"Eat Well For Less?" - thoughts?

Butterfly_Brain

What annoyed me was that they didn't include Aldi and Lidl in their shopping.
Yet in the last show there was a used Lidl bag in the car?

Cornucopia

It's a fundamental challenge for the BBC. They can't be seen to give undue prominence (still less a recommendation) for particular companies. In an area like Supermarkets (small number of competitors, obvious demarcation on price/type) it's tricky for them.

Hence the taste-test type items in the programme. It's okay if the public prefer Asda cheese (was it?), but not okay for the BBC's presenters or experts to.

Similar programmes on C4 seem less constrained.

catkins

Cornucopia wrote: »

That was their weekly spend, but the single main shop in Sainsbury's was £190, IIRC.

Obviously, it depends on what you buy. The semi-official figures show that Sainsbury's is more expensive than Asda. Sainsbury's is certainly (in my experience and by the official figures) significantly more expensive than Aldi (some products getting on for double the Aldi price).

About a quarter of my weekly spend is from the chilled deli area, and I know that Aldi has a great deal of choice/quality there, as well as being cheaper than main supermarkets on pretty much every product.

This is one of the common objections, though I'm not sure how accurate it is. Unless you have a special/unusual diet, I wouldn't have thought shopping in Aldi was a problem.

But it's up to the individual. Maybe there is slightly more effort involved in splitting the shopping, but maybe there are significant savings to be had?

Both me and OH hate food shopping so we do a big shop every 4 to 6 weeks. I almost always put my list into "mysupermarket.com" and a lot of the time Sainsburys is the cheapest.


We do go to Lidl, but not very often, partly because, as I say, we don't like shopping but also because we just can't buy everything we want. We are vegetarian and buy things like big bags of lentils, chickpeas, black eyed beans, vegetable suet etc and Lidl and Aldi either don't sell these or only in small bags which work out more expensive. Also our Sainsburys have a more varied selection of fruit and veg

Cornucopia

This is definitely a weakness with A & L - they are too small to stock the vast variety of products of the big supermarkets, and specialist/niche products are what is excluded.

Also, because their shelves are stocked with unfamiliar looking products, you really need to be an enthusiastic shopper (willing to try things) to get the most from them.

candygirl

Butterfly_Brain wrote: »

What annoyed me was that they didn't include Aldi and Lidl in their shopping.
Yet in the last show there was a used Lidl bag in the car?

Yep! In the first show especially, the family live in Chorley , which is surrounded by all the major supermarkets inc at least a couple of Lidls n Aldis! :D
Ps I am also veggie, n find Lidl useless for me, but Aldi is great, even stock veggie cheese, burgers etc

catkins

candygirl wrote: »

Yep! In the first show especially, the family live in Chorley , which is surrounded by all the major supermarkets inc at least a couple of Lidls n Aldis! :D
Ps I am also veggie, n find Lidl useless for me, but Aldi is great, even stock veggie cheese, burgers etc

The Aldi near me sometimes has veggie beanburgers but it is very hit and miss. Lidl almost always have Linda McCartney sausages (the only ones I like) and are usually half the price of anywhere else.


Other than sausages and, occasionally beanburgers, I don't really buy veggie food as such. I tend to buy loads of veg, lentils, chickpeas etc

Austin_Allegro

JackieO wrote: »

My brother lives in France and thinks its a hoot that folk in England turn their noses up at Aldi's or Lidls.They are the normal shops there.Where he lives is quite rural and he will drive his partner Sandra and himself into the nearest 'big' town of Ruffec once a month to get staples and essentials The nearest tiny supermarket is 9 miles from him and has very limited stocks anyway They do go to the farmers market there about once a fortnight and can buy veg that was pulled or picked the day beforeand at a fraction of the price I pay In season they can buy asparagas at 50p for a huge bunch ( I drool when he tells me this )But some things are more expensive ,clothes are not cheap and the charity shop doesn't seem to exist where he lives.The programme was really more of a light entertainment programme and I'm not too sure if folk learned a lot apart from how to dispose of a lot of money when you don't need to.Most of the people on here are far more money-savvy so this sort of programme would be wasted on them.
I'd like to see a cookery programme with Jack Monroe showing people how to feed yourself on buttons as she did when her shopping money was down to £10.00 per week for herself and her little boy.Now that would be worth watching

There's a reason why Britain is known as 'Treasure Island' in the retail trade. Silly British snobbery and one-upmanship means people are willing to pay higher prices in an attempt to impress people and feel better about themselves. It's no wonder that people in other countries laugh at us! :rotfl:

That said, you rightly point out that charity shops aren't so good in most other countries. The USA is the only country I've been to that had better charity shops than the UK. But again, that's partly because of snob value - people think it's a sign of poverty to shop in charity shops so there's always lots of good stuff to choose from.

When I used to live in Hungary, charity shops (called 'English Shops' there LOL) were the only shops most people could afford to buy from, so consequently there was rarely any decent stuff left to choose from.

ash28

Cornucopia wrote: »

This is definitely a weakness with A & L - they are too small to stock the vast variety of products of the big supermarkets, and specialist/niche products are what is excluded.

Also, because their shelves are stocked with unfamiliar looking products, you really need to be an enthusiastic shopper (willing to try things) to get the most from them.

I'm happy not to have the vast array of products and if I want something specific that isn't stocked then I go somewhere that does stock it.

I agree with the idea that you have to be willing to try things, however, for me a tin of tomatoes is a tin of tomatoes and the quality of those in A & L is second to none for the money.

The families in the show remind in some ways of shopping when on holiday, where you see some Brits paying absolutely exhorbitant prices for stuff on the UK shelves when there are equivalent local products available, often at less than half the price.

rockm87

I quite liked the idea of a kitchen with no branding - just food!

maman

Cornucopia wrote: »

This is definitely a weakness with A & L - they are too small to stock the vast variety of products of the big supermarkets, and specialist/niche products are what is excluded.

Also, because their shelves are stocked with unfamiliar looking products, you really need to be an enthusiastic shopper (willing to try things) to get the most from them.

I'm not sure how recently you shopped in Aldi. At one time I used to go there and then call into Sainsbury's for the (longish) list of things Aldi didn't sell. Now what I buy in Sainsbury's is very limited and sometimes don't call there at all.


They do have a good range of typically continental meats and cheeses but then so do the decent supermarkets. But if you prefer to stick to fish, chips and mushy peas they sell those too!;)


Personally I prefer to not have miles of shelves with loads of versions of the same thing. It makes my weekly shop much quicker.