went to aldis. shouldn't of bothered.

Cornucopia

briskbeats said:

Two years ago I was in Aldi and asked about spinach. They said it’s a seasonal item!! Funny how Lidl and the others can sell it!

Another thing that I don’t like about A&L is the lack of variety of flavours in certain items. Such as squash, yoghurts and cappuccino sachets. Which I get when they are on offer elsewhere.

I'm pretty sure that Aldi sells Spinach now.

Not sure what you mean by lack of flavours.   Personally, I don't have an issue with Squash that comes in Orange, Lemon, Apple & Blackcurrant, Peach Barley, Summerfruits, Summerfruits Barley, Orange Barley, High Juice, Squirty Squash, Strawberry & Watermelon, and a couple of others I can't remember.

Similarly with Yogurt:  Strawberry, Raspberry, Peach, Rhubarb, Cherry, Coconut, Blueberry, Tropical Fruit, Vanilla, Banana, Toffee, with Greek-style, Layered, Soya, Luxury and Pro-Biotic variants.   Big pots, little pots, tiny kids-sized pots, oversized Muller light type pots (which are probably made by Muller).

I don't know about Coffee sachets, as I have a Dolce Gusto machine.  Which Aldi sells pods for (3 varieties).

maman

I do take the point that some shoppers would prefer to use a supermarkets that offers loads of brands or flavours or choices. If they didn't exist then everyone would be shopping in Aldi. 

At the moment those choices are disappearing fast. It may be temporary because of supply issues but I suspect that rationalisation is here to stay as it allows supermarkets to help maintain profit margins. They've seen how successful the discounters are. It may just be happening faster because of Covid and Brexit.

In the current situation, Aldi seems to have good stock availability whereas I noticed in both Asda and Sainsburys they've bought in special boards to cover up empty shelving.,☹️

briskbeats

maman said:

I do take the point that some shoppers would prefer to use a supermarkets that offers loads of brands or flavours or choices. If they didn't exist then everyone would be shopping in Aldi. 

At the moment those choices are disappearing fast. It may be temporary because of supply issues but I suspect that rationalisation is here to stay as it allows supermarkets to help maintain profit margins. They've seen how successful the discounters are. It may just be happening faster because of Covid and Brexit.

In the current situation, Aldi seems to have good stock availability whereas I noticed in both Asda and Sainsburys they've bought in special boards to cover up empty shelving.,☹️

It depends on where the depots are to your nearest stores. A friend who works at a supermarket where the depot is a few miles away, and therefore the closest seems to have very few stock issues. Then with my work, the depots used are 40 miles away and it took ages to make the shelves more presentable. 

Skintoap

I think the days of vast choices in supermarkets are long gone. About three years ago our local Tesco superstore announced a “rationalisation” of brands. More space was made available for non-food items, and there was less choice between various branded goods. Now our local Sainsburys includes Argos, and the space comes from reducing the number of lines stocked. All this started before Covid and Brexit. Margins on food sales are relatively tight, so lines that don’t shift quickly will not be stocked. The supply chain difficulties just make it more obvious. 

cattom

Skintoap said:

I think the days of vast choices in supermarkets are long gone. About three years ago our local Tesco superstore announced a “rationalisation” of brands. More space was made available for non-food items, and there was less choice between various branded goods. Now our local Sainsburys includes Argos, and the space comes from reducing the number of lines stocked. All this started before Covid and Brexit. Margins on food sales are relatively tight, so lines that don’t shift quickly will not be stocked. The supply chain difficulties just make it more obvious. 

As I said earlier in this discussion, I'm tending more and more now to use our local shops. meat from the butcher, bread and cakes from the baker etc. better produce and generally speaking better staff too.

maman

Sadly @cattom , supporting local shops
isn't generally very cost effective.

We do have a local butcher but it's very much of the Farmers' Market type and the prices are ridiculous. I can buy good quality meat for a fraction of the price in Aldi and the quality is still there. 

briskbeats

Cornucopia said:

briskbeats said:

Two years ago I was in Aldi and asked about spinach. They said it’s a seasonal item!! Funny how Lidl and the others can sell it!

