Good and Bad Buying at Lidl and Aldi (***Please don't expire***)

Doc_N

This all sounds pretty horrendous. Tesco and Waitrose deliveries are costing me an arm and a leg by comparison with Aldi and Lidl, but unless and until we get this virus under control I’ll be sticking with it.

I’m no lover of Tesco, but it’s the lesser of two evils as things stand. At least Aldi do click and collect but Lidl must be losing a fair chunk of trade.

harz99

od244051 said:

maman said:

My Aldi put the plastic screens between checkouts in place from March and they're still there. All that's changed is that they started off with a guy at the door managing the queue, offering sanitised trolleys, checking people were shopping alone and allowing shoppers in and out to keep numbers down. He was replaced by the traffic lights which IMO was a retrograde step but I was slightly reassured when queues at the traffic lights appeared last week because of congestion inside. 

I drive past one Aldi most days on the way to work and I have never seen the light on red, even the last 10 days to Christmas. My parents' neighbours say that you can't social distance in many parts of the store since the traffic lights were introduced. I think there's a fault with them,

Aldi have never said what number is used for the social distancing in each store or how they arrived at it. If they are using the premises fire limit that will certainly be far higher than required for social distancing at 2 metres. I'm lucky as I am in the age/disability bracket allowed in before the tills open, and I use that concession to ensure I meet as few others as possible!

Pollycat

od244051 said:

As of interest, is you area have loads of cases? Mine is below average for England- c450 per 100k.

If you are in the SE England where some areas have 1000+ cases per 100k. So there’s more chance more staff are SI for either got Covid themselves, household has it or been told to SI via TnT 

My area is much lower at 310 per 100,000.

Our Aldi has been brilliant since I restarted shopping there after the first lockdown was eased.

Never had to queue to get in (although when I went up for my final shop before Christmas/New Year, people were queuing to get in when I came out), never too many people in there to make me feel uncomfortable, no big queues at checkout.

The tills aren't back to back so no issue there.

Most people seem to be wearing a mask, social distancing generally observed.

od244051

harz99 said:

od244051 said:

maman said:

My Aldi put the plastic screens between checkouts in place from March and they're still there. All that's changed is that they started off with a guy at the door managing the queue, offering sanitised trolleys, checking people were shopping alone and allowing shoppers in and out to keep numbers down. He was replaced by the traffic lights which IMO was a retrograde step but I was slightly reassured when queues at the traffic lights appeared last week because of congestion inside. 

I drive past one Aldi most days on the way to work and I have never seen the light on red, even the last 10 days to Christmas. My parents' neighbours say that you can't social distance in many parts of the store since the traffic lights were introduced. I think there's a fault with them,

Aldi have never said what number is used for the social distancing in each store or how they arrived at it. If they are using the premises fire limit that will certainly be far higher than required for social distancing at 2 metres. I'm lucky as I am in the age/disability bracket allowed in before the tills open, and I use that concession to ensure I meet as few others as possible!

I remember having someone from the council coming into my work and they asked questions to myself and colleagues to see if we have covid compliant information. One of questions which was answered by me was the capacity, It has been reduced by a third since the current lockdown, about 2.5 times more since the first lockdown. Aldi staff should know what the capacity is for the store they are working at.

mikb

Apologies for hijacking this Coronavirus thread ...

The Special Buys in ALDI today include a 17 drawer and 33 drawer plastic storage unit, under the "WORKZONE" Aldi-Brand.

https://www.aldi.co.uk/workzone-17-organiser-drawers/p/802859439172701
https://www.aldi.co.uk/workzone-33-organiser-drawers/p/802859435399200

According to the smallprint on the back, and in the drawers,  these are actually made in Germany, by Allit AG (www.allit24.com) originally as the "VarioPlus Hobby 17/33"

Considering prices of these on Amazon/eBay, they are a good deal at £8.99 each!

maman

I know we digressed a bit from the products but.... Surely it's important to know that people are safe shopping in Aldi and Lidl. 🤔

charlies_mum

Placed my second click & collect order with Aldi for collection between 9-10 am this morning.    Just got confirmation that eight items are out of stock including cooked meats and milk, so I’m going to have to go into the store anyway.  

Not impressed, I’ll be ordering from Iceland next time 

Pollycat

mikb said:

Apologies for hijacking this Coronavirus thread ...

The Special Buys in ALDI today include a 17 drawer and 33 drawer plastic storage unit, under the "WORKZONE" Aldi-Brand.

https://www.aldi.co.uk/workzone-17-organiser-drawers/p/802859439172701
https://www.aldi.co.uk/workzone-33-organiser-drawers/p/802859435399200

According to the smallprint on the back, and in the drawers,  these are actually made in Germany, by Allit AG (www.allit24.com) originally as the "VarioPlus Hobby 17/33"

Considering prices of these on Amazon/eBay, they are a good deal at £8.99 each!

I have something similar to this for my dressmaking things, although mine is made of metal with plastic drawers and has 5 across and 2 medium and one large drawer.

It's perfect for organising different coloured cottons etc.

harz99

charlies_mum said:

Placed my second click & collect order with Aldi for collection between 9-10 am this morning.    Just got confirmation that eight items are out of stock including cooked meats and milk, so I’m going to have to go into the store anyway.  

Not impressed, I’ll be ordering from Iceland next time 

Do they offer substitutions? Like a lot of people I guess, I stopped using the big supermarkets deliveries because I struggled to make the minimum order to avoid a surcharge and more importantly a lot of stuff was going out of stock between order and delivery date, meaning we didn't get things we really needed.

charlies_mum

No, they didn’t offer substitutions.    I assume early Monday morning is a bad time as they may not have had a delivery, but they were out of stock of milk, cooked meats, leeks, cucumber etc.     I can’t believe they didn’t have any cooked beef or ham that they could have substituted.    I phoned customer services and cancelled my order and have now placed an order with Iceland.   

It was interesting to see the two orders side by side.    Iceland is notably more expensive due to having to buy branded products.