Anyone watching the Aldi Dispatches Programme?

[Nicknamegrief]

Just that really ..... probably going to put me off, just in time for one to open 10mins drive away!

The cold stores are not the ones that determin where produce goes, the producers have a contract with the supermarket, they either pack on site, or are sent to a marketing company who does the final sort for various supermarkets. The producer has to hit a certain target for the marketing and are told how many pallets of class 2s (not aestheticly pleasing or hit weight) they are allowed, this can vary from day today.

The class ones are then shipped to the big supermarket cold stores. By then they belong to the supermarket, and how long they keep them in cold stores is up to the supermarket.

The class 2s are sent to either a wholesale market or smaller supermarkets who place orders with marketing company.

So same produce same pick date.

Sorry that was for AimlesslyPurposeful

I was on the internet as soon as the morrisons programme finished last night to see where i can get locally made products.

Call be stupid, but i had no idea that this stuff went on, wastage, and staff staying after paid time (aldi)

Then again, i can see this anti aldi programme is partly propaganda.

Anyway I've found a delightful green grocer just a few mins down the road that ALSO stock lots of vegan food too.

As grandma Stick would say 'vote with your feet'

Oh and if a supermarket or marketing company, don't like more the a couple of the products in a tray off the top of a pallet,
(Pallets consist off between 45-50 trays a pallet) they will send that pallet back to the producer. It doesn't go back to be re-packed for another lesser supermarket.

What a load of rubbish, I shop at Aldi and Lidl, not through need but because I'd much rather spend 30 minutes in a supermarket than 2 hours.

Never had an issue with fruit or veg, we get through a fair bit and I only buy what I know we will use, I just check it over before picking it, but then I do that even if it has a best before date on it.

The meat has always been good, only buy the free range whole chicken, steak 5% fat mince, 'best' bacon etc. Its all always been fine. The cold meats the kids love and the Bavarian ham is lovely.

Lots of places of work have rules about unpaid time before/after shift. Most will say you must be ready to work at your start time, I work in accounts and I am here 10-15 minutes before logging on to the system, my son works part time at mcd's and has to be at his station working at start time, not just walking through the door.

for working conditions I would ay investigate mcd's! they have to clock out and in to go to the loo! pay docked for almost anything.

And if say on the day of picking an over ripe (or Will be over ripe) product is picked and sent through, these are sorted into 3rd class, which don't go to wholesale. They are sold to sandwich companies or tinned products, or ready meals or just dumped.

oh and the bread is branded? Hovis etc, the own brand in Tesco etc is like cotton wool as well, so just buy hovis which is cheaper than Tesco/asda etc.

Didn't see the programme, but this is all great news for us long time Aldi shoppers who are sick to death of how busy it is in there in recent years. Bugger off with your silly "use by dates" and leave us professional Aldi shoppers to it.

Did see the Hugh FW programme on BBC1 which was basically a campaign to get supermarkets to stock "non-perfect" fruit and veg and stop all the senseless waste of perfectly good food in the UK. Eg carrots.

I thought it was absolutely disgusting how staff are basically expected to work 15 mins a day for free

made me really angry

if there is work to do PAY THEM FOR IT

Lucky for me I have Sainburys and Aldi right next to each other! We buy toiletries, cleaning stuff, toilet and kitchen roll, breakfast cereal and squash at Aldi. Then go to Sainsbury for the rest.

Aldi is good at some stuff, not so much other stuff. You just decide what works.

Aldi sausages are free range and very nice. Plus their Prosecco is pretty good!

Some of the people that are commenting on this subject seen to know an awful lot about producers, marketing and contracts and stuff. Hmm I wonder how much they really know about it. Anyway, I know NOTHING about any of those things and base my earlier comments purely on taste and value for money. Yes the food from aldi and Lidl is cheaper, but to me (and again I'll stress that it's only my opinion) it is inferior quality compared with other larger more established supermarkets. And I have to agree with some comments i've read about aldi being false economy, i've lost count of the times i've got half way through something from aldi at the dinner table and ended up sadly chucking it in the bin disappointed and then thinking that I really should have spent the extra few pence and bought decent stuff from somewhere else. Here's a perfect TRUE example from a couple of weeks ago. My old Mum likes to Shop at Tesco for some things and then go sound the corner to Aldi for other bits and Bob's. She had already bought green beans in tesco then noticed that the green beans in aldi were about a third cheaper in Aldi so I said give them a try and if the Aldi ones are ok you'll know where to buy them next time. To cut a long story short, the aldi ones (according to my Mum) were hard and completely tasteless so ended up in the bin. "I'll just get em in tesco next time" was what she said....

I don't get the hand-wringing about staff needing to be there 15 minutes early. I have never had a job - from teaching a sports class as a teenager to working as a professional in the City - where it wasn't implicit that you start work at the start time, which requires that you get there beforehand and put on uniform/see what tasks there are for the day/get into the right frame of mind/make coffee/skim emails.

Aldi now pays the living wage or above (apparently raising its minimum wage to £8.40 an hour from February), so that £1.75 (for 15 minutes work at a notional £7 an hour) is made up overall.

Why would you wonder? steve5jmc

Do people who work or worked in the industry, not have intetnet access? Would never be a MNer?

As I said I'm glad HFW is making these things known.

Am I not allowed to speak about them because I'm not a celebrity?

Definitely doesn't put us off. It showed two stores only which isn't a fair representation of the company and most issues were down to individual managers.

I'm sure these things happen in the likes of asda and tescos etc.

The staff in our local aldi are friendly enough and although they usain bolt our food through the til they still talk to us and coo over screaming dd.

