Ethnic aisles in supermarkets

Justamum

Savannah02K wrote: »

I've been buying my tins of chick peas from that section of Tescos for a while (69p per tin in veggie aisle, three for £1.00 in the ethnic aisle, only difference being branding) but last week I checked out the chilli flakes - 98p for 28g of Tesco own (admittedly in a plastic jar) whilst in the ethnic aisle they were £1.99 for 200g bag!

Even cheaper is to buy a bag of dried chickpeas, cook the whole bag and freeze them. There's the equivalent of 5 tins in a bag of dried.

antrobus wrote: »

Basmati rice. One price for own brand, exortionate price for Tilda. Much cheaper in 'world foods' under some unfamiliar Asian brand name.

And even better when they have the huge bags on special offer, which Tesco sometimes do. I can't remember the exact price as it was months ago, but the large bags were something like two for £9!

floss2 wrote: »

Goes to show how stupid the big stores think we are

Sadly some people are though, or they just don't care - though not the people on this forum

redfragglebiker

I must admit I rarely use the supermarkets at all for spices and the suchlike. I am very lucky in the fact that I have good access to several world food style stores. One specialises in 'indian' foods and spices and I have a chinese 'supermarket' (read the size of a tesco or sainsburys local) which also does japanese foods such as sushi rice and seaweed. I agree with the price difference completely. We have the glass jars from buying schwartz spices years ago and just reful them from the big bags we get at the world food stores now. I think we normally pay around £1-£2 for a 500g bag of dried herbs or spices!!!

mi_jardin

I regularly but the big 10kg bags of chappatti flour when its on offer. It makes a lovely loaf when you use half white bf and half chappatti f, like a half wholemeal but cheaper.

kitschy

Ha ha, my Tesco always has a lot of tins of their own coconut milk shoved onto the shelf in the world foods aisle where folk have discovered exactly the same thing for half the price! It's my favourite aisle - I like finding things that I can't identify and trying them.

tessie_bear

our pound land in cov has just started selling world food as they call it...herbs/spices/chapati flour/pulses and my fav tinned mango puree which is lovely...price all a quid:j

catkins

It's cheaper to buy dried chickpeas than tinned. I soak and then cook a big pan and then split into smaller portions and freeze.

I go to indian supermarkets and buy lentils, chickpeas, herbs, spices, poppadoms, naan bread, rice, tinned tomatoes, fresh coriander and often veg. They do a really large bag of onions for 99p

VfM4meplse

marmiterulesok wrote: »

You should have a look in your local Indian/ethnic shop,if you're lucky enough to have one.

kitschy wrote: »

I like finding things that I can't identify and trying them.

You'd be lost in an ethnic store, all these dried goodies on display and not having a clue what to do with them! Hoo Hing is a brilliant case in point. At least at TFC I know what I can do with the ingredients!

Frith

Living where I do, our local shops don't stock anything ethnic.

If we drive to Hereford, in Asda there is one rack of Polish food!

I find Lidl good for coconut milk etc.

Hermia

floss2 wrote: »

Goes to show how stupid the big stores think we are

I think they think we are just very unobservant. In my local Tescos you can get 10kg bags of good quality basmati rice in the ethnic section for not much more than you'd pay for the little Tilda bags in the normal section. If you are confused just stand there looking like a little lost sheep and hope a nice Asian lady helps you (it happens to me!).

I used to live in an Asian area and the grocery stores were amazing. The price of fruit and veg amazed me. You'd get a big bag of beautiful produce and it would cost hardly anything. I don't know how they do it.

Strider590

Hermia wrote: »

I used to live in an Asian area and the grocery stores were amazing. The price of fruit and veg amazed me. You'd get a big bag of beautiful produce and it would cost hardly anything. I don't know how they do it.

They look after their own, they also strongly dislike the big brand supermarkets, unless the "native" (how else to term it?" UK resident, they support their local shops instead of flocking to the expensive supermarkets.
The supermarkets know all this and reduce the price in the mentioned aisles to try and entice people into their stores.
We have a lot of Polish shops around where I live, we have a large Polish population, you'll NEVER see them in Sainsburys, Tesco, Morrisons, etc etc etc. The big brand supermarkets are purely about shopping snobbery.