Alex Grogan wasn’t trying to find a money-saving hack.
She just needed one onion.
The 30-year-old mum from Aberdeen was checking the price of loose onions at Tesco when she realised she’d been overpaying for packaged produce for years.
The loose version was less than half the price. She made a video about it. It spread.
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It’s not complicated. Skip the pre-packaged fruit and veg.
Go to the loose section, pick exactly what you need, and weigh it yourself.
Most supermarkets have scales for this — and Alex says the approach works anywhere that does.
“I actually just discovered it by chance,” she said.
“I was randomly reading how much the loose onions were after only needing one for the week’s meals and discovered it was so much cheaper than buying three and potentially wasting two.”
The saving on a single item can be more than 50 per cent compared to the equivalent packaged option on the same aisle.
Less waste, lower bills
The financial case stacks up — but Alex points out there’s a second benefit that doesn’t show up at the checkout.
Buying loose means buying exactly what you’ll use.
“I don’t have any more food wastage as I buy the amount of items I need,” she said.
“And if you’re buying a lot of fruit and veg, it shaves a fair bit off your weekly shop.”
One caveat: loose items can run smaller than their packaged counterparts.
She recommends checking sizes before you weigh, to make sure you’re actually getting what you came for.
Why it matters
Grocery bills are still a pressure point for most households, and the loudest money-saving advice tends to involve switching supermarkets entirely or hunting down loyalty scheme offers.
This doesn’t require either. It works inside whatever shop you’re already in, costs nothing to try, and the only habit it asks you to change is which section of the aisle you stop at.
Alex has form for this kind of find. She previously went viral for flagging that the Tesco app’s shopping list function tells you exactly which aisle each product is in — and can be filtered by aisle so you can move through the store in a single efficient loop without doubling back.
Whether that makes her the most useful person to follow on a tight grocery budget is probably something Tesco’s marketing team is currently thinking about.
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