The UK and Ireland Supermarkets Poll

That's what I usually get. Co-op own brand is a lacklustre but tolerable substitute, as is Aldi's iirc though it's been a while. I think the M&S one even cost more than Colman's would have.

Christmas food seemed really expensive this year. Not just at M&S/Waitrose (not surprising) but even the Co-op had fridges full of "luxury" xmas everythings for way more than I could justify spending. I spent the post-Christmas week returning sporadically to eye the reduced to clear fridge but no luck.

(I too went to M&S to ogle Christmas things and buy small boxes of chocolates for random acquaintance gifts, but even the latter were more than I remembered from previous years. Was amused by the little chocolate balls wrapped up like "sprouts" though and bought some for acquaintances who are easily entertained like me.)

asda stuff was good

ya i shopped up in the six counties whit av ut

I got some half price mixed/stuffed olives for £1.65 at the local co-op. Nice accompaniment to my last dregs of whisky.

The m+s in this shithole was closed down 10 years ago. It had been there since the 1930's as well, somehow. The Jack Fulton's around the corner always had at least 100% more customers. Christ, even Woolworths usually had more customers.

Jack Fulton's does a tasty bargain now and then if you keep your eye on them

Just learned Aldi owns Trader Joe's in the US, never knew.

My nearest shops are Waitrose and Sainsbury's, supplemented by the amazing butcher on Theobald's Road and a couple of good fruit and veg stands. My upstairs neighbour runs the big one on Kingsway that's great for cheap fruit and £1 bunches of asparagus in season. The other is the Asian stall outside Marchmont Street post office with good 50p bunches of parsley and coriander.

I got 15p change this morning despite paying with my card. How does that work?

Did you bring your own bags? I've heard of some places giving you money back if you reuse old bags.

how the fuck did waitrose win this?

lol ilx

I would have to travel halfway to Bradford or to the t'other side of Leeds to find my nearest Waitrose. But I will say their own brand products which I often purchase from Ocado are decent. I could imagine after 5-6 more years of austerity much more of the squeezed middle of ILX would have realised LIDL is ace for cheap fresh produce and booze and their bakery products are rather good as well, Alan.

Co-op are underrated imo.

my parents are middle-class and retired and they do half their shopping in lidl and the other half in m&s food. the two shops are conveniently a stonesthrow from each other. i was legit impressed at the prices in lidl last time i was there. "22p for a tin of tomatoes wtf" sort of thing

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.

... the novelty of seeing Charles Dance doing his weekly shop, for one.

xxp co-op?? Their fruit and veg is always the worst where I am - have had mouldy herbs etc. And mostly overpriced except for the offers on big brands. There are about 4 of varying sizes on my nearby high street and I find them all infuriating

where i am the local co-op is pretty ace for fresh produce, and basics like tinned tomatoes, passsata, cream and minced beef etc. The local Asian supermarket is better, but double the walk.

I bet Charles Dance doesn't ever buy any reduced asparagus - the posh twat!

Co-op are underrated imo.

― calzino, Friday, 26 May 2017 20:55 (yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

co-op has this problem where quality is unknowable, I had "posh" chilled pizzas from there that were ineptly bady. Once had a frozen margarita that was oddly delicious, but the other frozen pizzas in the same line were completely disgusting, miserable smear of odd tasting orange tomato sauce. also, often very expensive. not waitrose expensive though.

Do any of you savages actually cook anything other than readymeals? As the resident council estate scratter I'm getting worried!

I've just been to the local Co-op. They are selling succulent looking 230g packs of Dutch vine tomatoes for 69p. I'll really miss offers like that in the post-Brexit depression.

Fruit and veg in my local Co-op is perversely expensive. You can currently get a pizza, wedges, garlic bread, frozen corn and ice cream for the price of 12 apples. The bakery is decent and the three-for-£1 Magnum dupes are amazing though.

For all the ethical positioning, the staff at my local one are vocal about hating it and say their benefits / perks are being stripped down. They are also moving towards only selling British meat to capitalise on Brexit sent, which is nagl.

https://s14.postimg.org/m9t9kqva9/IMG_0084.jpg

My other half wants to boycott them over this, not unreasonably. I can't bring myself to go to CostCutter instead tho.

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.