Great What/What Not to Buy at Lidl, Aldi and Netto Hunt

BexTech

Some Lidl stores sell newspapers, one local one does (we have several local) and one local to a friend does.

We don't have chiller cabinets near the tills.

They're still putting 30% off stickers on chickens in our local Lidl, though not noticed it on other meat, but then it's rare we buy meat from a supermarket, we go to Birmingham market for meat and fish and also local butchers.

We've been boycotting Heinz since they announced they would close down HP Sauce factory, and will never have another Heinz product in our home. Don't like Ketchup.

Though as I said when we go there's usually a few days left when the items are reduced, someone mentioned they have more days left, so maybe our store waits a little longer before reducing, as I would have expected if they reduced at an earlier date I'd have caught them then.

Schamansky

Very interesting and informative post, Murphaph! :T

As far as my local Lidl stores (East of England) are concerned, I can only confirm what BexTech has said above:

a) Newspapers are sold, but only the usual UK tabloid trash, such as Daily Sport, Mirror, Sun, etc.
b) Chiller products are still reduced by 30% one day before expiry, on a daily basis.

Also:

c) There is no convenience chiller near the tills yet. I'll be watching out for that now.
d) Thanks for the information about Wagner Pizza. You may want to post this in the "Supermarkets Own Brands" thread as well?

Aldi procedure is to half-price all perishables one day before expiry on a daily basis. This entails all chiller products, including meat, and all bakery products. Produce is not reduced but recklessly binned; the rule of thumb goes "if you wouldn't buy it yourself, chuck it."
Ambient stock is sometimes flogged off at half price, too, when it has only a few days left. This concerns mostly cakes and biscuits, and sometimes food specials.

quoia

Schamansky wrote: »

...................
a) Newspapers are sold, but only the usual UK tabloid trash, such as Daily Sport, Mirror, Sun, etc.
.............

All the Lidls I've ever been to only sell newspapers (and a magazine) from a single publisher - "Northern & Shell"
This is the company of celebrity magazine publisher Richard Desmond - which is responsible for OK! magazine.

He aquired The STAR and The EXPRESS (and Sunday editions) some years ago.

Accordingly I've only found that Lidl sell The Star, The Express and OK! mag

murphaph

Do you work for Aldi Schamansky? Their structure is quite different-the Republic of Ireland is a region of Aldi UK and reports in to Atherstone in Warwickshire whereas Lidl Ireland GmBH reports directly to Lidl Stiftung in Germany. Very occasionaly we see transfers of stock from Lidl UK but they are rare.

Aldi has been slow to take off in the RoI so far and has no stores in Northern Ireland. Lidl has been much more agressive in its expansion but Aldi seems to be ramping up now.

We don't have Netto or any other store like that in Ireland.

Our convenience chillers near the tills arrived in store last year so I'd say they'll be in UK stores soon. They are very competitivley priced here. A 500ml contour coke is €0.96 in Lidl and range from €1.50 in Spar etc. Our sandwiches are €1.99 and the EXACT same sandwiches are €4.39 in Londis.

Here's an 'interesting' factoid. Lidl cashiers must memorise a code for all F&V items. They don't have any chart or touchscreen method of selecting F&V at the till like other retailers. They just enter a code into the keypad from their heads. This is a remnant from the old days when ALL goods in the store were on a code system, pre-barcode days. It was actually faster than barcodes as a good cashier could look down the belt and have it all keyed in as the customer put the last item on the belt. Bacodes are better for inventory control of course but F&V is difficut to barcode as the supplier can change on a daily basis based on what's available at the market.

Schamansky

@ Murphaph

I am not employed by either company. Let me just say that "I haff veys" to peek behind Aldi and Lidl's curtains.

The slower expansion of Aldi has been explained with Aldi's traditional policy to solely rely on own liquid assets for expansion (all paid out of one's own drawer, so to say) and not to resort to any sort of external finance for geographical expansion, something which Lidl has done from the start. There are strong rumours, though, that Aldi Süd, who own Aldi UK and Ireland, is now abandoning this once iron Brothers Albrecht principle, in order to counter Lidl's faster expansion in recent years, especially outside the motherland.

