A Bleak Christmas for Tesco ?

Soleil_lune

A._Badger wrote: »

I realise we are almost at the point where daring to criticise Aldi or Lidl has become a burning offence in this country, but while the good people of this forum gather wood and search for the matches , I'll continue to say how depressing and dull I find their stores and how poor their selections of products.

Mercifully, the choice isn't Aldi/Lidl or Tesco. There are others.

I am with you here.

The thing I love about Tesco, Sainsburys, Asda, and Morrisons is that there are so many choices, but Aldi and Lidl are pitiful IMO. I don't much care for them. We stayed at a caravan park up north in the summer and the ONLY store near there was a LIDL, and I have to say it was quite miserable.

There is virtually only one or two of everything, there's no more than 3 or 4 decent fridge ready meals and frozen ready meals, and if that were the only place to do a main shop, I would struggle massively.

Apart from that, the staff at Lidl AND Aldi are rude and ignorant and miserable and unhelpful. (In the 4 or 5 of each that I have been in anyway.)

Not gonna lie though, the QUALITY of the few bits of food I have bought at Lidl has been good. But there is FAR too little choice.

sniggings

Soleil_lune wrote: »

I am with you here.

The thing I love about Tesco, Sainsburys, Asda, and Morrisons is that there are so many choices, but Aldi and Lidl are pitiful IMO. I don't much care for them. We stayed at a caravan park up north in the summer and the ONLY store near there was a LIDL, and I have to say it was quite miserable.

There is virtually only one or two of everything, there's no more than 3 or 4 decent fridge ready meals and frozen ready meals, and if that were the only place to do a main shop, I would struggle massively.

Apart from that, the staff at Lidl AND Aldi are rude and ignorant and miserable and unhelpful. (In the 4 or 5 of each that I have been in anyway.)

Not gonna lie though, the QUALITY of the few bits of food I have bought at Lidl has been good. But there is FAR too little choice.

True but that is the argument they use for their cheap prices...that they keep the choice limited so they can order a couple of things in bulk rather than a load of different products in smaller numbers, so saving on price and admin etc

I still go to Sainsburys etc but get my basic items from Adli, no one says you have to shop exclusively at one and not the other, I would guess most people that shop at Aldi and Lidi shop other places too, saying that I have seen a few people with what looks like a months supply of shopping at Adli, I have to agree with you I would struggle to fill a trolly.

Li0nhead

The ideal way would be to go round every shop/supermarket for the cheapest of each item you buy. Unfortunately very few have nowhere near enough time to spend half your waking life simply shopping.
Therefore you make a decision on overall cost/value/convenience/service.

My own shopping is split between Sainsburys, Lidl and the cheap places like Farmfoods.
I tend to stock up at Farmfoods every month or so.
Did that this lunchtime spent £57 and had a £5 off £50 spend voucher which i used.
Available at this link by the way: http://www.farmfoods.co.uk/includes/Vouchers/org/Vouchers.pdf
Some stuff are so cheap already. 2x2L of milk £1.60 and Hovis bread 2 loaves for £1.60. Add the effectively 10% money off certain spends making them cost peanuts.
Aside from this monthly stock up in Farmfoods I then do my regular shopping pretty evenly split between Sainsburys and Lidl.
Sainsburys you get the service and range. Lidl you get the price and quality but pay for it with the stores being a bit more untidy and there being little or no customer service.

Still like both models of doing business.
I will switch supermarkets at the drop of a hat.
People who simply stick to the same place week after week (unless its the only option available) are idiots.

snowballed

We're fortunate to have Aldi, Lidl, Sainsburys and Morrisons all within about 400m of each other. The kids' sporting commitments mean that I end up in that vicinity with an hour to kill a couple of times a week, so having all 4 together make it easy to mix and match between them. There's usually something I end up in one of the bigger two for (often bread, loose veg of the more exotic variety, fresh fish or the less ubiquitous cheeses) but more and more is coming from one or other of the two discounters.

My British friends who now live and work in Germany do bemoan the lack of choice compared to home though - so we're perhaps fortunate to have the best of both worlds.

silverwhistle

Soleil_lune wrote: »

I am with you here.

The thing I love about Tesco, Sainsburys, Asda, and Morrisons is that there are so many choices, but Aldi and Lidl are pitiful IMO.

Really? I can't say I find the myriad of different frozen/ready meals at all appealing in the big supermarkets.

There's certainly things you can't get, but I'm constantly surprised what you can. At Aldi decent Italian olive oil, free-range chicken, Mozzarella di Buffala, vanilla pods at £1.49 for 2, this coming week a whole Jambon serrano at a great price, plus most of the the ingredients you might want.

Depending on where I am and what I'm doing I'll also shop elsewhere, but I must say some of the criticism don't feel particularly relevant to my shopping habits and I really couldn't care less whether the car park was full of beemers or old bangers: is that relevant in any way?

geordie_joe

silverwhistle wrote: »

Really? I can't say I find the myriad of different frozen/ready meals at all appealing in the big supermarkets.

Where do people on here shop? Butchers that are half the price of supermarkets, supermarkets with a "myriad of different frozen/ready meals".

My local butchers are at least twice as expensive as the supermarkets. My local tesco has 16 aisles and only the back wall of the last aisle has freezers. Those freezers contain everything frozen the shop sells, veg, pies, ice cream, pizzas the lot. Considering each aisle has two sides, plus there are two other walls which have produce on them, the frozen section is less than 1/32 of the entire stock.

Either other people are shopping in weird places, or they are just exaggerating the bad things about supermarkets to make the place they shop at look better.

Are there really supermarkets that only sell frozen/ready meals? All the ones I have been in sell just about everything you could imagine, and some stuff I didn't even imagine existed. I've even been in an Iceland and half the stuff it sold wasn't frozen and it hardly had any ready meals!

borkid

Soleil_lune wrote: »

I am with you here.


Apart from that, the staff at Lidl AND Aldi are rude and ignorant and miserable and unhelpful. (In the 4 or 5 of each that I have been in anyway.)

Not all, at my local Lidl the checkout staff are as helpful and friendly as the ones at Waitrose and much better than the ones at the other big stores. Maybe it's how they are treated either by the line manager or/and the customers.

Pootle_3

Soleil_lune wrote: »

I am with you here.

Apart from that, the staff at Lidl AND Aldi are rude and ignorant and miserable and unhelpful. (In the 4 or 5 of each that I have been in anyway.)

The staff at the Aldi and Lidl where I shop are always cheerful, helpful and definitely not ignorant.

Perhaps you are just unlucky?

KxMx

I tried the Asda own brand roast beef meal and it was practically inedible.
The same product at Tesco is really good and gets brought plus enjoyed regularly I think it's really tasty.
I also like Tesco's value Toad in the Hole and Healthy Living Lasagne (I tried alot of those before I found one I liked).
Otherwise I stick to M&S for ready meals.

Doc_N

Pootle_3 wrote: »

The staff at the Aldi and Lidl where I shop are always cheerful, helpful and definitely not ignorant.

Perhaps you are just unlucky?

Unlucky? Nicely put!