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

robrymond

Jive and Titan bars are now 99p. It seems anything in the sweets/chocolate section in Aldi has rocketed more than other places. Aldi own brand sweets cost more than the real things or a few pence in it. £1.40 for fake Percy pigs is not far off the M&S price. 200g of chocolate now £1.99 when you can get Cadburys for the same price.

harz99

My Aldi shop this morning, and i was shocked to see all the carrots on sale were the Nairobi variety , but imported from Israel! Instead of being a bit wet, the bags ( and carrots) were dry looking. For heavens sake, we grow an abundance of carrots in the UK without the need for all the food miles importing stuff from the likes of India/Israel/Chile!

Cornucopia

robrymond said:

Jive and Titan bars are now 99p. It seems anything in the sweets/chocolate section in Aldi has rocketed more than other places. Aldi own brand sweets cost more than the real things or a few pence in it. £1.40 for fake Percy pigs is not far off the M&S price. 200g of chocolate now £1.99 when you can get Cadburys for the same price.

There is something of a pattern emerging whereby own-brand products that are very similar or identical to the branded product have suffered more price inflation than other more generic own-brand things.   I suspect that this is because some are made with the same ingredients as the main brand and some are actually made by the main brand e.g. Muller and Warburtons.   In tough times those brand owners and suppliers are going to trim down the own-brand discounts as far as they can.

However, the cheapest (still good quality) chocolate in Aldi is 43p/100g.  (So 86p for 200g).  

robrymond

Yeah the value stuff is still priced well, but I'm a bit of a snob and find it a bit sugary. Makes sense to what you say about branded stuff not seeing as much of an increase. It rings true for Cadburys which has seen its price marked newsagent bars go from £1 to £1.25.

YoungBlueEyes

I wouldn't choose cadbury over Aldi/Lidl for a choc bar, cadbury is nasty sugary muck. imo. If it was the only choc bar left I'd never eat chocolate again. 

YoungBlueEyes

Himself is the chocolate eater in this house. I like good dark chocolate, whereas he eats milk or dark. Aldi/Lidl are fine for choc, but himself was in B+M (I think) the other week and came back with a stack of Ferrero Rocher choc bars. They're most acceptable  

YoungBlueEyes

harz99 said:

Thing is Cadbury chocolate isn't made to sell to thinking people, it's to hook children and adults who need comfort food, well not need, just want...

The last time I had a cabury choc was one of those wee Freddo things. It was only pence so I risked it. I didn't even like the feel of it on my teeth when I bit into it, it was kinda grainy like all the sugar crystals hadn't dissolved properly. 90% went in the bin, and I'm sorry I swallowed the bit I did. Greasy and awful. 

TBF a Freddo probably isn't a good product to judge the whole company on, but I do.  

Doc_N

robrymond said:

Jive and Titan bars are now 99p. It seems anything in the sweets/chocolate section in Aldi has rocketed more than other places. Aldi own brand sweets cost more than the real things or a few pence in it. £1.40 for fake Percy pigs is not far off the M&S price. 200g of chocolate now £1.99 when you can get Cadburys for the same price.

Sadly, Aldi and Lidl are now pretty much mainstream supermarkets along with the rest. Nothing like the need there used to be to keep prices substantially below the others.

So long as they make sure they’re a bit cheaper, I think the days of them being 25-30% are probably gone. They no longer need to do that to fill the stores.

A._Badger

I agree about Aldi and Lidl having lost their edge but I suspect the reason is because the margins they were making were so much smaller than those of the mainstream supermarkets that when they were hit by cost price inflation they had less room to manoeuvre. They are still cheaper for a lot of products but not by as much as they once were.

Where Aldi has also lost its charm for me (I can't speak for Lidl as I don't shop there) is in its Satan's jumble sale middle aisle. I used to find all sorts of useful things there to tempt me (particularly gardening supplies) but I now find it filled with trashy, nasty ornaments and far too many poor quality children's items. It's one less reason to me shop there.



  

Doc_N

A._Badger said:

I agree about Aldi and Lidl having lost their edge but I suspect the reason is because the margins they were making were so much smaller than those of the mainstream supermarkets that when they were hit by cost price inflation they had less room to manoeuvre. They are still cheaper for a lot of products but not by as much as they once were.




  

That is absolutely true. Much less room to manoeuvre on their smaller margins. 

Not a problem for them though, now that they’ve been discovered by the masses (including quite a few former Waitrose shoppers!), because even a small overall % saving will probably keep people coming back. For me it’s the time saving as much as anything else, and who needs 4 varieties of tomato ketchup?