I wonder which supermarket commissioned the program....tescos maybe?

Our weekly shop in aldi is approx £40-50. Sainsburys would no doubt be at least £80.

steve5jmc funny how you have only posted on this thread, Yet you seem quite a chatty poster and refer to your DM as my old mum.

Hhmm makes me wonder why you are so persistently vocal against aldi?

Steve, tell your dear old mum she needs to actually cook the green beans next time

You tell them PuppyMonkey

Didn't see the programme either but came here to see if I had anything to worry about as a dedicated Aldi shopper and it appears not... I like the food and don't find it bland or bad quality at all, and as for the freshness I find it lasts longer than our local bigger supermarkets.

The thing is about all this stuff, there aren't really separate factories for all these products are there? For example cornflakes - are each brand/version completely different and manufactured separately using completely different ingredients or is there some overlap and some of them actually the same?

I used to work in the office for a bakery where they baked all of the brand named bread as well as the supermarkets own and although there are differences between some of the loaves some of them have got to be the same just branded differently...

Twatbyname i've posted on other sites too, you seem to be so clever I'd have thought you'd know that. I don't usually post on here or with google plus because it's full of people like you who don't like it when someone has an opinion that you don't agree with. As for puppymonster she obviously cooked them but as with most of aldi and Lidl crap they were just garbage and went in the bin. It seems some of you people on here want to make this personal??? and as i've already stated more than once it's just my opinion. I've bought crap in tesco too, tesco bananas for instance are rubbish.

steve5jmc yes I'm sure you have been on other sites that have mentioned this programme too.
Kinda my point really.....

I've not actually disputed your opinion, I was posting to another MNer, about the procedure that suppliers and produce go through. Yet You found that it was appropriate to suggest I was lying. Which is quite underhand as you also stated you know nothing about it. So you are in no place to judge whether I do or don't know, are you?

I think there are differences between some branded and non branded products -
I don't eat cornflakes - agree they are just like cardboard even Kelloggs! But DCs and DP do. I noticed DD1 (14) making a bowl of a main supermarkets 'value' range ones and they looked horrible...like they were dyed or something. So I discreetly asked her -and she said they tasted like cornflakes... so don't really see the point of spending more tbh.
I do buy branded weetabix though - I found a lot of the own label ones are not so densely packed - they are sold by no of biscuits and I think if they were sold by weight they would be lighter. DD2 had gone up to eating 2.5-3 a time - Weetabix she happily eats 2 ...so a false economy to buy cheaper...
I don't buy Nestle anyway - but I think some of the lidl and supermarket own label shreddies and cheerios look a bit yuk -but DP and DCs eat them ...no complaints...
We don't just eat cereal!!! I use cornflakes as an eg because once when I was trying to work out why a Tesco shop had taken me so long I realised I had been dithering over which cornflakes for about 5 mins (I know - my mind went blank...) in Lidl I just pick up a box....
They do insist on Heniz ketchup and tomato soup though...but eat own label low salt/sugar beans....
I also check the ingredients and compare things like peanut butter - Sunpat has more peanuts than tesco's own label (and less extra stuff all together) iirc - but I think Lidl's one is similar to Sunpat. Similar is true for pesto...remember reading one label and wondering how they could get away with calling it pesto (no parmesan or pine nuts -and spinach ...)

(Actually reading that back- just realised why if I have too much choice it takes me soooo loooong to do a shop...)

Lord! Am I supposed to be embarrassed about shopping at Aldi

Do the majority of my shopping there every week. Top up in Lidl and anywhere else I happen to be.

I watched the HFW program last night and that really made me spit feathers! Especially the 'well if they don't like it they can sell their stuff elsewhere' comment. Twat! I work for food manufacturers that sell to all the big multiples and they are all nightmares - I would hate to be a small fresh food producer dealing with them.

I saw it,

Hey all,

I'm an employee at Aldi (not too far from the North West store shown in the show) and I thought you would perhaps be interested in my thoughts?

Re: 15 minutes early
I can only speak for the 2 stores I've worked in, but this is a guideline to make sure you are ready to start your shift on the hour. I can't imagine there are many jobs that expect you to walk through the front door at :00 on the clock. We have a canteen where we get a coffee, pop our stuff in our locker, check the notice/bulletin boards for anything important (big events coming up, product recalls etc) and get ready for our shift. You can have a quick look around if you like (I usually do to see where the new 'special buys' are as people always ask) but I don't 'start work', which includes counting my till, until my thumb hits the fingerprint scanner to clock in.

Re: Best Before Dates
We do use a code system instead of actual dates, but we will happily tell people if they ask how to read it, or atleast what the code on that item transfers to. Any item past that code date is removed from the shelf and thrown away, unfortunately stuff gets missed. To try and stop this theyve recently bought in a new shift where one manager has the sole job of 'date checking' and removing out of date products.

Also, regarding quality/life compared to other supermarkets, it's all the same stuff, a few times i've had bananas delivered with ASDA pacakging on by accident from the warehouse

Re: Speeds
You have to be quick at ALDI, this shouldn't be a suprise to anyone who has been in one, the company is run on the bottom line which means we have to put things out fast and get stuff through the tills fast. It's why we are cheap, don't like it, spend more money elsewhere for the opportunity to take your time... Whenever I go into ASDA now, I wish they would hurry up putting my stuff through the till!

Re: Health and Safety
The silly cow kneeling on a freezer is not an example of ALDI's H&S policy, space can be tight in the warehouse, but fire exits are a priority, the manager shown will no doubt lose his job, as he probably should, for his obvious lack of staff and customer care.

Anything else anyone would like to know, from the horses mouth, so to speak?