What’s good in Lidl? (Vs Tesco)

[rainbowsandraspberrygin]

Hi all - first time posting. Going to try Lidl soon as Tesco is just so expensive and I find they don’t always have good offerings for own brands. Examples being, kids snacks and azera type coffee. By snacks I mean own brand biscuits/bear yoyo type things.

what are your must buys?! What should I look out for?

I do love getting a Tesco delivery as it’s less stressful - but could do hybrid!

“I have to eat them as pairs”

😂😂 This tickled me this morning @MrsFezziwig. “Oh darn, guess I need a double serving of pastries!”

I like the Lidl plus app the best, spend £250 in a month and get 10% of your next shop. Also they have a recipe finder on the app and you can add the ingredients straight to your shopping list so convenient. My kids love the natural fruit juices, mozzarella balls are good as is their ice cream and spicy fries .

(waves in Folkestone)

Yes it is Greek STYLE yoghurt in those big tubs - it is delicious, but the protein levels in Greek STYLE yoghurt are much less than in actual Greek yoghurt.

Lidl do have an actual Greek yoghurt but in smaller tubs.

Big tubs of natural Greek style yogurt
Spanish ham
Cheeses
Ground coffee
Muesli and Granola
Jams (especially the blueberry and black cherry)
Spreadable butter with sea salt crystals
Olives, sun-dried tomatoes & artichokes
Spanish tortilla
Bags of frozen fruit & veg
Wine (the ones over about £7, not the gut rot)
I'm told the laundry liquid is good, but I really like the M&S ones.

Almond croissants??
I never bother with the bakery section, but I will now!
I really like waitrose almond croissants. 😋

(waves back to Folkestone Lidler 😁)

Thanks Robin I’ll look out for that smaller pot !

and Cormoran 😃

Ok
Apologies I didn’t know that
Im a vegetarian 😁

I buy many of the things highlighted on here. I also love their chorizo, nuts, dried apricots, black beans, luxury coleslaw, salmon & smoke salmon, Philadelphia dupe, crisps and many more.

Our Lidl fruit and veg is excellent so think that varies by store and for chicken I buy their free range ones which are always good.

Their sanitary towels are also good, loo rolls v cheap (£4.99 for 24) and washing liquid.

nuts and salmon coming up a few times too! Thank you.

good about loo rolls!

Black cherry jam sounds very yummy!

i feel like im going to buy half the shop now - you’ve all shared some excellent ideas.

thank you!

@rainbowsandraspberrygin @Scousemousey

The high fruit jams are at least as good as Bon Maman
forgot to mention I love toasting muffins tried them all worst being marks and Spencer’s horrible bitter and grainy yet the Lidl ones are gorgeous (in orange pack) perfect for the jams

I suzpect you will be disappointed Lidk is very overated

What's not - pies, just had one with no filling and just gravy, Melton Mowbray pork pie was dire, sauces own brand disappointing. Fruit and veg varies depending on store. Nuts good. Biscuits OK. Cheeses good.

Probably subjective but I’m going to give it a go - even if it’s for a few key items I can maybe bulk buy once per month.

thanks for your thoughts

The bakery is the best bit. Croissants are delicious. Bread is good and cheaper than most supermarkets. Rarely buy fruit and veg but the tomatoes look nice.

In terms of kids snacks - cereal, ice creams, weird flavour Pringles are always on my list . The knock off crisps and biscuits aren’t great - we did a taste test with friends who buy their chocolate digestives, consensus was McVities are far nicer but while we’d rather have better biscuits, they’d rather have twice as many. So I suppose it depends on your preference of quality vs quantity.

I quite like Lidl (reminds me of holiday supermarkets) and go about once a month for cheap snacks, but wouldn’t do a full food shop there.

@YYURYYUCICYYUR4ME I’d imagine most ‘meat’ pies are pretty sub par to be fair

@bruffin

what haz happened, or what have you bought that you consider overrated? Genuine question based on the price point for the standard of the goodz

I think nearly everything is great in Lidl apart from the fresh meat and fresh fruit and veg.

Another one saying avoid Fruit and Veg. I bought a xl avocado yesterday. It felt “ready” but not soft was totally pockmarked, was tasteless and got worse with it 3 minutes of cutting. It was revolting. For £2 I was expecting more to be honest.

this and other fruit and veg related incidences make me very wary of both Aldi and Lidl. Their fake lurpack also not very nice. 🥲. But am a big fan of dupe biscuits, jar products (olives,peppers etc) olive oil/vinegar washing products. Just not the “fresh food” - fruit and veg.

The one here is really horrible and heaves with fannying around students as bang in middle of student area and we don’t have an Aldi to benchmark against -

our Tescos isn’t great either so it’s a mix of Sainsbury’s, Waitrose andM&S for me with a bit of butchers added on -

however I did use Lidl when we lived in Copenhagen - bakery wasn’t bad, cheese and cooked meats was acceptable and quite cheap, household cleaning stuff was decent - and good value, apart from that I thought it was crap - maybe UK ones are better than the ones in Copenhagen - just that the one we have is awful - and a mess too

The bakery, horrible oily pastries
Mince full of fat
fruit and veg going rotten within a few days and its not just my local Lidl
Used to like the christmas stollen/biscuits etc but most supermarkets do those nowadays and they are same price.
Chocolate is ok but i rarely buy chocolate anyway.
Prices are misleading as adverts are comparing Lidl own brand with Big name brands in other supermarkets.Also ie brands like Dolce Gusto capsules Lidl only 6 servings in the pack whereas the normal pack size every where else is 8,so make look cheaper but per capsule a lot more expensive, its a trick Poundland used to use a lot as well.
I tried their tins of tomatoes, not any better than the cheap range at tesco.
I get most of my shopping from Ocado, and my local tesco or sainsbury when i am at work. It really not worth the effort to walk extra 15 minutes to Lidl.
We have an Aldi now a bit closer and not overly impressed with them either.

@MissPobjoysPonies I bought an avocado in aldi once - to this day I swear it was a stunt avocado not only did it not ripen in six weeks it also did not show any signs of decomposition. I threw it in the hedge eventually I expect it is still there firm and tasteless and totally perfect looking. It was as if it was made of plastic

@bruffin thank you I agree that seems quite an ordeal, but your purchases do seem quite limited. Just fatty mince and greasy pastries and as previously stated fruit/veg not great. the thread shows a much more elaborate choice of products

@bruffin yep my H used to comment if we had anything that he thought was a bit sub par ‘is this from Lidl ‘ -? it was usually meat or fruit and veg or any type of ready meal - in the end i just used to use it ( as it was 3 minutes walk) for stuff you can’t really go wrong with , milk, cleaning stuff, nuts etc - he also thought bakery stuff was cheap tasting and either oily or very dry

I’ve not been so disappointed for a while! Ironically I bought it having seen a DM article about best and worst supermarket fruit and veg. Spoiler - Aldi and Lidl did NOT fair well….

I know avocados are a risk - and like a labubu “secret” 1/1000 of getting it right. But still…..

always long life at Lidl