Aldi/lidl etc

I moved to Germany in 2000 and the main shops were Aldi/lidl which we used all the time the only other shop we used was Naafi and that was for bacon cheese and bread.... We arrived back in the UK some years later and had to tavel miles to go to Aldi but we did it. now i haven't one near me and i hate it... Now I shop online from the place that i work or get things from there but then I do get a discount. We don't have a local farm shop or anything like that which is such a shame as i would use that also..
 
Hugh Jarse said:
ALDI often do bread mixes which are cheap and very good quality for hand or machine making.
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Thanks for the tip off - I've never looked at the bread mixes in there. I've struggled to find one that I like so normally buy all the raw ingredients separately, but I'll give Aldi's a try next time I'm in there.

cambsno said:
Rightly or wrongly, I perceive Waitrose and M&S basic ranges to be different to that like Tesco value... maybe I am wrong?
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Three chickens for £10 - wherever you buy them from - are never going to be great quality.
Try Morrison's Free Range corn fed chicken. It's more expensive at about £8 for a bird but welfare issues aside, the difference in taste alone is in a completely different league.
It actually tastes of chicken rather than just some watery, nondescript protein.
So much so that I can't stand the cheaper stuff any more and never order chicken when we're out - and you'll find that with the extra taste it seems to stretch further in a meal as well.
 
SarahLee said:
Thanks for the tip off - I've never looked at the bread mixes in there. I've struggled to find one that I like so normally buy all the raw ingredients separately, but I'll give Aldi's a try next
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They seem to come and go but worth a try.

I think the last batch included Ciabatta which disappeared rapidly

Steve
 
SarahLee said:
Try Morrison's Free Range corn fed chicken. It's more expensive at about £8 for a bird but welfare issues aside, the difference in taste alone is in a completely different league.
It actually tastes of chicken rather than just some watery, nondescript protein.
So much so that I can't stand the cheaper stuff any more and never order chicken when we're out - and you'll find that with the extra taste it seems to stretch further in a meal as well.
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Or try Aldi free range chicken at half that price. I buy from both and I can attest that quality is pretty much level. I completely agree about generic chicken being awful.

The difference is that Aldi / Lidl are run much more efficiently, while Morrisons in particular are fairly old fashioned in the way they conduct business and have much higher overheads. Waitrose / MS are pretty much charging bigger profit margins to compensate for less customers and presumably keep the "yobs" (as certain class of people would claim) away from the door.
 
Not had any CDM in bar form for ages - I've cut right down on chocolate over the past couple of years. Is it much different to pre Kraft?
 
new2me said:
. I'm probably completely wrong :whistle:
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Yes you are.
There are many smaller food manufacturers that specialise in own brand. 'The big boys' prefer to do brands as it generates higher profits. I don't know about lidl but I do know Aldi have very high quality products, the product is often the same as is sold in Europe, sometimes the packaging is changed to emulate local brands, the quality though is often superior. I agree with you in waitrose/Tesco.
The discounters make big savings on shop fitting and supply chain, mainly by having far fewer SKUs.
 
weekly shop is done at Aldi....can't beat it. They had a special on just after xmas on salami...massive sausages for 2.99, easily 3 times the size of the supermarket variants, just a shame that often when things run out, you never see them again.

we easily do our weekly shop (for 4 of us) for £50 (although our fresh fruit and veg comes at an extra tenner from a local farm shop for a rakeload of fruit and veg).

The curry sauces with the pot of powder on top are great, the dopiaza one is easily as nice as a takeaway
The fresh baked bread is also a winner in our house
Also hooked on the snackrite crisps (walkers variants)...the prawn cocktail are awesome :)
the cereal is also a barndoor cheaper....you really could go on for ages.

you don't really realise how much cheaper it is until you nip to your local morrisons, tesco etc and get a few bagfulls of things.
 
We mainly shop in Aldi, but find the food there a bit hit and miss sometimes. Fruit and veg invariably is pretty awful and not very fresh and the bread if own brand isn't great.

However, the everyday grocery items are great value and we can easily spend as much as twice as much if we venture into our local Tesco store.
 
I have just done a comparative shop both in aldi and Sainsbury's.....I used Sainsbury's own brand when I couldn't get a like for like in aldi.......
The first thing I realised was that the majority of Aldi packs were larger.......

