Where does everyone do their grocery shop

Mr_Singleton

Apart from 3? exceptions have to say that I'm left saddened by the lack of people supporting local shops/markets.

Fruit and veg is far cheaper in my experience from markets and local shops than the Supermakets. Take vine tomato's last time I looked Lidl/Aldi were selling at £2.20/kg, whereas the majors were up at around £2.40/kg. Couldn't find an independent charging more than £1.45/kg and best price was 0.79/kg.

As for my shopping habits I'm led by quality so you'll find me shopping at Dalston Kingsland/Walthamstow market for fruit and veg. I'm a total !!!!! when it comes to supermarket loyalty and just use the cheapest one at the time for store cupboard items which I bulk buy. Tesco was recently doing De Cecco Pasta at 77p so I "cough" bought a 'few' packets. Cheese is either Paxton & Whitfield or Neal's yard. Coffee, Algerian Coffee Stores. Fish, from Billingsgate but that's more to do with freshness and choice as the staples are only a bit cheaper than the multiples but premium fish are MUCH cheaper i.e monkfish. Meat I don't buy that much of but often bring it back from France on the Eurostar, chicken especially. The Sunday market at March! Bastille is a favourite and a 10 minute walk away Marche d'Aligre.

suki1964

Mr_Singleton wrote: »

Apart from 3? exceptions have to say that I'm left saddened by the lack of people supporting local shops/markets.

Fruit and veg is far cheaper in my experience from markets and local shops than the Supermakets. Take vine tomato's last time I looked Lidl/Aldi were selling at £2.20/kg, whereas the majors were up at around £2.40/kg. Couldn't find an independent charging more than £1.45/kg and best price was 0.79/kg.

As for my shopping habits I'm led by quality so you'll find me shopping at Dalston Kingsland/Walthamstow market for fruit and veg. I'm a total !!!!! when it comes to supermarket loyalty and just use the cheapest one at the time for store cupboard items which I bulk buy. Tesco was recently doing De Cecco Pasta at 77p so I "cough" bought a 'few' packets. Cheese is either Paxton & Whitfield or Neal's yard. Coffee, Algerian Coffee Stores. Fish, from Billingsgate but that's more to do with freshness and choice as the staples are only a bit cheaper than the multiples but premium fish are MUCH cheaper i.e monkfish. Meat I don't buy that much of but often bring it back from France on the Eurostar, chicken especially. The Sunday market at March! Bastille is a favourite and a 10 minute walk away Marche d'Aligre.

I would love to support a local market, unfortunately we don't have them

We have St Georges market in Belfast, Friday and Saturday mornings. A foodies haven, and prices to match add the cost of the journey, and the parking, and seriously it's just not worth the cost

Add to which with the weather here, so much produce is imported. My county is so wet only grass,cows and animal feeds are grown. We only have six counties. A lot of our staples are grown under cover, with that the cost increases. Even as a country famed for spuds, we import more then we grow

I miss London and the wealth and diversity of cheap food stuffs. However I've just had to learn to adapt. Thankfully lidl here uses NI producers as much as they can, if not Eire.

Thankfully I live near a Moy Park processing plant and I can buy chicken for pennies and do so. Son in law works pt in a meat processing plant and sometimes we hit lucky there as well

Lucyxx

We tried Aldi for a full shop almost for a laugh thinking it would be terrible (ours used to be rubbish for fresh fruit & veg) and saved so much money & it had improved massively in there, that we now use that for the majority of the weekly shop. I wish we had done it sooner!

I pop into Asda for vegan spread/yogurts/milk and microwave rice for work. Wholewheat pasta (never seen this in Aldi!) & nicer kale as the Aldi one always seemed to smell weird and as that is mostly for my bunnies I don't want to make them poorly!

Then Morrisons for washing liquid, better squash (Robinsons lemon barley water) and better crisps (the Aldi ones just taste of grease to me), frozen chargrilled veg and Linda McCartney sausage rolls & vegan ice cream for a treat!

Doshwaster

Mr_Singleton wrote: »

Apart from 3? exceptions have to say that I'm left saddened by the lack of people supporting local shops/markets.

I would love to use a local butcher, baker and greengrocer but it doesn't help that they close their doors when I'm still at work. It also doesn't help that the town council charges for parking. The "market" has been reduced to a couple of stalls selling socks and pants.

Maybe if the shops opened late one or two days a week and there was 30-60 mins free parking then I would consider supporting them.

Gnocchi

My mother taught me ' Get the best quality you can for the cheapest possible price.' My food shopping habits are kinda complicated therefore.

On the quality bit I look for organic, free range and wild first and if not available, at least additive free.

With regard to prices, I shop offers like old European women shop markets. What we eat depends on what's on offer. If chicken is on offer, I stuff the freezer. If tinned wild salmon in is on offer, I stock up until husband us moaning about falling over tins of the stuff.

I don't have prejudices against food stores. In the past two months I have used Aldi, ASDA, B&M, Farmfoods, Lidl, Morrisons, Poundland, Poundstretcher, Sainsbury's, Tesco and Waitrose plus Ocado online.

I used to use a Polish shop and a halal shop locally for tahini, kefir, deli meats, coconut oil, stock cubes, herbs, spices, butter and sour cream. Unfortunately, both Polish shops and the halal shop have closed since the EU referendum.

We don't have a farmer's market but during the summer there's a local food stall in the market. But it's expensive, being aimed at Down From London tourists and I object to paying more for sprayed local stuff than I can get for organic in a supermarket I trust.

sarahj1986

Found myself in a routine of doing a "big shop" from Ocado once a month on or just after payday. I buy heavy items, plus whatever special offer meat and fish I can get. I then will top up once or twice a week with fresh fruit and vegetables. No real loyalty, I use Aldi, Tesco or Morrisons depending on what exactly I want. My husband if he's cooking something and needs to buy ingredients then he goes to Morrisons. I'd say overall it's roughly 40% Ocado, 30% Morrisons, 15% Aldi and 15% Tesco

omidaverde

Usually whatever is closest but now we live near a Sainsbury's and it's like 31p extra for pet food, 35p for orange juice, so we are going to do an online shop and get it delivered instead as all these extra pennies add up to £'s quite fast. Last time we used Asda but will likely use Tesco from now on as it's our preferred.

ohit

Waitrose.
Started toying with Amazon online deliveries for some packaged stuff - we're still investigating

Namaste37

We shop in Aldi every week and once a month I go to Tesco and stock up on Almond milk, gluten free products. If Aldi stocked gluten free bread, pasta and almond milk I would be very happy. I also buy toiletries once a month in Tesco or Asda as Aldi don't do the brands we like to use.

duchy

Aldi mostly as it's the closest and best value.
I've never had a brand thing going on and Aldi's meat, veg and dairy are all excellent at my branch.

We did take a trip to Lidl and their fish was exceptionally good

Tesco I always spend too much time and money going around its vastness.

We also have a Co op and Sainsburys local which I use for bits between shops.