The UK and Ireland Supermarkets Poll

we have started ordering online lately, i thought it was mad decadence at first but you end up buying less than you would when you're impulse-trawling in a bricks and mortar shop so it works out okay. also we still have proper butchers and greengrocers and awesome cheap freezer shops on our street so i can buy local out of laziness rather than pomposity

i've still never done it but i know i should...

as someone who's worked in tesco, them

Waitrose,though im hardly ever in it because it is on byre's road in the wanky west end.

Online delivery is a lifesaver. I haven't done a "big shop" in about 10 years (mainly due to not having a car and luckily having a largeish sainsburys on my way home from work). I used to get fresh stuff every other day from there and order online all the bulky stuff like loo roll, kitchen cleaners, multiple tins/jars of tomatoes/tuna/pasta sauce, big packs of pasta, frozen stuff, etc.

if i could afford to do my shopping in waitrose my life would be immeasurably better. as it is i go in there to buy a few things i really like and to scan the shelves for reduced stickers which can produce some amazing bargains.

It's got to be Waitrose, but a good Sainsbury's will stock most of the stuff I need. I buy quite a lot of stuff in Lidl though, they have some good odds and sods, but the one near me never seems to be fully stocked, you can't depend on it for a weekly shop.

I like the Budgens near to us as well, lots of local produce, great bread, but they are very variable.

lidl/aldi yeah same problem, go for a look but you never know what will be there.

although a lot of waitrose stuff is reasonable e.g their pizzas - the frozen ones are particularly good believe it or not, much better than the chilled ones. other things are pricier than tesco but worth the spend. a hell of a lot of it is still ridicly expensive but in spite of that you never actually feel like you are being ripped off like you do in tesco. it's probably, generally dear for a reason or maybe i've just fallen for it.

Aldi and Lidl are great - particularly around Christmas when half the stock is taken up by unusual German biscuits.

Oh yeah, they deserve at least one vote for this. And a fraction of the price of Waitrose. Love me some pfefferkuchen.

I've got to say I hate the massive Tesco's/ASDAs (and the Sainbury's I used to go to has recently gone huge). I appreciate the fact I can probably get everything I need but I can never remember where that everything is, and by the third of fourth time through looking for (to give one particularly distressing example) whole brazil nuts I am ready to abandon the trolley. And they move stuff around the bastards.

"bring me my hasenpfeffer!"

Aldi - never been
Asda - used to live near one, walked further to go to Sainsbury's. Awful.
Booths - Eh?
Budgens - Rubbish
Centra - Never heard of it
Co-op - Never lived near one of them, like the idea
Costcutter - Every Costcutter I've been in has been the most ridiculous misnomer ever. Shite.
Dunnes Stores - Never been
Eurospar - ???
Filco Foods - What?
Haldanes - What are these places?
Iceland - Rubbish
Lidl - I understand they're better than their budget nature would suggest
Londis - Shit.
Mace - Never heard of it.
Marks & Spencer - Okay if you want to buy a sandwich or poncey readymeal but I'd never do a full shop there
Morrisons - Always been okay when I've been in one, never lived near enough to go regularly
Netto - See Lidl
Nisa-Today's - Like a less egregious Costcutter
Ocado - Never used it
Sainsbury's - Decent range/cost/accessibility/quality
SuperValu - ???????
SPAR - See Londis
Tesco - Quality is kinda ropey compared to Sainsbury's, their ubiquity makes them lazy
Waitrose - Never lived close enough to one but they're John Lewis so I approve
Whole Foods Market - Smug

Co-op - Never lived near one of them, like the idea

Saw some TV expose about the Co-op, and they are actually the worst for paying farmers a decent price. Like, they pay less than TESCO.

I used to shop at Dunnes Stores when I lived in Dublin, seem to recall it was alright, if a bit pricey, but everything was pricey in Dublin at that time, the Irish pound was worth more than sterling.

do you shop at all man?

Eurospar have had a major facelift the past few years, now they tend ti be filling station/convenience stores with good hot food counters to boot. Useful.

I assume most of these places just don't exist in London.

