Prepackaged produce

I was in Sainsbury's the other day looking to buy some okra. The loose okra are right next to the prepackaged okra, but I was aghast at the price difference.

• 100g pack of okra: £1.06 (or £10.60 per kg)
  
• Loose okra, per kg: £2.36

I figure that most people will just pick up a pack of prepackaged veg because it is so much easier than getting one of those little bags and picking them up yourself, but the price difference here is staggering. Both types of okra were grown in Thailand and otherwise identical, except the prepackaged stuff was in a plastic wrapper.

So how do supermarkets get away with that? To get okra in a plastic wrapper, you will pay 4-5 times more! I suppose that people are just too dumb or in too much of a hurry to realise that they are paying this much more.

Needless to say, I picked up a little veg bag and plucked out some loose ones!