Food shopping Where and why?

[gail2]

thought it would be fun to compare
For me its Lidals why their prices are good and in my local one the doors are automictic and the alses are wide enough for Indie my scooter

 

[rebrascora]

I'm a Lidl fan too. Some of their products are better than branded versions and competitively priced. Quite a lot of British produce. Store layout is really good, as is parking. Staff are usually really friendly and being smaller than the big supermarkets, with usually just one till open, unless the queue gets too big, you tend to get the same person on the checkout each week, which makes it feel a bit more personal.

 

[grovesy]

Not a Lidl fan, and my local one never looks that clean to me. It is on the opposite side of town to where I live and near an infamous roundabout.

 

[Ieva DUK]

Oh I love and hate Lidl at the same time. Veggies and fruit (to me) taste better than in the big stores, however there are often things that I find that simply 'don't come back' after their seasonal rotation. A couple of years ago there was this specific ice cream in the summer, that I could swear I became addicted to. Realised it will go 'out of stock' as the Spanish days were ending, so I must admit - I went to a couple of shops to stock up on those boxes. Kept on telling myself they'll probably come back with the next 'Spanish rotation' - they didn't. Summer time? Nope. I never saw them again 🙄

 

[Satan’s little helper]

Not a Lidl fan, and my local one never looks that clean to me. It is on the opposite side of town to where I live and near an infamous roundabout.

Or Aldi? But to be fair needs must when the devil drives on bargains? Our shopping style is more Guerrilla tactics. In and out knowing where everything is. Aldi & Lidl are a bit random on the shop plan? (Where we are.) Self check out where we are is also designed to take longer than it should? The whole area for self checkout is cramped & open to shop assistant needed to authorise errors. One hard working shop assistant drawing short straws on 8 or 10 self checkouts on the whole these days is shocking.

 

[Leadinglights]

A mixture of Aldi as we like their sparkling flavoured water and selection of cooked meats and cheeses. Veg can be variable quality. ASDA for some things as within walking distance. Costco for most of our meat and the occasional cooked chicken for £4 which does 8 meals.

 

[Docb]

Local ALDI for me. Having run my own (non grocery) shop, I just like they way it is run, it is how I would run a grocery. Been in other ALDI's and not as impressed so it might be down to the management and staff in that particular store.

Local Sainsbury's and ASDA are very depressing places.

 

[Satan’s little helper]

A mixture of Aldi as we like their sparkling flavoured water and selection of cooked meats and cheeses. Veg can be variable quality. ASDA for some things as within walking distance. Costco for most of our meat and the occasional cooked chicken for £4 which does 8 meals.

The veg life quality is across the board with supermarkets. (From what we’ve seen.) without going into politics. Some suppliers maybe lacking in a workforce (not thier own fault.) that is barely capable of bringing the produce to market by the desired time?

 

[helli]

I do not have a single supermarket: it depends what I am buying.
Nuts come from Lidl. Parmesan from Morrisons. Cheddar from Sainsburys. Fruit and veg from Abel and Cole (veg box). Salmon from Morrisons. Smoked Mackerel and fish cakes from Sainsburys. Bread from Waitrose. Etc.
Thankfully, all are within walking distance (apart from Abel and Cole which is delivered weekly) so I get exercise when I do my shopping.

 

[Satan’s little helper]

We drive. That includes indie farmer’s markets in garden centres. We don’t do deliveries. It blocks the flow of traffic & I prefer to reserve that right for the less able bodied with home delivery slots.

 

[Leadinglights]

The veg life quality is across the board with supermarkets. (From what we’ve seen.) without going into politics. Some suppliers maybe lacking in a workforce (not thier own fault.) that is barely capable of bringing the produce to market by the desired time?

I suppose we are spoilt by growing a lot of our own veg and fruit. Used the last courgette with leeks in soup today. Tomatoes sadly .all finished.

 

[Satan’s little helper]

I suppose we are spoilt by growing a lot of our own veg and fruit. Used the last courgette with leeks in soup today. Tomatoes sadly .all finished.

To be fair. Some of it could be imported too? The above ground veg I pick up on my way home from work daily. Wife works from home. We tend to do the big meats or fish & cheeses once a week. If we can both be arsed.