Netto has gone I think, some of the stores have been taken over. They were never as good as Lidl or Aldi anyway, none of the continental goodies and random snacks that make the other two worth a visit. Co-op seem to be all convenience stores now charging convenience store prices but they do mark down stuff pretty savagely when it gets near the Use By date. Most of these seem to have one little treat that nobody else does the same but these things go in and out of production seemingly.

Every time I go into Waitrose I am struck with awe, and jealousy of everyone who has one nearby. It is pretty much impossible to get out of one without spending at least £40 though, even if you've just gone in for a sandwich.

There's no Waitrose anywhere near me either but tbh we get most of our groceries delivered by Ocado, fuck carrying 40lbs of cat litter all the way from Sainsburys. Have tried Tesco & Sainsburys home delivery but they both fucking suck.

Netto is still around, theres one in Birtley we use sometimes.

co-op still has proper supermarkets in the west country, and the highlands of scotland. have seen them in northern england around the lake district/cumbria too.

In May 2010, Netto UK was bought by Asda Wal-Mart UK for £778m. The Choice by Asda was increase it smaller store portfolio. 147 of the former UK Netto stores will be re-branded under the Asda name by summer 2011. The remaining 47 stores have been sold off to other companies such as Morrisons and new convenience store UGO and other retailers due to competition laws.

wondering if this UGO is the same peeps who make expensive faux-deli sandwiches for garages and the like

am gonna get shopping delivered this week, just to see.

Lidl/aldi special weekly offers must be taken into account here. Tv's, pc, hard-drives, car radiosbarbecues and power tools all purchased from there in the past for next nothing.

Aldi steaks are about the best too imo

i have a waitrose near my work so i do pretty much all my grocery shopping there, i dont think its too bad as far as cost... but thats probably cuz i get the cheaper stuff. i think its just that they give you the option to get all that fancy shit which you cant get in tesco

also i trust their meat + fish section more than tesco

My regular shop is Morrisons - OK quality, close, decent prices – but Waitrose the winner for me, will visit for fancy stuff once every couple of weeks, & less shitty to suppliers, staff etc than the other big ones afaik. (but I've done a lot of work for their mag, so idk maybe i've just swallowed the propaganda).

Minor defence of Iceland (just because there's one almost on my doorstep) - decent cheap freezer emergency food - their potato products have often been salvation when getting in drunk. (Though there was a funny period a couple of years ago when food journalists were telling me, 'Actually, Iceland's quite good. They use good fresh vegetables.' - I just assumed that was because Iceland had a good PR, because said journalists had clearly never seen the inside of an Iceland)

I work near the giant John Lewis Food Hall and get a lot of stuff there so I totally would shop Waitrose all the time if there were one any nearer to me than Balham because I'd get shot if I hauled Waitrose bags across Tooting Common so, basically, Sainsburys4Life.

evil corporation-factor aside, I do actually prefer Tesco for shopping compared to Sainsburys.

the tesco in hackney is horrible, makes me so grumpy every time i go there

I think Booths' Carnforth branch is my favourite supermarket in the UK. Morrisons in Mitcham probably my least favourite. Like Co-op's fairtrade products and instore radio station. However we too have turned to Ocado: going round the local Sainsburys with two under 3s = no fun.

I do 80% of my shopping as a monthly delivery from Waitrose Online. Occasionally get a Sainsbury's delivery because they do a couple of things that Waitrose don't, but to get free delivery you have to order over £100 worth and I'm stingy like that. Buy meat+veg from the market each week and there's a tiny co-op at the end of our street for when we run out of milk.

If you watch what you buy and have an idea of how much things "should" cost then I don't think Waitrose is much more expensive than Sainsbury's. Can't speak for the other supermarket chains though.

Fucken hate hate HATE Tescos for the shit they've pulled over the Streatham ice rink and swimming baths and will never shop in another of their shops even if it means eating Co-op baked beans for the rest of my life. But I do share my birthplace with them, the fuckers.

Oddly, I now live in the birthplace of the very first Waitrose supermarket so go figure. (I suspect it's now a lovely Asian supermarket if I have the geography right.)

the tesco in hackney is horrible

It's a joyous five star shopping experience compared with the one in Bethnal Green.