Aldi, so far quite behind Lidl in the UK, now seem to be on their way to closing the gap through an extensive makeover in their store outfits (most stores have had a complete refit in 2005-06) and an extensively revamped marketing and communications strategy. The new marketing concept is to differentiate from Lidl through moving away from the "cheapy" and "low income" image towards a "high quality food store" image, whilst still offering the "lowest possible price" by maintaining the hard discount priciple of superior cost efficiency through (über-)rationalised operations and organisation. The figures seem to support that this "upgrading" strategy is working out well so far, with sales increases in the two-digit range over 2007. I'll certainly be watching the future development.

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Just as at Lidl, Aldi fruit and vegetables are still mostly typed in with a two digit PLU at the tills. This seems to be gradually replaced by introducing barcodes on packed fruit and veg.

I've spoken to many a long served employee of Aldi's, and a vast majority state that they preferred the old PLU system, for the very reasons you've stated above.

Schamansky

quoia wrote: »

All the Lidls I've ever been to only sell newspapers (and a magazine) from a single publisher - "Northern & Shell"
This is the company of celebrity magazine publisher Richard Desmond - which is responsible for OK! magazine.

He aquired The STAR and The EXPRESS (and Sunday editions) some years ago.

Accordingly I've only found that Lidl sell The Star, The Express and OK! mag

Yes, you're absolutely right there. These are the papers and mags I've seen in my local store. Not Sun or Mirror; I got that wrong. (And I couldn't tell the difference between Daily Sport and Daily Star, since those boobs look all the same to me. )

murphaph

Do you know anything about Aldi's use of technology in store? How much IT do they use? Lidl is a relative newcomer to large scale use of IT and still rejects a lot of the systems other retailers use. For example most retailers (even forecourt stores) provide a lot of information to the person ordering (usually the store manager) about each and every item, sales trends, promotions etc. etc. but Lidl (despite having all this information in head office) does not make much of it available to the person ordering so it's entirely up to them to know what sells when.

Lidl staff still go around the store at close of business every day with a pen and paper and record how many cabbages or cases of yogurt or bread are left over to aid ordering which uses the same sheets of paper. It appears incredibly outdated BUT it forces the store manager to KNOW what sells on what days. If he doesn't he'll have high write offs (write offs must be kept below 1% of sales) and poor availability due to poor ordering.

I prefer the aldi plinths but I prefer how Lidl presents non-food specials. Lidl wants customers to come down aisle one and have their eye drawn across attractive F&V to the non-food specials. All stores in the RoI have been remerchandised over the last 2 years so over freezer shelving has been eliminated in all but the small stores (Lidl operate 2 standard sizes 997 and 1286 sq metres) and non-standard stores (usually city centre rented property). This open layout is much more attractive and they pretty much copied it from Aldi as far as I can see. It makes the stores feel much larger.

The busiest Lidl in operation anywhere is reputed to be the one on Dublin's Moore Street. It has app. 50k customers p/w and even with all 11 tills open has very long queues on a saturday afternoon. I can never understand people who are willing to stand there and queue but they must be on a tight budget. The first Aldi in Ireland is around the corner and is (in total contrast) nearly empty most days. I don't know why that is.

Aldi is about to break ground on its second DC in Ireland this year whereas Lidl will break ground on it's 4th. I believe however that Aldi DC's are designed to serve more stores. Sind Sie Deutscher Schamansky?

Mary_Hartnell

Schamansky wrote: »

@ Mary Hartnell

Is this the product you're after?

http://nar-mag.com/images/4528.gif

It seems you can't get it anywhere in the UK. They sell it in France or Germany, though.

Yes that is the stuff !

Is it only sold by Lidl or do other shops in France sell it ?

Thinks, where is the Calais branch of Lidl.

( I wonder if its something to do with UK glue sniffing regulations - it smells good to me:D).

Mary.

PS Yes I am signed up for both store's biweekly bargains - we get door buster Q's
when there are real bargains.

BexTech

There's someone in Germany on eBay selling it, however there's €18 P&P to the UK, however you don't pay extra P&P when you order more at the same time.

FannyHill

Schamansky wrote: »

It's on the shelf in my local Lidl (saw it yesterday). That's in Suffolk.

route 66 peanut butter.

OK thanks will keep looking as it may come back into my store.