 

[goodybags]

Lidl is our main shop, we tend to get quite a good selection of fresh fruits berries and vegetables there, plus most of the nuts and seeds im eating, we already have 4 Lidl soon to be 5 Lidl stores here in Northampton, but mainly just use 2 of them.

clothes shopping if from supermarket is usually Asda or Tesco
we also get some fresh produce in the market and still need to occasionally pick up a few items in Tesco or Morrisons
Mrs @goodybags also shops in a few specialist Asian grocery stores for a few rarely available here in the UK Thai ingredient

The only downside of using Lidl is they keep giving vouchers for free cakes

 

[pjgtech]

We are saving a fortune on shopping at the moment due to my T2D Pathway to Remission diet, so not eating much at all, and my Wife is pretty much on the same diet, so we are spending very little on Groceries, which is a bonus! However, we are luckily spoilt for choice with local supermarkets, within walking distance is a small Co-op. And within easy driving distance is an Asda, Morrisons, M&S, Lidl, Aldi, Sainsbury and a small Tesco Express. We tend to use all of them, for no particular reason other than when we are passing them. Plus we are also lucky to have plenty of small local independents, eg: butcher, bakery, pie shop, farm shops, etc, etc.
🙂

 

[Satan’s little helper]

Dispite what I said earlier. Lidl in mainland Europe has more choice? The go to when traveling.

 

[Sally71]

We have a massive Tesco so I tend to do all my shopping there. Undercover parking, I know my way around, have a club card, and it’s usually pretty quiet in there. Occasionally go to Asda for the one or two things I like that Tesco don’t stock; I don’t think their fruit and veg are as good as Tesco’s though, and it’s MUCH busier and therefore a less pleasant experience. We do have an Aldi but I almost never go in there, don’t know why, just don’t like it. I think I’m a creature of habit and tend to stick to favourite brands. Out of Aldi and Lidl I prefer Lidl, I think their products are slightly better quality, have to go further to get to it from here though.

We also have a Company Shop, which is limited to members only, usually NHS/British Forces staff and a few others. During Covid they opened it up to some other places including educational establishments so I now also have a card for that. You can occasionally get some great bargains in there; they operate by selling surplus from all the other supermarkets so it’s fairly random what you can get in there and it changes all the time. I’d love to do my weekly shop in there, just go and see what I can find, buy whatever meat and veg they have on offer and see what I can do with it; my brain doesn’t work like that though sadly, I have meal plans in mind and know what ingredients I need so head straight to Tesco where I know I can find them all!

 

[Robin]

We have a large co-op in the next small town (large by co-op standards, I mean, small compared with other supermarkets). It sells a lot of locally produced pork (and game in season), and seasonal fruit and veg from the Evesham area. It also caters for posh weekenders down from London, and when I go first thing on a Monday morning they often have more expensive cuts of meat and fish left over from the fresh counter bagged up and on sale for half price. We also do a run to Lidl which is in the larger town in the opposite direction, if we’re going that way, and I top up from the butcher and deli in the next village in between times.

 

[gail2]

i dont like tescos express always to small and they charge more than in their normal stores do

 

[JJay]

My preference is for Waitrose. Always top quality, high animal welfare standards, support British food producers, wide aisles, and lovely staff who’ll go the extra mile. Also it’s the only butcher we have in our town, though there are good farm shops around.
To me, all that is worth the extra pennies.
Can’t stand Sainsbury’s, but I have no idea why!

 

[helli]

Related but slightly tangentially, I went to Lidl yesterday.
There were a few reasons to go - we had run out of nuts, only had one bottle of red wine left and I need to get back to driving after my broken elbow.
I forgot my pound coin for the trolley but decided a wheelie basket would be big enough and allow me to get my shopping to the car without hurting my arm (I still cannot carry 6 bottles of wine). After paying. I wheeled my basket out into the car park. I went through the store doors at the same time as another customer and, knowing I had definitely paid for everything, I assumed the alarm going off was something to do with her although no staff appeared to approach us. Or rather, they didn't until I was halfway across the car park. Apparently, the alarm went off because you are no allowed to take baskets out of the store - people steal them. I had to abandon the basket in the middle of the car park. On the plus side, the staff member carried my shopping to my car. I am not sure why we had to abandon the basket though.

And talking about Lidl, my first memory was when I was living in Germany and it was my nearest supermarket. It was the early days of Lidl when the aisles were made up of boxes stacked up with random goods. I could never do my weekly shop there because I didn't know what they would have. But it was worth going in to see if they had any boxes of Mini Dickmanns. I have never seen them anywhere else but always enjoyed them.