Since moving away from a Netto and nearer a Waitrose, I thought I'd be bankrupt, but it turns out it's not so bad just as long as you don't buy stupid shit. They're very generous witht heir offers and reductions.

Aldi - get this mixed up with Lidl tbh
Asda - horrible stink of roasting chicken
Co-op - gets my vote for vague lefty reasons
Lidl - the one guy I know who shops there is a terrible miser who will never ever share his knock-off hobnobs so I don't know what the food is like
Londis - is this a Happy Shopper rebrand?
Mace - these are late night places right? I think they only exist to give armed robbers something to do
Marks & Spencer - do good a good packet of posh crisps
Morrisons - not near me, but they do this caramelised onion chutney which is just the best thing ever
Ocado - really annoying name. Does it mean something?
Sainsbury's - you suspect they harbour murderous dreams of controlling the entire world, but instead they're stood in the queue behind Tesco's, smiling politely while cursing into their free samples of cheese
Spar - Often bought beer and cigarettes here, generally happy memories
Tesco - wreckers of civilization
Waitrose - best bread ever, hugely overpriced everything else though
Whole Foods Market - nothing worse than a hippy capitalist

xps

yeah, I think Waitrose can be done so that it's around the same price as Sainsbury's, but it takes self-discipline, thought and a branch of a decent size. Might look into delivery.

Used to think Elephant Tesco was gloomiest place on earth, then I visited the Catford one.

The fresh bread in Morrisons is the best supermarket bread I've ever tasted.

I want a shop called Elephant Tesco.

I do.

That Catford Tesco is astonshingly gloomy but it's not helped by its surroundings. The Catford Centre is one of the most depressing town centre places to be in the whole of London.

I went along to the 24-hour Surrey Quays Tesco in the middle of the night once, which was one of the most lovely things I've ever done*. I have no idea why I did that. I was so knackered that I barely recall the experience, but I do remember that I'd expected it to be basically the same as during the day (it is a vaguely normal shop) but it wasn't - there were broken boxes and shredded cardboard everywhere, like more or less covering the whole floor, with islands of stock marooned in this wasteland amid empty shelves, and really fat staff hanging about in big, threatening gangs. (but that *is* what it's like during the day, etc.)

* may not be true

I suppose they were just restocking, but in the circumstances it took on a hideous, nightmarish quality

i am pretty much gonna defend supermarket shopping over non-supermarket shopping - well not defend it as such, but anti-supermarket types who seem to have no idea why convenience is a positive are so annoying

24 hr tesco during christmas week is like walking round the nightclub when the lights come on

local greengrocers are highly convenient for getting exactly the right amount of fruit or veg you want, instead of e.g. being lumbered with a 2 kilo bag of spuds from sainsburys when you are a sad singleton who only wants to boil a couple.

a sad singleton who only wants to boil a couple

Phoning the authorities brb

My experiences..

Aldi - haven't been to one for at least 7 yrs.
Asda - Too big. The one in Leeds had the BEST fruit & veg at great prices, odd because nobody that shopped there bought the stuff.
Booths - Never seen one.
Budgens - Hampstead one is probably my ideal supermarket. Whitechapel one is 24hrs, free cash machine, reasonable selection for size &
Centra - Never seen one
Co-op - Reliably rubbish.
Costcutter - Fine for Booze + fags + milk not much else.
Dunnes Stores - Never seen one
Eurospar - Ditto
Filco Foods - Ditto
Haldanes - Ditto
Iceland - Under the impression they sell only frozen foods? I spent 5 mins in one once and realised I couldn't buy half my list so left.
Lidl - Foreign cured meats & cheeses, dart boards and cheap fleeces? Novelty value only.
Londis - See Costcutter
Mace - As above
Marks & Spencer - Fulfills the need for one meal (ltd cooking) + milk + bread etc if needed.
Morrisons - On a par with Sainsburys, aisles too narrow.
Netto - Been in one (Peckham). Marveled at massive tubs of broken biscuits, rusty tins of tomatoes and RANGE of wine under £2.
Nisa- See Costcutter
Ocado - No experience.
Sainsbury's - Regularly shop here. Meets needs (just). Good range, crap fruit & veg.
SuperValu - Never seen one.
SPAR - As Costcutters.
Tesco - Big ones are okay. Metro ones are SHITE because they should be better than a SPAR/Costcutter but they're not.
Waitrose - Not that much better than a good Sainsburys except in a posh area. Barbican one is rubbish.
Whole Foods Market - Makes my eyes water at the thought of a weeks shopping cost.

