Like fellow blogger, John Gray of Going Gently, I too am not a fan of the cheap supermarkets like Aldi and Lidl that are currently rocking the UK supermarket world. I have tried it several times (Roberto loves it!) but it just leaves me cold. I have tasted the food. Roberto promised me the tinned soup "tasted just like Heinz"....It didn't. It's not nice at all. I have tried the baked beans - yuk! The cheap mayonnaise tastes like vinegar and the vegetables don't last much longer than a day. I have given Aldi products a good go and I simply don't like them. Okay, you get a trolley load of food for £30 but it's cheap food and you get what you pay for.
Don't get me wrong, we are on a budget as well and I do love a bargain as much as the next person but I just don't like to compromise on good quality food, and I now refuse to go anywhere near Aldi, much to Roberto's indignation.
As for the checkout, be prepared to have your many purchases slung at you at very high speed. The checkout staff are timed for each customer, so the faster they get them checked through, the better (maybe they get a bonus for serving the most customers?). As soon as you tell them whether it's "cash or card", the timer is stopped and you can try and catch your breath and endeavour to finish packing your shopping in a timely fashion so that the next customers can be flung through.
I seem to feel the energy in places and when I go into an Aldi shop, I just have this urge to run like hell as soon as I get into the shop. I'm sorry if I am upsetting any avid Aldi shoppers but to me the shop feels dirty and scuzzy, and I won't go back. Stamps foot!
Must be an English thing. When I was last in Germany the closest shop to my brother's place was an Aldi. It was brilliant and felt more like a well run village shop than a supermarket.
ReplyDeleteHi Hippo. I've never been to Germany but I imagine their Aldis are spotlessly clean, efficiently organised and with decent food stocked in them. Ours just seem to be dirty and scruffy and always have pallets of stock all over the floor.
DeleteI'm with you.... though I have a very fussy, snooty friend, who since moving to Herefordshire, swears by the veggies and other bargainous foodstuffs she's had from Lidl! And the speed of the checkouts she describes as 'efficient'. I have been in one only once, and that was enough. I may not be giving it a fair go on just one experience, but it felt ..... well cheap and nasty, with cheap and nasty goods stacked any old how, and just not a good vibe/feel to the place. I get the same 'run for the hills' feel when I went into a new humongous Tesco several miles from us.... too loud music playing, overheated, everything under the one roof so that you went from the overpowering smell of the perfume counters, to the vegetables, cramped aisles too, a general feeling of being herded like cattle. We're pensioners, on a budget too, but like you, I won't compromise on food, so these cheap places are not for me either.
ReplyDeleteGood to see a post from you...x
Hi Edwina. Thanks for your comment. I get the "vibe/feel" of a place as soon as I walk in as well. I am like you with Tesco - it leaves me cold. I have also seen Mercs and BMWs and posh ladies with Waitrose bags shopping in Aldi.
DeleteI don't mind "Aldi" but I prefer "Lidl". Sociologically speaking many people kind of define themselves through the stores where they shop. For example, subconsciously people who shop at Waitrose may feel that they have "arrived" and are a cut above those grubby people who huddle around bargain supermarkets.
ReplyDeleteI am with Roberto all the way. Lidl has excellent meat and fresh fish and fresh bakery products. Aldi's fruit and vegetables are fresh and fairly priced. Shopping at Lidl and sometimes Aldi saves us hundreds of pounds a year but I will pop into Waitrose or Sainsburys occasionally for items that the bargain supermarkets don't stock.
One of the saddest days of my life was when I learnt that "Netto" was being taken over by ASDA but now a new "Netto" is rising phoenix-like from the ashes and if there was one near us I'd be there every week.
Our local supermarket is Morrison's which I like because the meat is all British and it's good meat. I do remember Netto. We had one in Market Weighton for about 20 years. I remember people in Beverley being horrified that a Netto was coming but then it was really busy when it opened.
ReplyDeleteI cant go in Primark. I want to tidy up it is like a jumble sale
ReplyDeleteSol, I have that OCD thing as well!
Deleteits such a mess and people seem to love it. yuk
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