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

Doc_N

A._Badger said:

KxMx said:

I've always bought Dolmio but I really didn't like the last jar I got, so tried Aldi Specially Selected Passata with Basil and Oregano. 
Very nice indeed and definitely a regular buy for me from now on. Wouldn't go back to Dolmio.

Pumpkin89 is right about why Aldi's prices seem to have risen to much. They had a lot less room to manoeuvre when inflation began to bite. However, you have revealed Aldi's secret weapon. Not only are their prices still lower than the competition (usually, not always) but the quality of their own brand products is very high. I write as a onetime 'only Heinz tomato ketchup will do' person who now only buys Aldi's own brand.   

I agree with every word of that. It’s very rarely that you encounter an iffy Aldi own label product, and they’re very frequently superior to Tesco’s. Waitrose are rarely better, which is why so many have defected.  If they brought in a full delivery service I’d drop Tesco like a hot brick, but it’s not not profitable, so they won’t.  Tesco have recently introduced a surcharge on suppliers to cover some of their online costs, and it’s causing quite a stink.

As for ketchup, Which? revisited them very recently. Heinz scored 74% and Aldi 72%.  But Aldi was less than a quarter of the price. Heinz is an absolute ripoff company, conning people blind with the power of its branding.

Pollycat

Rosa_Damascena said:

Pollycat said:

KxMx said:

I've always bought Dolmio but I really didn't like the last jar I got, so tried Aldi Specially Selected Passata with Basil and Oregano. 
Very nice indeed and definitely a regular buy for me from now on. Wouldn't go back to Dolmio.

They do a pasta sauce (jar) with chianti.

Can you actually taste it?

(Academic question given that I don't cook and always have a bottle of wine on the go!).

When you use alcohol in cooking, the idea is to burn off the alcohol.
So it's a nice sauce that doesn't taste like a 250ml glass of Chianti.

Nelliegrace

Aldi bread flour was 55p, missing for months, now it is £1.15.

A._Badger

Nelliegrace said:

Aldi bread flour was 55p, missing for months, now it is £1.15.

In Aldi's defence, Sainsbury's is £1.30, Morrisons' is £1.29 and I can't tell the difference between any of the own brand strong white flours. 

Brie

Had to take a close look at something in Lidl named as a "paper pot stamp".  Turns out for £9.99 you can buy what looks like a short wooden pestle and a small wooden dish it fits neatly in to so that you can make seedling pots from old newspapers.  A nice idea but first problem is you then also have to buy newspapers.  Decided it was much more sensible to reuse all the old plastic pots from previous years or get more off freegle as everyone seems to be having a clear out.

SaverRate

Has anyone noticed in Lidl they have stopped stocking (or rarely have in) their dishwasher cleaner? 
Managed to get some a couple of months back from another branch but haven't seen any since

camelot1001

Brie said:

Had to take a close look at something in Lidl named as a "paper pot stamp".  Turns out for £9.99 you can buy what looks like a short wooden pestle and a small wooden dish it fits neatly in to so that you can make seedling pots from old newspapers.  A nice idea but first problem is you then also have to buy newspapers.  Decided it was much more sensible to reuse all the old plastic pots from previous years or get more off freegle as everyone seems to be having a clear out.

Lurker alert!

I have one of these, a present from The Netherlands. Funnily enough the best paper I have found to use is the Lidl weekly brochure!

Rosa_Damascena

Pollycat said:

Rosa_Damascena said:

Pollycat said:

KxMx said:

I've always bought Dolmio but I really didn't like the last jar I got, so tried Aldi Specially Selected Passata with Basil and Oregano. 
Very nice indeed and definitely a regular buy for me from now on. Wouldn't go back to Dolmio.

They do a pasta sauce (jar) with chianti.

Can you actually taste it?

(Academic question given that I don't cook and always have a bottle of wine on the go!).

When you use alcohol in cooking, the idea is to burn off the alcohol.
So it's a nice sauce that doesn't taste like a 250ml glass of Chianti.

The addition of the chianti is presumably to enhance the sauce through the flavour of the wine itself rather than the alcohol?

Aside from that, Aldi is getting a lot more business from me, collecting the TGTG bags is an excuse to spend another £25 or so on impulse household purchases.

thriftytracey

HP Brown sauce £2.99 in Lidl.  Bramwells about 79p or thereabouts.  I've thrown my receipt away now so not sure about exact price.  But brown sauce tastes OK.  Lidl Plus offered me a FOC Alesto product coupon this week, so I selected Alesto dried apricots.  Got home and saw I had been charged (and I had made the coupon active). So, it must have been one of their nut products FOC.  Check coupon more carefully!

Pollycat

thriftytracey said:

HP Brown sauce £2.99 in Lidl.  Bramwells about 79p or thereabouts.  I've thrown my receipt away now so not sure about exact price.  But brown sauce tastes OK.  Lidl Plus offered me a FOC Alesto product coupon this week, so I selected Alesto dried apricots.  Got home and saw I had been charged (and I had made the coupon active). So, it must have been one of their nut products FOC.  Check coupon more carefully!

We don't use a lot of brown sauce, just on the occasional bacon or sausage sandwich. But tasting 'ok' doesn't cut it for us.
It's one of the things we've tried down-shifting but always go back to HP.