Aldi, your days are numbered

[TheBabyAteMyBrain]

First you fuck with the design of your pull ups so they give my toddler a wedgie and leak all the time, but now, now you've gone too far by changing your camembert.

I made gorgeous chorizo bread, I prepared the cheese, I popped a bottle of fizz and it all went to hell when I baked your stupid camembert. The packaging had changed but I never expected the puffed up scrambled egg mess that came out of the oven. Where was the ooze? Where was the goo. So. Disappointed.

I will now be frequenting tesco for my cheese needs.

You're on your last chance aldi, stop messing with my shopping.

fruit and veg is poor - meat usually good quality especially steak, chocolate is the best and I love it when the fancy pastas are available.

What annoys me about Aldi is that their fruit and veg often go bad very very quickly in my experience. Whereas the stuff from M&S last ages and taste good 99% of the time. But I mostly shop at Morrison's which is not that much more expensive compared to Aldi/Lidl.

I thought Aldi used local produce for fruit/veg? Might have more to do with less people picking here in UK?

Having been forced to go to ASDA recently I can confirm I had waaay more plastic rubbish from that week! Also about £10 more on weekly food shop with less taste - chicken, ham and fish were the biggest taste differences.

I agree you can’t do all your shopping in one place.

Aldi is great for yoghurts (the layered ones) steak pies, fish cakes, hot cross buns and savoury tarts, all in their “posh” range. Lots of the other things are really salty (their pesto was inedible). I usually like their cheese but haven’t baked the Camembert as far as I can remember

Aldi fruit and veg IS crap. I now go to farmfoods, aldi and tesco to shop. Tesco is expensive but their fruit especially lasts longer.

I don't know @Luzina I've been making coleslaw from an Aldi cabbage for over 1.5 weeks now and it's still going strong. I also have onions on the side which are a couple of weeks old. The fruit I can't really judge as it never stays long enough in the bowl to go off.

I can do a whole weeks worth of shopping in just Aldi and that includes breakfasts, lunches, dinners and also snacks. I don't remember the last time I had to pop elsewhere to get an ingredient or a few other bits to make a meal. However I guess everybody's preferences are different so I completely understand that!

@Luzina, no it's crap at the ones you've been to. It really does depend on local factors, it seems. Same for every supermarket / supermarket delivery service.

We still shop elsewhere for some bits. We have to as Aldi is utterly woeful at dairy free stuff. And the bread we like at weekends doesn't have an equivalent there either.

I'm back with Sainsbury's delivery for a few weeks anyway as they've sent substantial discount codes to use!

For those asking why it’s cheaper, it’s not the products: it’s the staffing/stocking model. A Tesco Extra will have 25,000-30,000 products, while a large Aldi/Lidl might have 2,000-3,000. So smaller range all stocked by pallet means you generally only have 4-5 staff working even at a peak. A Tesco extra will have 30-50 people working. Those wages and stock lines cost (storage costs). That’s why Aldi and Lidl can be cheaper without sacrificing quality. Some products are just alternative brands, as a PP mentioned ketchup I’ll agree- we get ours from Tesco. Generally meat/veg and the like are cheaper because they have a lower level of investment and therefore cheaper to sell. I’ve noticed that Aldi are now selling the valfrutta chopped tomatoes (which I ordinarily get from Costco) at the same price as Costco. In short: warehouse prices from a retail store.

Yeah I had to stop using their nappies and went to pampers, just bulk buy them online.

I miss Netto! But I live in the "Golden triangle" os suprmarket-ness.

I can drop Smallest at Explode Explore in Sainsbury's for his tutoring session, and within 2 minutes be at an Aldi for the basics, then raid an M&S, and a Morrisons for yellow stickers, time for a cream tea at Dunelm (£3,20) and then finally, a final swoop on Sainsburys reductions.

I think the proximity to the other stores (and a giant Tesco 5 minutes away) makes the Aldi vigilant about quality control.

I flit between Aldi, Lidl, Tesco and Sainsbury ( and a local green grocer). We don't have an Asda or Waitrose but a big new Morrisons is being built.
I just shop around according to the products and preferences.
Excess packaging is currently doing my head in which is why I've gone back to the greengrocer.

I am enjoying this thread but no one has mentioned street markets for your fruit and veg. Our local one ,on a Saturday, is buzzing with fantastic produce at very reasonable prices. The products stay fresh for a lot longer than supermarket and in my opinion, have a better taste.

I found Aldi tuna like cat food too and it put me off going for a while but now (thanks to MN) I have a better idea of what’s good

I'm fortunate as I have time to shop around and use mysupermarket to take advantage of offers on products I use, particularly high ticket items like coffee or dishwasher tablets.

Agree that Aldi can be very variable on fruit and veg quality, fortunately our branch is pretty good. My favourite buys from them are their Manchego and Welsh goats cheese, both excellent. I love their root veg crisps, premium tonic and washing powder tablets.

Ah, but Aldi still does the fat free hazelnut greek yoghurt that tastes like the filling from Bueno bars. And their general nappies are still fine. no problems with the size 5s used in our house.

Anyone else love thebabyatemybrain's style of recipe writing?

Delia,etc eat your hearts out - there's a new kid on the block

Aldi would be fine if you could actually go and do a full weekly shop there and get what you wanted. But they inexplicably stop stocking random shit for months at a time then truckloads of it suddenly appear again.

Not once have I ever gone into Aldi with a list and come out without having to go to Sainsbury's for at least 10% of my list.

And not sure the savings are worth the PTSD from the checkout experience. My husband filmed me once checking out at Aldi. Nobody should voluntarily put themselves through that.

Except for their popcorn cereal bar things.

I think just one poster on this thread has mentioned the excess packaging on aldi's fruit and veg. I know all supermarkets are bad for this but it seems everything in Aldi is prepackaged, presumably so they can fling it through the tills faster. I don't mind admitting to being a supermarket snob - I shop in Sainsbury's as I can put a handful of loose carrots, a few red onions, an individual lime in my trolley with no need for a bag. And I'm sure it varies from store to store but I very rarely have Sainsbury's produce that goes off but Aldi stuff regularly does go off very quickly.

I do like some of the health food type stuff at Aldi - the almond butter (although again cheaper at Sainsbury's if you can afford the upfront cost of a 1kg tub), cacao/maca powders etc, their full fat greek yogurt is amazing (would go there for that alone) and I can't find maple syrup anywhere cheaper. And the malted bloomer bread makes incredible toast. But actually many of the things I buy week in, week out are either unavailable, not guaranteed to be available, or actually no cheaper (often they look cheaper but are in smaller packs). If I go to Aldi I will almost certainly have to go to Sainsbury's anyway so I don't usually bother.

We probably wouldn't go to Aldi as much if it wasn't literally round the corner. I can walk there in 5 minutes, so it's not much different to a corner shop for us. The smaller pack sizes are annoying (but Tesco also has small packs which means it looks cheaper than Sainsbury's but actually isn't per kg), so we have to buy double to get what we need, thereby spending more!

It's good for us as a top up place, but I think my loyalty will remain with Sainsbury's (especially as my Nectar points pay for a huge amount of my Christmas booze and food; to the value of more than I save by shopping at Aldi).

I find this happens with most Camembert tbh. My failsafe is Le Rustique, never lets me down!