Another thing that I don’t like about A&L is the lack of variety of flavours in certain items. Such as squash, yoghurts and cappuccino sachets. Which I get when they are on offer elsewhere.

I'm pretty sure that Aldi sells Spinach now.

Not sure what you mean by lack of flavours.   Personally, I don't have an issue with Squash that comes in Orange, Lemon, Apple & Blackcurrant, Peach Barley, Summerfruits, Summerfruits Barley, Orange Barley, High Juice, Squirty Squash, Strawberry & Watermelon, and a couple of others I can't remember.

Similarly with Yogurt:  Strawberry, Raspberry, Peach, Rhubarb, Cherry, Coconut, Blueberry, Tropical Fruit, Vanilla, Banana, Toffee, with Greek-style, Layered, Soya, Luxury and Pro-Biotic variants.   Big pots, little pots, tiny kids-sized pots, oversized Muller light type pots (which are probably made by Muller).

I don't know about Coffee sachets, as I have a Dolce Gusto machine.  Which Aldi sells pods for (3 varieties).

With yoghurts, when I want to get some its either peach or strawberry left. Not keen on both. Squash is usually orange on its own left - don't like orange on its own as tastes plasticky. 

One example I can think of now which other supermarkets definitely have different varieties are Philly type cheese. Every time I go to Lidl or Aldi, the herb one is always taken. When I go to the big 4 and see Philly on offer with the different flavours such as the carmalised onion, I buy it. 

Cornucopia

briskbeats said:

With yoghurts, when I want to get some its either peach or strawberry left. Not keen on both. Squash is usually orange on its own left - don't like orange on its own as tastes plasticky. 

One example I can think of now which other supermarkets definitely have different varieties are Philly type cheese. Every time I go to Lidl or Aldi, the herb one is always taken. When I go to the big 4 and see Philly on offer with the different flavours such as the carmalised onion, I buy it. 

One of the ways in which Aldi & Lidl save costs is by having multiple varieties in the same outer box.   That gives them one set of boxes to manage instead of 4 or 5.   The downside is that sometimes the more popular variety runs out first.   Customers sometimes dig down to lower boxes, too, which can make the display untidy.

Lidl has more variety in soft cheese than Aldi, but they both have at least one Herb variety. 

The point of this is that these cost savings are passed on to customers.   e.g. Aldi Fruit & Barley Peach variety is 69p for 1L, whereas Tesco is 85p.   Robinsons is £1.65.

briskbeats

Cornucopia said:

briskbeats said:

With yoghurts, when I want to get some its either peach or strawberry left. Not keen on both. Squash is usually orange on its own left - don't like orange on its own as tastes plasticky. 

One example I can think of now which other supermarkets definitely have different varieties are Philly type cheese. Every time I go to Lidl or Aldi, the herb one is always taken. When I go to the big 4 and see Philly on offer with the different flavours such as the carmalised onion, I buy it. 

One of the ways in which Aldi & Lidl save costs is by having multiple varieties in the same outer box.   That gives them one set of boxes to manage instead of 4 or 5.   The downside is that sometimes the more popular variety runs out first.   Customers sometimes dig down to lower boxes, too, which can make the display untidy.

Lidl has more variety in soft cheese than Aldi, but they both have at least one Herb variety. 

The point of this is that these cost savings are passed on to customers.   e.g. Aldi Fruit & Barley Peach variety is 69p for 1L, whereas Tesco is 85p.   Robinsons is £1.65.

I knew someone worked for Aldi and they had no sales figures of which varieties, flavours 

Cornucopia

briskbeats said:

I knew someone worked for Aldi and they had no sales figures of which varieties, flavours 

When we've discussed this before, it seems that there is a mix - some lines have different barcodes for the variants and some don't.   Where there are different barcodes, they could be provided sales info.

However, the ordering/packing process would need to be pretty clever to adjust the mix of variants in outer boxes in response to sales, and I suspect they either cannot do this, or if they can it only responds to national sales trends. 

There's also a question of whether variants have the same wholesale costs, and if they don't then increasing the proportion of a more expensive variant may affect the overall profitability of that line.