The selection of goods were taken from the meat, cereal, fruit/veg, domestic cleaning and ingredients for making at least 2 meals not forgetting a bottle of prosecco

Sainsbury cost me £65.64 and Aldi cost me £44.63 a total saving of £21.01

Aldi were approx 30% cheaper

The only down point I found with aldi was the other customers were shopping like they were stocking up for some disaster and there was a lot of pushing and shoving
 
If you want to avoid the crushing/shoving stay away from Aldi on a Sunday, Lidl on a Monday and both on a Thursday :)
 
I like both Lidl and Aldi but tend to use Lidl more often as it more convenient for me. The quality and price of their fruit and veg wins hands down compared to Tesco and Sainsbury. Their fresh bakery produce is also good in particular their cheese topped rolls, 4 for £1.00 taste deliscious. The cooked meats are very good and chorizo I use for cooking is good. Their Xmas produce is second to none. I don't think there is anything that I have bought there that I would not buy again.
 
archangel said:
I have just done a comparative shop both in aldi and Sainsbury's.....I used Sainsbury's own brand when I couldn't get a like for like in aldi.......
The first thing I realised was that the majority of Aldi packs were larger.......

The selection of goods were taken from the meat, cereal, fruit/veg, domestic cleaning and ingredients for making at least 2 meals not forgetting a bottle of prosecco

Sainsbury cost me £65.64 and Aldi cost me £44.63 a total saving of £21.01

Aldi were approx 30% cheaper

The only down point I found with aldi was the other customers were shopping like they were stocking up for some disaster and there was a lot of pushing and shoving
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Late morning is the time when the armies of pensioners descend upon the stores. At 7PM the stores are pretty empty :) Don't forget the weekend shoppers. This applies to most supermarkets except the really expensive ones like Sainsburys or waitrose. Even tesco is a lot cheaper if you buy selectively.
 
If there's a specific item that you're after from a Lidl flyer, get there at opening time on the first day it's due on the shelves, especially if you think it'll be a popular line and/or you NEED it.
 
Nod said:
If there's a specific item that you're after from a Lidl flyer, get there at opening time on the first day it's due on the shelves, especially if you think it'll be a popular line and/or you NEED it.
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You say that but my parents did it recently and were told that the item wasn't in yet and they were given a time to come back by the manager, which they did. He then said "sorry, they've all been sold. They were really popular, I bought 3 myself!" :shifty:
 
We've had both Aldi and Lidl open not too far away in Bicester, but TBH Aldi doesn't seem very much cheaper than Tesco these days, though it certainly was once. Lidl IS cheaper and the rye bread from the instore bakery is great, but it's harder to find that stuff we want the way we want it in both stores, so we still prefer Tesco.
 
new2me said:
As far as I'm aware. "own" brands are made by the big boys for many supermarkets, but the recipes adjusted to suit the budget given ... therefore, I would expect a cheaper Tesco chocolate bar for example to have a lower percentage of the expensive/quality ingredients in them than say a Waitrose fancy chocolate bar. For ready meals, they might swap fresh garlic for garlic powder, or use cheaper cuts of beef (or horsemeat). I expect that this is also the case with Lidl/Aldi products, who package these products with names we've never heard of before to possibly mislead us. I'm probably completely wrong :whistle:
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I worked at Fox's biscuits as a senior supervisor for 13 years and i can 100% tell you that we made biscuits for all the big supermarkets and even some budget ones and the receipe was exactly the same ingredients except where M&S would want butter where everyone else was happy with margarine, lots of cheap biscuits are exactly the same as big brand expensive ones
 
fabs said:
You say that but my parents did it recently and were told that the item wasn't in yet and they were given a time to come back by the manager, which they did. He then said "sorry, they've all been sold. They were really popular, I bought 3 myself!" :shifty:
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Ah - they should have asked nicely to see if someone could get one off the pallet out the back! I've been invited into the warehouse area (probably against company policy and H&S BS!) to get stuff that's not been topped up but then, I'm nice!!! ;) (And, as I tell Mrs Nod, the girls all fancy me!)
 
Gary Coyle said:
I worked at Fox's biscuits as a senior supervisor for 13 years and i can 100% tell you that we made biscuits for all the big supermarkets and even some budget ones and the receipe was exactly the same ingredients except where M&S would want butter where everyone else was happy with margarine, lots of cheap biscuits are exactly the same as big brand expensive ones
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I noticed years ago that Co-op buscuits were exactly the same as Fox's. Now I know! :-)
 
Nestle are the same....they make most of the own brand corn flake/rice krispies based products.....of course, they're not as good as the Kellogg ones I make.......;-)
 
acetone said:
As I have never been bothered what others think of me I have been using Aldi for most of my grocery shopping for 20 years.

People seem to have a funny idea about the company and don't know they one of the world's biggest grocery chains, running more than 9,800 stores worldwide, and are successful in the USA unlike Tesco.

