Where does everyone do their grocery shop

benjus

We're on the Kent side of outer London and shop all over the place.

We have an excellent local butcher and a farm shop for fruit, veg and dairy so we try to use those as much as possible, although they don't have the long opening hours of supermarkets. There's a great Waitrose near where I work so I sometimes pick up things there on the way home, or at the medium-size Co-op next to the local station. Our nearest big supermarket to home is Morrisons so we use that fairly often. Sometimes go to Lidl for basics.

We do sometimes use online shopping (usually Ocado) but aren't usually organised enough to plan in advance. We sometimes get large meat deliveries from Turner and George, but I'm not sure we'll bother now we've found the great local butcher.

Then we pop into our nearest Italian deli every few weeks to stock up on Italian essentials.

flubberyzing

90% from Tescos, simply because it's my most convenient shop. It's an Extra, so lots of choice, easy to get to, and easy parking (important for a rubbish parker like me!)
There is a Waitrose quite literally at the end of my road, but I rarely go there for anything more than the odd pint of milk, or if I suddenly find myself out of something I need that day.
My town has a big Sainsburys, Asdas and Morrisons, but neither are close, or on my commute. I also have a few Aldis/Lidls in my town, but none are very convenient or local to me.

juliafreitaslove

Undoubtedly Aldi and ASDi are the renowned brands of Australia, I do prefer ALDI, simply because they still hold the crown of the cheapest supermarket in grocery domain, although they are some other good names too, likewise Coles and Woolworths but of course its a matter of choice. As per my knowledge, there is a threat somewhere around ALDI as germans have launched a brand with the name of LIDI in Australia as a competitor.

Gnocchi

I think my shopping method could be seen as complicated but we eat well and save a lot of £

I look up special offers on supermarket websites for things I buy. I don't buy stuff just bc it's on offer.

Any offers I like go in a notebook under each supermarket with the date the offer expires, bc I may buy it twice. I tried doing it on my Kindle but a notebook looks less geeky and doesn't disappear if the battery drains.

Once maybe twice a month I do an Ocado shop, mostly stuff for the freezer on offer but also other offers.

When I go to supermarkets if it's in front of me at cheapest or same price I buy it and take off Ocado on the Go or cross off list.

Because I have a list, I can usually whizz round 3 supermarkets in 2 hrs even on a Friday night.

So yeah.. Aldi, ASDA, b&m, Farmfoods, Lidl, Morrisons, Ocado, Poundland, Poundstretcher, Sainsbury's, Tesco, Waitrose.

andygb

We never shop online.
We try to buy each day, and I will walk six miles round trip to get the stuff.
We look for yellow ticket food, particularly meat which is still a good colour.
Then we go to "international shops" for veg, fruit, herbs, spices and loose leaf tea (£2.49 - £2.99 for 500g).
Aldi for other items, like soya milk, almonds, bottled water (we live in a hard water area, with lots of chlorine - don't like "swimming pool" tea), beers, wine.
We use poundshops for toiletries etc.

I may start bin diving soon, but not sure how that will work out, as I don't like heights:)

artyclarty

Generally I walk to the local tesco and lidl (20 mins each way) so can't carry much. So try to do shopping frequently and get some exercise. I also have a co-op that is a 5 minute walk away for when I'm feeling lazy, their reductions are quite good.

Once a fortnight take my classic car out for a run and tend to do a big shop over to aldi/iceland/b&m/home bargins/big tesco as they are all next to each other. When my partner's car needs diesel, generally once a month/every other month we saunter over to asda and look at reductions there (used to be our beer run too but they stopped stocking our favourite local beers) but apart from that, we don't really get much.

There is also a Sainsburys and M&S at the local out of town place that some weeks I go to instead of Aldi et al. Generally only go there if I have a good coupon for Sainsburys or have M&S vouchers or if I want to have a chat with some former colleagues at another food shop that I used to work at until I got transferred to another store (sorry, not allowed to mention which one though, but I do get a discount so the majority of my shopping comes from that particular chain ). Used to also go there for the Poundland and Poundstretcher but both of their leases were not renewed as they were going for the more upmarket retailers so I tend to go there for bits and bobs a lot less than I used to.

There is a Morrisons about 20 minute drive away. They do have a nice beer selection and great meat but have started charging for parking and the town's one way system is a nightmare!

JP08

About once a month we trek up to the very nice farm shop north of Huntingdon (about a 30 mile round trip) and stock up on meat products. Prices come in somewhere between Tesco standard and Tesco finest but the quality / service and knowledge of the source is just far above the supermarkets. You can see the cows, and the venison, "on the hoof" from the carpark, and the turkeys from the teashop. They do such wonderful things as Black Fen or Guinness or Paddington (pork and marmalade) sausages, black treacle cured bacon, Barnsley chops cut to order, rib eye steak covering half a plate and an inch thick if you like etc. And a great cheese counter.

Veg is good value too - get onions and tatties by the sack, cauliflowers are local from the fens.

Free parking too. And you can peek at the crocodiles ...

The only thing missing there is a fish counter - we've got a Lidl (x2), Aldi, Tesco, Co-op (x2) and Waitrose in town. Waitrose is the only one with a good quality fish counter.

Top up and wherever's convenient for veg and milk etc - quite often the Tesco Express at the top of the road as it doesn't involve the car.

Gonna give the farm shop a shameless plug : http://www.johnsonsofoldhurst.co.uk/farm-shop

Murphybear

We have Morrisons or Tesco to choose from plus a very small M & S. all the others are too far without making a special trip. We go to Waitrose as often as possible as we prefer their food.

We are lucky in having decent butchers, bakers and fish van for fresh stuff.

littlemissbossy

I shop mainly at Aldi and Asda but I do have a Booths very near by.

Does anyone else regularly shop at Booths as I have been trying to figure out how their "yellow sticker" system works, I call in last thing but there is nothing on the reduced shelf.

Moon_Keh

We mainly use Tesco as it's the closest store of any size. There's a reasonably compact one 8 miles away, good for keeping down travel and also good for my wife, who isn't well and sometimes can't get round anything bigger.

Once a week (usually a Sunday), I go to an Aldi and buy what we usually get from there. Then I visit the Waitrose a short distance away and run through my "pick your own offers", plus a few of the things that are competitively priced or unavailable elsewhere. That usually comes to about £15, so I get my free coffee and free Mail on Sunday. I take the paper home and log onto MyMail, enter the code on the back page and save the points. Just under six months' Mail on Sunday points is worth a £10 voucher at a variety of shops.

B&M gets visited when I'm working close by (usually pet food, toiletries, plus the odd other item).

The other thing I've noticed. As I work on the coast one day every week, I've started going in "local" store variants of some national chains. I work near some large seaside holiday areas, and one thing I've noticed as winter sets in is how much decent stuff there is reduced to clear in those shops. I'm wondering if the EPOS-linked ordering takes a while to catch up with the huge drop in usage now the holiday crowds have gone home and the caravan parks are closing. Probably won't last, but for a few weeks it's worth it.