Have you vlogged yet? Well, nor have I and it took me a minute or two to connect when Catherine (with a C) – she of Sweetcheeks and the Printworks Kitchen – said that she and Josh were going start a Coeliac Vlog!! She because, as a coeliac, a baker and a cook, she knows all about being a coeliac and cooking gluten -free; Josh because he knows all about making films! What a great idea!
And they have done it and their first two Vlogs have already gone live. See here for Catherine’s introduction to the vlog and then here for her ‘what is this coeliac business about?’ vlog – although in fact, if you just leave the first one to run it will, in due course, morph into the second one!!
Catherine is, I have to say, the perfect vlogger! Chatty, articulate, knowledgeable, fun. Anyone who saw her endless series of ‘me with this week’s massive cauliflower/melon/marrow’ pictures on Facebook will realise that she is up for ‘aving a larf’ – so I reckon this vlog could be worth following! (You can do so under each blog.)
Now I am not sure about the seamless link between a coeliac blog and the idiocy of the government’s reg.s on what foods are, or not, VATable – beyond the fact that Catherine’s wonderful healthy Printwork’s Kitchen will have to charge VAT on her healthy foods if you eat them in her café but will not have to if you take them away – because that’s what the regulations say….
I had not realised how daft the regulations actually were until I got a press release from Huel, ‘a nutritionally complete powdered food product’….. I am not entirely sure why Huel felt that doing a survey of the VAT reg.s was good way to promote their product – except that it would get them coverage – which indeed it has!
Anyhow, they surveyed 2,185 British adults to find out what they thought about the VAT regulations – and you will not be surprised to discover, when you have read the list, that 95% of those surveyed were ‘surprised’ and 82% were ‘confused’. So am I…..
VAT Free (deemed to be healthy and staple foods by the government, with lower prices to keep food costs down)
- Chocolate cake
- Caramel or “millionaire’s” shortcake
- Chocolate chip cookies
- Gingerbread
- Toffee Apples
- Chilled or frozen ready meals
- Jaffa Cakes
- Tortilla chips
- Flapjacks
- Cake ingredients e.g. hundreds and thousands
- Cold sandwiches
- Fruit
Subject to 20% VAT (deemed to be unhealthy foods by the government and inclusive of VAT in order to discourage purchases)
- Snacking Raisins
- Protein bar
- Frozen Yoghurt
- Roasted peanuts
- Fruit smoothies
- Cereal bars
- Hot sandwiches
- Weight Watchers chocolate wafers
- Diabetic chocolate
- Popcorn
- Potato crisps
- Chocolate-dipped shortbread biscuits
In fact the great Jaffa cake row hit the headlines in 2013 (are Jaffa cakes a cake, so VAT free, or a biscuit, so VATable. The cake won….) but here are some other really bizarre anomalies quoted by This is Money in 2010 but I doubt that much has changed:
‘a gingerbread man decorated with two chocolate eyes is exempt from VAT, but if it contains any more chocolate, standard-rated VAT is charged. Likewise, unshelled salted nuts are exempt, but shelled salted nuts are not.’ Well, I guess shelling them could count as exercise…..
For more daft examples see this article by Colin Corder on BBC Business in 2013.