Aldi

daveww

Aldi is great.  I've been going for years.  Initially it was when it first opened and when the kids were young and because we were broke.  In those days we were hooked on brands and couldn't find much of what we wanted.  Nowadays we know that most of their stuff is excellent and we get 90% of our shopping there at around 30% less than Tescos.

strumjoughlamps

cannot stand Tesco or Asda, absolutely annoying supermarkets to shop at.. Morrisons & Makro for bulk and non local produce, we grow quite a bit of veg now and have organic veg boxes delivered, have 6 chickens so sorted for eggs and we drive out 10 miles to a farm/butchers.. wife goes Aldi for Fruit n Fibre and porridge oats, its well cheap compared and I cannot tell any difference.

monquixote

I think it will suit me fine as I don't think we buy brand name anything. 

I stopped doing that years ago when I worked at Tesco and one of the regional managers told me that their own brand toothpaste was made by Colgate, cereals by Kelloggs, crisps by Walkers etc. 

suspiciousminds

Many own brand products with the exception of kelloggs are made by known brands - i've been in retail for the last 20 years and very often i've seen co-op morrisons asda products etcetc roll through the backdoor.
I work for tesco now and if u shop smartly you can quite a few products as low as lidls/aldi - you just have to look for the discounter brands.
As for morrisons - well i worked through the safeway/morrisons conversion and they are (or were at least) vile to work for.Aggressive and arrogant - truly some of the worst management (area and above) that i have ever worked for.
I believe that the takeover (described as a "merger"by safeway and "takeover" by morrisons) is now ranked as one of the worst company buyouts ever.
I can clearly remember being told that they (the morrisons conversion teams) were "cleansing" the stores of everything safeway!

PolarityMan

What's the fresh meat and veg like? 

suspiciousminds

Dunno bout aldi, lidls were the fruit n veg retailer of the year at one stage, usually sourced the best class - although smaller ranges and quality was one of the top list of job priorities.
Fresh Meat was starting to be sourced from british farms (i think with the farm assured logo too if i remember).
Would think aldi would be the same tbh.

RobDavies

When they start doing online and delivery then they might get my money....

Emp_Fab

There is a hell of a lot of that going on - cheap brands / 'value' lines being exactly the same stuff as the 'premium' product.  It's far, far cheaper for the factories to change the packaging than it is to cook up a completely different batch of whatever with slightly inferior ingredients AND change the packaging.  My ex-brother in law used to work in a butter packing factory, and all they did was change the rolls of labels - Tesco Value butter, Anchor, etc... but the actual butter in the vats was the same stuff.

I'll bet there must be a website somewhere that lists equivalent brands....

In fact....  I think I'll risk trying a couple of 'dirt cheap' no-name brand things just to test.  If they end up in the bin, then I've only lost a few pence.

Time for this again I think....  my favourite Shooting Stars sketch :-)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=khGQSqocvGU

Deadman

Barney said:

my shopping was around £150 a week at tesco ...we go Aldi and get everything we need for around 50 quid less..i think its a great shop...good quality stuff as well...

Same here. My last bill at Sainsburys around 4 months ago was £144. I said to my missus, "that's it, I'm not coming here anymore". Never been back and now our weekly bill never costs more than £85. I only use Aldi now and I LOVE people who dismiss it as shit (and I know loads of them). Keep it going people....things will stay cheaper for those of us who are converts!

I can't believe that you can literally fill your trolley yet can't get the bill to anywhere near £100. Bloody amazing.

Deadman

PolarityMan said:

What's the fresh meat and veg like? 

Superb. Really.

suspiciousminds

An old area manager once said to me-
"Retail, is detail!".
Whatever the fuck that meant i dont know!:)

JohnPerry

We default to Waitrose despite the expense simply because it's nearest. But as a recent Aldi convert i have to say the meat cannot be beaten for quality and value. The 21-day aged steak is as good or better than anything i've bought in Waitrose and half the price. I went in recently for a re-up of various things and literally did a double take when i saw the bill for £13. In waitrose it would have been £25.

dindude

The few times I've ventured into an Aldi or lidl, it's the under-staffed-ness that wound me up. Maybe I was unlucky, but those cheaper prices have to come from somewhere I guess.

