Its official - Discounters are NOT cheaper...

dillydilly

Press Association news article today -

The discounter supermarkets are more expensive than all of their "big four" rivals, according to new research.
Trade magazine The Grocer found the most expensive place to shop was Aldi, where 33 basic items cost £30.76 - £11.66 more than the cheapest supermarket Asda.
The magazine's research compared the 33 products across Aldi, Lidl and Netto with Tesco, Asda, Sainsbury's and Morrisons for 10 weeks. It found shopping at a discounter could be up to 61% more expensive than sticking to a budget range at a standard supermarket.
The magazine said that although discounters were cheaper on a few items, all four of the major supermarkets were cheaper places to shop overall than any of the discounters.
Tesco's basket at £20.85 was £1.75 more than Asda's £19.10 bill. Sainsbury's cost £21.76 and the Morrisons basket came to £24.92 - 38p cheaper than Lidl, the cheapest discounter that came in at £25.30. The Netto basket cost £25.77, but Aldi cost £4.99 more than its nearest rival

is this the perception of this forum ? I visit the three discounters regularly as part of my job as well the the big supers and it amazes me that shoppers believe the hype on discounters. Tesco sells over 10 times more groceries than either of the three discounters - that gives them an awful lot more buying power. How can the discounters possibly undercut the big boys long term with just 2% market share each, even if they choose to take lower margins. The 'stack it high sell it cheap' mantra doesn't transfer to that much cost savings - the efficiencies of running over 500 superstores far outweighs that benefit.

sooty&sweep

Hi

The other things that need to be taken into consideration are the quality of the items selected. We all have our favourite brands etc.
In addition you have got to consider the location of the store. The products may be cheaper but if it takes half an hour plus petrol to get there its not cheaper.

wookie_2

intresting reading. I have just priced up a organic beef box from a farmer in the peak district and with dell its priced at £43 for over 8kg of organic beef. I used the mysupermarket site to compare what it would cost and the big 4 were all £20-£30 more expensive. The best bit is, by using these independent producers you know where your meat is coming from and your helping your local farmer, as well as not lining the pockets of some faceless suit within the big 4.
Rant over! Good post tho op.

nonumb

Yeah some products are cheaper but quality is different

an example say lidl macaroni cheese may be more expensive than sainsburys basics macaroni but still cheaper than sainsburys own brand macaroni so its cheaper compared to that.

My friend lives in london and his sainsburys does not stock basics so he goes to cheaper places so they are cheaper then.

wookie_2

intresting reading. I have just priced up a organic beef box from a farmer in the peak district and with dell its priced at £43 for over 8kg of organic beef. I used the mysupermarket site to compare what it would cost and the big 4 were all £20-£30 more expensive. The best bit is, by using these independent producers you know where your meat is coming from and your helping your local farmer, as well as not lining the pockets of some faceless suit within the big 4.
Rant over! Good post tho op.

puddings_2

It all depends what sort of groceries you buy mostly and what type of shopper you are.

Sooty Sweep, i agree with you that there are other considerations like travelling time. Also bear in mind that the checkout queues in the discounter stores are usually horrendous.

Fruit and Veg is usually really good value at netto but as for tins and other groceries, It's cheaper at asda.

Bogofs and other offers are only any value if you are flexible in what you will buy.

Morrisons seem to have more BOGOFS than the other big stores, but if youre the kind of shopper that has a shopping list and sticks to it then a bogof item that isnt on your list is of no value to you.

pennymakespounds

I've been in this industry all my life .. and saw the full comparison in the trade press this morning.

Very unfortunate / unfair publicity for the discounters ... shows them in a bad light ... but it's all to do with quality ... the comparisons are just not "like for like" .

Most are comparing "value / basics" .. with the discounters brand .. when their quality is more like tesco/sains brand ..or even "finest".

To compare tesco value tea bags at 28p with aldi's at £1.19 ... or tesco value toilet rolls 43p with Aldi quality rolls at £1.45 is very unfair .

They're even comparing decent ordinary wine with Lambrusco !

Interesting there are no products for Tesco where they have shown their newly introduced "discounter brand" .. which they brought out in order to compete with Aldi !!

I'm amazed the grocer magazine allowed this publicity . .. although a lot of the article does discuss that the quality comparisons are very differrent

Each to their own as always ... for my shopping it's Aldi/lidl and Morrisons
that gets me the best qualities at the lowest cost .. overall.

puddings_2

pennymakespounds wrote: »

Each to their own as always ... for my shopping it's Aldi/lidl and Morrisons
that gets me the best qualities at the lowest cost .. overall.

I agree with you.
The problem is that its easy to quantify price, yet difficult to measure quality

Biggles

I wonder who owns 'The Grocer'??

Chocmonster7

pennymakespounds wrote: »

Each to their own as always ... for my shopping it's Aldi/lidl and Morrisons that gets me the best qualities at the lowest cost .. overall.

Same here!

Saw this in the paper this morning but I stopped reading when I saw they were comparing Tesco toilet roll at 43p with Aldis. The quality of these are two totally different things, one is thin two ply, the other thick quilted.

It's like the old saying that you can't compare apples & oranges.

freebiequennie

wookie wrote: »

intresting reading. I have just priced up a organic beef box from a farmer in the peak district and with dell its priced at £43 for over 8kg of organic beef. I used the mysupermarket site to compare what it would cost and the big 4 were all £20-£30 more expensive. The best bit is, by using these independent producers you know where your meat is coming from and your helping your local farmer, as well as not lining the pockets of some faceless suit within the big 4.
Rant over! Good post tho op.

do you have a website/contact for this farmer in peak district and do they deliver to all over the east midlands??