Can you do a full shop in Lidl?

[birkenstocks4ever]

During lockdown I've been getting Waitrose click and collect because it's quick and the only supermarket I can get a slot for but its costing us a fortune! I'm usually an Aldi/Sainsbury's person depending on how I feel but queues there are massive. We're a family of 4, kids are 11 and 12, are good eaters and I mostly cook from scratch. Can I get a whole typical weeks shopping at Lidl?

No. Unless I want to live on steak, cod and factory farmed chicken breast. The steak is OK and the cod good but I object to the chicken. There's always the wet bacon and fatty sausages, I suppose.

The veg is OK. The deluxe butter great, but I could only ever top up shop there.

I love Lidl and do a full weekly shop there. I didn't really rate it at first as I was used to more choice in other supermarkets and names brands etc. But now I know what I like, I've been using it religiously for the past 5 years and it is great. Saves me a fortune too.

It so depends on what your meal plans look like. I shop in literally all the supermarkets but right now mainly Aldi (as it’s the best for queues etc). I’ve had to adapt my meals a bit

Dh is an Italian and a chef.

We buy 98% of food from Lidl or Aldi.

Apart from branded cereal
And dh prefers branded coffee pods but that’s really it.

Fruit and vegetables are salad ✅
Milk, cheese and yoghurt ✅
Meat and fish ✅
Toiletries ✅
Tinned food ✅
Wine and gin is fabulous

Thoroughly recommended

It's good for a top up shop.
I have a delivery from Asda with the brand items we like one week.
The next week I'll buy fresh food from Lidl.

Yes of course!!

@WomanIsTaken I don't require branded products at all but I do require that when I buy a bag of potatoes half of them aren't rotten with no way of knowing until you get home because the packaging has writing all over it.

I find it's great for cupboard goods, bakery and cooked meat, iffy for fresh meat and appalling for fresh fruit and vegetables.

The one time I was stupid enough to buy a roasting joint from there (which wasn't actually that cheap) is still talked about in family history stories. I am a good cook who makes everything from scratch but their fresh produce is appalling.

I have done for most of my adult life. I used to shop at Lidl when we lived in London and now in the US I shop at Aldi. I get such bad sticker shop when we go anywhere else.

I tend to plan my need for variety around their themes and specials. There are some items that they don't ever have which we will go elsewhere for about once a month- things like rice noodles, miso soup etc. And we do get vegetables from the farmers market, but I could still get everything I need even if we didn't.

I'm going to give it a bash. Have ordered small click & collect for the things we are fussy about and got a Lidl list for the rest. I need to go to the farm shop at some point for a sack of potatoes so no big deal if I have to pick some other bits up there too. Last weeks Waitrose shop was 170 quid 😱😱😱 so I need to get it down!

You need to try your local one to see what they have, judging by this thread it varies a lot. I'm going today, hoping they have bird feeders in the middle aisle because the kids really want one!

Yes, as long as you're open minded. I love Lidl/Aldi and can get most things from there. However, we go to Tesco for specific things (organic milk + yogurts, Taylor's coffee and snacks for my son as he's autistic). The fruit and vegetables can vary per store but my local Lidl is great for fresh produce.
In particular from Lidl, I love their wholenut peanut butter, dark chocolate with raspberry, and spaghetti/linguine. I also prefer their premium ground coffee over Aldi, so I'll get that if I can't get my usual.

No, things we are unable to buy in our local Lidl:

Cravendale milk
Lurpak butter
Decent quality chicken (other meat is fine)
Cat food
Branded toothpaste / mouthwash

I'm sure there's more; that's just off the top of my head.

Yes? There's a few speciality things they don't sell and both basmati rice and bread flour has been in short supply but otherwise not had issues. It's the only store without a queue and lets 2 adults in together here (we walk to the shops and pay half each so better for us)

Yes you can unless you’re someone that relies on ready made products rather than quickly making them yourself.

Some stores must be different because there’s a about ten different types of pasta sauce in ours (small, market town, not a big new one).

I can usually get everything I want except the odd speciality ingredient- if you’re flexible it’s fine (and you usually see something cheaper you’d be happy to try anyway!)

To answer the original question, yes and no. I usually get the bulk of my shopping from Aldi (which I assume is similar to Lidl) but I get Th majority of my fruit and veg from Sainsbury's as I prefer to buy it loose and not in plastic packaging. As I go early in the morning and Sainsbury's is on the way home, it's no trouble and only one trip.

no. I like some things inside, but don't like their fruit and veg. It doesn't last.

I have said switched to Lidl from aldi for this very reason. Also queues are so long. I have a loyalty scheme with a local butcher but even if I didn't I could do my whole shop in Lidl.
The cereals are great. The only thing I haven't been able to get is rice but I bought the microwave pouches for now. Their salad stuff is great. The wine excellent too

Also not said

We have an Aldi near us but have never found you can do a full shop, for instance once we went in and they sold kids toothbrushes but not toothpaste (may have been the other way round).

I also meal plan so I need to reliably get specific things.

It is though great for buying cheap crap I didn't need 🤣

It depends on both the sort of things you buy and the demographic of the Lidl you are using I think. For example lots of people on here saying it’s fine if you cook from scratch but it’s the complete opposite in my Lidl- if you want frozen pizza and chips or a jar of sauce you’re ok, much harder to get the ingredients for a fresh home cooked meal. Or at least enough variety of ingredients to make a weeks worth or fresh home cooked meals. Mine only has boil in the bag or microwave rice so I can’t even get the staples in there.
I love Lidl for the bakery, chocolate, cheese and cold meats. Everything else is just ok, apart from the lamb joint which was pure gristle and inedible and the strawberries and satsumas which are always rotten.

I like my local Lidl but it’s not huge so I have to meal plan according to what they have - if I went in with a fixed meal plan I’d likely be screwed by their lack of herbs and spices in particular. At the moment they don’t have eggs or flour either but then neither does my big Sainsbury’s.

Problems I found what was there one week , and good value, wasn't there the next week. It's miles away, you get caught in traffic plus you have queue and wait for a car parking space and there is always queues at the checkout. Some things are good value but overall it's not that much more than my local Sainsburys and everything is so much easier and less hasstle.

our local Lidl is very small and doesn't have the range many other Lidl stores do. As such I don't think I could do a full shop in there easily.

Are you sure you can't go to your Sainsburys? There are long queues at different times near us, but usually moved quickly. Avoid weekends and around lunchtime (when people WFH take a break and go to the shops). I've found around 4pm is empty in most supermarkets near us.