Anyway, haven't been to a supermarket in a year, always have it delivered now. I guess it comes down to what price you put on your free time.

Deadman

JohnPerry said:

We default to Waitrose despite the expense simply because it's nearest. But as a recent Aldi convert i have to say the meat cannot be beaten for quality and value. The 21-day aged steak is as good or better than anything i've bought in Waitrose and half the price. I went in recently for a re-up of various things and literally did a double take when i saw the bill for £13. In waitrose it would have been £25.

Had it last night. 2 minutes each side and my God is it nice.

not_the_dj

I bet they're discussing B&Q vs Wickes over on mumsnet.

chrispy108

I'd rather shop in Lidl than Asda. Their veg and meat is loads better, and I love the random euro bits.

I don't understand people who can say "my shop costs me this here, and that there" do you buy the same thing every week?

We do a rough shopping list, but it says "cereal, 3 lunchs, 2 dinners, some soft drink, some booze" if Frosties are on offer I buy them, if something else is I buy that. Am I odd here?

WezV

dindude said:

Anyway, haven't been to a supermarket in a year, always have it delivered now. I guess it comes down to what price you put on your free time.

This.  

A few years ago we were getting ocado and veg box deliveries weekly and it was great.   We went back to a weekly shop when my wide was on maternity leave as she had the time and we have stuck with it due to the cheaper cost... but there is no way I can afford the time to visit 2 or 3 different supermarkets.

Within 2 miles we have proper Morrisons, Tesco, Asda, Sainsburys, Aldi and Lidl.  Within 5 miles either direction we also have an extra large Tesco's and Sainsburys.  then just across the road we have a sainsburys local and 2 corner shops

Morrisons gets my vote for the best balance of quality and price, and they have a well stocked beer isle. I do miss the waitrose quality from the ocado deliveries.   Used to go to lidl with my dad to stock up on tins but i don't really have the cupboard space to do that

ToneControl

Historically, the cheapest meat products in the UK have been awful, not so in Germany. I always found that Lidl had pretty good quality meats and frozen stuff, but their range is poor. Aldi is the same sort of thing but a bit more upmarket

I prefer to alternate shopping at Booths/Waitrose (Booths is a northern better version of Waitrose), and Aldi/Lidl

Up North here, there's certainly a lot more comfortably-off looking middle aged and old people in Aldi than in Lidl. I pop in and buy their aged Fillet steaks, other meat stuff, frozen chips etc.

Alternating between the posh and the value works better for me than going to Sainsbury/Tesco

Asda & Morrisons always seem a bit miserable to me, the range is poor, and their own brand stuff is ropey - even though they are not significantly cheaper than Sainsburys

Incidentally, I have coeliac disease (i.e. ill for 2 days if I eat any gluten), and can tell you that the meat-based products, chips, etc in Aldi (and Lidl) very rarely contain wheat, whereas Tescos and Sainsburys (and Waitrose) seem to put it in everything 

 

chillidoggy

Mrs C usually makes a big, fuck-off shopping list, and then proceeds to leave on the table when going shopping. And so in true blonde style, the Chilli household haul that makes it home tends to be random, uninformed, booze-centred, and has as much forward planning as governmental policy.

The problem I found with Lidl and the like is that you never know what you're going to find when you get there. you just have to buy what they have in at the time, and it's not guaranteed that they'll always have a particular item.

Bogwhoppit

An estate agent friend of mine told me Aldi and Lidl are used to define an areas 'social standing'.  However, one does shop in Lidl when one wants that little something extra, to which my mate replied, " yeah, fricking head lice ", so I suppose the stereotype persists.

I'm more your M&S man, its age you see.  A typical M&S person is a knocking on, a member of the National Trust and attends swingers parties (according to current research). I wonder who gets the keys to Mrs Bluerinse (yuk !).