberry (and strawberry) jams left from last year's crop. Homemade jam can easily keep for two years or more

[retrocop]

By the title of the OP I thought you had been......er....interfered with on a canal towpath and not the raspberry jam jar labels. :-)

[Bazile]

//Diddled On The Canal//

Sounds like a 'carry on' film

[spathiphyllum]

that is jokessss

[minesapint]

It just makes me wonder where does it stop. The farmer sometimes sells sausages, bacon and pork pies etc at the stall. Can I expect to see cheap supermarket sausages repacked as "prime pork" sausages in the future?

[Zacs-Master]

Caveat Emptor

[Togo]

Just don't buy the "home made" chocolate brownies.

[minesapint]

hc4361, the Mirabel logo was embossed on the glass jar in a few places so it's a good bet the lid was made for the jar. All the jars for sale were identical. I can't understand why they didn't buy cheap plain white lids for the jars off Ebay if they were really keen to hide the origin of the jam.

[retrocop]

or the ringed doughnuts. :-)

[hc4361]

I reuse the jar lids, too. Buy some raspberry jam from Lidl and compare the two

[Prudie]

Be positive and go with hc's suggestion - most home-made jam is put into re-cycled jars. Would be fairly easy to check though, Maribel is a cheap range, they sell it in Tesco as well, buy one and compare.

[Togo]

An aside Minesapint. My mother's aunt was a bargewoman on the Trent and Mersey/Bridgewater canal carting pottery to Liverpool. In the days when you had to "leg it" through the old Harecastle tunnel. She remembers visiting her, when the Barge was in Middleport, as a young girl and remembers her as a tiny, wiry, woman who was ferocious if antagonised but highly irreverent and amusing. She also remembers the barge being spotless and the horse having ribbons in it's mane.

[-Talbot-]

You paid £3.50 for some jam?

I would touch anything like that...could have been made in the filthiest kitchen in the UK :0/

[gingejbee]

I'm sure that you won't find "Maribel" jam in Tesco.....it's a Lidl own-brand name!

[Baldric]

http://www.mysupermarket.co.uk/tesco-price-comparison/Jam_And_Spreads/Maribel_Strawberry_Jam_454g.html

[alavahalf]

I must be missing a trick as I only ever give my jam away ...
If you happen to be passing through Sussex, I will have Strawberry jam for sale very shortly ... only £3.49 a jar .. 8-)

[gingejbee]

OK, I see....that isn't the same product that Lidl sell....it must be made for them by that company. The Maribel that I've seen has the Lidl name and logo on it and is a premium product with high fruit content.

[Bazile]

alavahalf
If you make it £ 3 .48 a jar , i'll make a detour :-)