It's just that recently the UK is changing from snobbery shopping to quality and value shopping, which is causing a problem for me, as in the past I could park right outside the door but now the car park is always full of newbie customers :)
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Exactly that, I've been using them for decades as well.....I never got on with the main stream UK supermarkets...found their quality so mediocre....But generally I prefer to go get fresh at local butchers etc...and just used them for longer life stuff...
 
Gary Coyle said:
we made biscuits for all the big supermarkets and even some budget ones and the receipe was exactly the same ingredients except where M&S would want butter where everyone else was happy with margarine
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i'll just delete my original post then :D

I definitely saw something on TV recently where a food tech for a big brand explained that they make ready meals for supermarkets and adjust the ingredients as I said earlier ... obviously it doesn't happen across the board
 
They would say that though wouldn't they? otherwise why would anyone ever buy their products over an 'own brand'
 
Steep said:
They would say that though wouldn't they? otherwise why would anyone ever buy their products over an 'own brand'
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Its like all this crap "I would never buy supermarket fuel".

Years ago, when I was involved in the fuel industry,
The supermarket brands we loading along side the big names.
Shell BP Texaco et al
 
Yep - I'm not allowed to name names, but many years ago I worked for a discount clothing / homeware retailer.
The factory where they sourced their bed sheets and bath towels also supplied some of the 'upmarket' retailers.
Exactly the same product off exactly the same production line - the only difference was an extra bit of fancy embroidery, a different label and better quality packaging placed around the end product.
 
Part of my job entails visiting food packers and processors. A lot of the time while I am there they are packing produce for the likes of Tesco and Sainsburys - the line stops and the labels are changed and the same line is used for M&S etc, sometimes for salad for eg they add a few more leaf types. Also Lidl take the mishapen fruit and veg that dont match the other supermarkets specification.

I dont really have a preference for my shopping except I usually use Tesco for the clubcard points. Used to go religiously but probably equalled out now between Tesco, Sainsburys and Asda.

Also use farm shops for meat and veg.
 
When my fathers was in retail, he visited a local manufacturer and his sewing out workers. Each machinist had 4 or 5 boxes of different labels and they just sewed them in at random.
 
Maggie52 said:
I like both Lidl and Aldi but tend to use Lidl more often as it more convenient for me. Their fresh bakery produce is also good in particular their cheese topped rolls, 4 for £1.00 taste deliscious. .
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YES !
All the freshly baked stuff is wonderful, and as it is so popular they do loads of bakes so it is easy to get hot rolls - yum !
Our local branch had a Greek special a few months ago, with real Retsina, not the usual Kourtaki and some amazing nibbles and Haloumi - it is such a shame that they don't repeat such things more often.
 
Used LIDL/Aldi for yonks. Recently theyve (LIDL) started putting out freshly baked baguettes, croissants, buns etc. I've seen the state of some of the bag lady types that just have to pick up a bread roll, give it a good squeeze, put it back then pick up another one exactly the same and keep it. :grumpy:
So I am reluctant to pick up the fresh bread for that reason. Anything thats sealed in protective wrapper - fair game.
LIDL also do a free range chicken, about £5 I think though may be less.

Just across the road from the one I use is a Waitrose, I finish in there for my wine and free coffee and a better MILF quotient.
 
DorsetDude said:
Just across the road from the one I use is a Waitrose, I finish in there for my wine and free coffee and a better MILF quotient.
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In St Austell there is no Waitrose, and not a lot of MILF's either.

Time we moved I think...
 
That was Sheffield.
 
We have used Aldi and Lidl for years, ever since we first went in an Aldi back in 1998 on a visit to France.
I would say that you have to pick and choose what you buy, because in our local stores I think that quality of fresh fruit and veg has gone down lately. Having said that, Lidl seem to have loads of bargain bags of different veg at 39p, so it is incredible VFM.
Both Lidl and Aldi do free range chickens, but IMO they aren't as tasty as Waitrose birds (but I can only afford them when they are reduced). We also had a couple of fillet steaks from Lidl the other week and I think they cost £8.99 for the pair, and they were superb!
I buy my bread making flour in Lidl for 79p (1.5 kilos), and IMO the bread tastes just as good as when I use Allinson's or Waitrose flour. I can make four decent sized loaves out of one bag of flour, and the total cost of each loaf (taking into account yeast, salt etc), is around 35p for a loaf which will taste far better than any supermarket equivalent.
The packet hams are good value, as are the various deli items, and the missus only buys their own brand ice creams instead of cornettos. We also buy olive oil, balsamic, various jars of antipasti, beers (lager and traditional ales - much cheaper than other supermarkets), and of course wine.
 
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