I hadn't noticed the UKIP style marketing tbh.

I just got tomatoes, bell peppers, bananas, asparagus, double cream, passata, tinned tomatoes and a loaf of wholemeal bread. It came to £11 odd, that probably is a few quid more expensive than the same would cost at the Asian supermarket.

I don't believe all the ethical trade posturing for a minute. The staff do generally seem miserable as fuck, but at least they don't look at you like your an alien if you ask if they sell ginger, as happened in the local One-Stop.

went to big tescos this morning. can manage about 3 months at a time with the local small sainsburys but i do need things only the big tescos stocks from time to time (vitamin tablets, the shampoo i like, the good veggie soap that smells of lemons...)

anyway, sainsburys have prices and then big red stickers with sales prices on them.

tescos now have prices and then big yellow stickers with the *club card* prices on them. very easy to pick something up thinking it's on sale only to have to pay the higher price because i don't have a clubcard (actually, it wasn't obvious to me whether they were clubcard prices or clubcard PLUS prices, their paid discount card thing). there's now a two- or three-layer pricing system in tescos and it's ruined the whole thing for me.

(also, no skimmed milk in anything other than 4-pint bottles. i've noticed this other places too, that skimmed milk is becoming less favoured)

Totally agree. It makes forgetting your clubcard like a punishment. 'Here's what you could have got...'

I always keep a few bottles of skimmed milk in my stores and prefer it sometimes tbh. It's fine for making macaroni cheese and if full fat milk is even slightly going off I can't abide the taste of it.

I live in between (sort of) a Waitrose and a Morrisons, the novelty of Waitrose has long since worn off for me though and you'll invariably find me in Morrisons.

There's now an Aldi (or is it Lidl?) almost beside Morrisons. I've only been in it once because it opened at the height of the pandemic and the queues to get into it were horrendous. I know people swear by them but I didn't like it. Just checked, it's a Lidl.

when I lived in Ely there was a Waitrose opposite an Iceland, very different customer bases, Waitrose was good there because they would heavily discount soon-to-expire food and all the people in there were too well-off to be looking for it.
In Cambridge Waitrose there are masses of boho hippies who go straight for the discounts, so no point going.

Well, yes, I've only ever shopped in Waitrose for discount items, except when they were selling potato farls (or potato scones, as we call them).

brief trot to tesco because i had to go the other direction but didn't want to go to the faraway sainsburys... and the 4 self-service tills have been replaced with 8 self-service tills in the same space, meaning each has just enough space for a basket in front of it. so you scan your purchases and then there's nowhere to put them. back in the same basket? on the floor?

baking potatoes were 3.5 times as much as the sainburys ones. they'd better be 3.5 times better.

still livid about waitrose

twice in a little over a week I've scanned something and the price was more than the one on the shelf. and when i pointed this out they treat it like it's something I've done.

their solution is to remove the sticker from the shelf so now nobody knows what the thing will cost.

On the rare occasions I go to the supermarket in person, I'm astounded by Dunnes Stores' decision to introduce a delay into the checkout process. They do a coupon for €10 off your next shop with every €50 you spend, so the checkout line often has someone trying to make their shop up to a multiple of €50 so that they'll get the coupon. And sometimes they will LEAVE THE CHECKOUT and go back into the shop to get an extra loaf of bread or a couple of pizzas out of the freezer or something, instead of choosing batteries or gum from the rack right beside them, as God intended. It's so annoying. Sometimes you want to offer them the €10 so that they'll just pay up and piss off.