Good and Bad Buys from Aldi & Lidl *Do NOT Expire Please*

VoucherMan wrote: »

So even more perfectly good food going to waste because people notice yesterday's date on the packaging and throw it away, instead of using their judgement.

I thought stores were being discouraged from doing this.

Lidl were one of the only stores (maybe THE only store) doing this, and putting a date rather than a code is just simple transparency, treating customers with more respect.

Aldi and Lidl both have weaker supply chains (not a full cool chain) than stores like Waitrose and Tesco, resulting inevitably in shorter shelf lives. I don't have a great problem with that (for the lower prices) but it is essential to watch the BB dates and I found having to translate the Lidl ones a minor annoyance.

Customers can surely be educated to know the difference between 'Use by' and 'Best Before' and apply their own commonsense, but finding produce deteriorating within a day or two of purchase is inexcusable, and this transparency makes that less likely.

I'm with Stompa, although one of the Aldi staff showed me once how to read the codes they then used on the fruit and veg, so that I could identify the freshest produce. Each week had a number, once you had cracked that, it was clear.

Noticed in the last week quite a few price drops after the pre-Xmas rises, however my shopping weekly now seems to creep into the £50 bracket more and more.

A big con this week is the cheeses which have increased to 400g from 350g with a 'bigger better value' sticker on them. Except the per KG cost is 2p more at £4.73 a KG versus the £4.71 a KG in the old size.