[Food] Aldi/Lidl Blindness

[usernamed]

No blindness here either. Aldi (when you have babies) does the best nappies (Mamia range) at a fraction of the price of Pampers/Huggies etc.

Lidl has a decent bakery selection, an excellent St. Emilion wine for £11.99 a bottle (it needs to be opened the day before drinking to breathe to be at its best) and for an occasional treat the Ben Bracken single malt scotch (speyside my favourite) beats whisky at triple the price.

Aldi have (or had) the better own brand ales, brewed by Wychwood who make Hobgoblin.

As others have said, you go accepting that they won’t have some of what you need, but the quality of what they have is good. The lack of fresh herbs/spices and the fact that supply of particular products seems to be patchy is my only real bugbear with them.

I tend to get the bulk of my shopping at Lidl, and then fill the gaps at Sainsbury’s. Savings seem to be around £15-£20 a week over a “Sainsburys only” shop. For the minor inconvenience of visiting two stores 5 minutes apart, it seems worth it.

 

[DavidinSouthampton]

Didn’t 2 brothers start Lidl and fell out so one left and started Aldi? Would probably explain why they are so similar if true

You may be thinking of Adidas and Puma…….

 

[Gwylan]

Our nearest supermarket is Aldi and it's great - no problems with the quality. I disagree with the earlier comment about fruit and veg going off after two days though; I find it's the exact opposite problem, they need two or three days to ripen a bit more.

I go so rarely to Lidl, that I can't compare the two - if you live in Brighton, the two stores are miles apart, so there's little chance of mixing them up.

The only problem with Aldi is that it's not great for vegetarians. It doesn't do tofu or tempeh, it used to do vegetarian pies but seems to have stopped stocking those and there's not much in the way of convenient food like Quorn slices. I suppose that's the German influence - vegetarianism over there is treated like it's some form of disease, so it's hardly surprising that the supermarkets follow suit.

It just means that I have to finish the shopping at Sainsbury's, no big deal

 

[DavidinSouthampton]

We’ve got a very good ALDI near us. Our nearest LIDL smells.

I/we wouldn’t hesitate to go to a decent one of either.

Would always go elsewhere for select things like tea, about which we are fussy.

 

[Madafwo]

I'm the reverse of a couple of people here, I do the main shop at Asda on a regular basis as it is incredibly convinient to get it delivered but I'll pop to Lidl in Newhaven every few weeks to stock up on non-perishables in bulk.

We used to do our main shop at Lidl every week but found that things like bread and fresh meat would go off just a couple of days earlier than the stuff from Asda.

 

[mikeyjh]

The fruit and veg is good if you ate going to eat it within the next 2 days after that not good.

See another of people who working in takeaways buying bulk items.

I've one bag carrots and one of onions that had rotten items in them last month or so, had to battle for compo! To be honest, I only use their fruit and veg if I have to, it's so bloody cheap I don't like to of the provenance. I love using a proper greengrocer but they're a bit hard to find, used to enjoy my stroll to Southwick Square to use the butcher and greengrocer

 

[jessiejames]

Like the middle of Lidl, got a coffee machine in there the other week, branded name £75 cheaper than anywhere.

 

[Herr Tubthumper]

I suppose that's the German influence - vegetarianism over there is treated like it's some form of disease,

And veganism a severe disability.

 

[maresfield seagull]

You may be thinking of Adidas and Puma…….

Seems the OP is correct
2 Brothers much like the Puma Adidas
Split nord and sud when sharing out the company
Aldi UK is the Sud half of the deal

 

[Deleted member 2719]

These budget boys seem to be slipping in standards in the past year, particularly the past 6 months.

Fruit doesn't seem to have been checked quality-wise, for example, blueberries 2/3 of the pack will be fine and a 1/3 will last about a day, then be rotten, even when it has a BB date of another 4 to 5 days, its as if they are chucking in the stuff they would normally have moved on to other products.

Has anyone else experienced this?

We have also had the Ashfield chicken which is appalling, soaking in its tray, and the consistency is nothing like chicken as we knew it, we have also had it go off 3 days before the use-by date 3 times now.

However much cheaper they are and if they keep cutting corners they will lose our business for sure because they don't even react to feedback.

Has anyone else dealt with their customer services?

 

[pearl]

https://youtu.be/2gwEGPqZx2o

 

[Jesus Gul]

Anyone else suffer from this affliction? Got one or other budget supermarket just down the road from me, it's been there for years now, no idea which one it is,they just seem totally interchangeable

been posted on here before but any excuse to get the Aldi/Lidl half n half out