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Saturday 30 July 2022

Co-op v Lidl



We visited our nearest Lidl supermarket today. Haven’t been there since before lockdown, but today we decided to take a look round and maybe pick up a few bargains.

The last time we were there, a middle-aged chap with his own shopping basket filled it up, strolled through an unoccupied checkout and nipped off across the car park without the formality of paying. A checkout operator eventually spotted him, tried to give chase but was too late.

Sadly there was no such excitement today, but we did pick up a few cheap groceries. An interesting experience on the whole because it isn’t easy to see how the Co-op can survive in the face of a relentless focus on price we see at supermarkets such as Lidl. The Lidl car park was full. The Co-op car park is never full.

We rather like the Co-op and shop there for odds and ends, but how it survives I don’t know. Maybe one day we’ll find out that it can’t.

4 comments:

dearieme said...

I recommend the Co-op's Crusty Cob loaf. We swapped to it when our excellent baker retired: much the best replacement we found.

Tesco used to do a passable corn loaf but they've now spoiled it by adding chilli. On the whole Waitrose's baking is poor. Morrison's do very decent croissants.

Should we make our own bread? Life's too short and so are our kitchen's horizontal surfaces.

A K Haart said...

dearieme - I'll try the Co-op's Crusty Cob loaf next time we're there. We have a bread-maker which I've used for years, but we still buy bread as well. Sometimes we buy the Co-op's part baked baguettes which are fine almost straight of the oven.

wiggiatlarge said...

Not so sure about Lidl's prices, we visited a new store near us, the first time I have been to a British based Lidl, the French ones were good years ago.
What we found was little choice in many areas meaning you could not do a full shop there and would have to make a seperate trip elsewhere for the other items, and prices were cheap in selected areas but only those selected areasor own brand, which all supermarkets do.
And not being a 'shopper' in the real sense, I find cheap tatty tools next to flagging cabbage and 'black' bananas a bit off putting, wont be going back, our local Aldi is a mini stage set for people of Walmart, and aisles strewn permanently with empty boxes, a total dump plus a car park that is Hotel California.

A K Haart said...

Wiggia - we only go to Lidl or Aldi for things we know are significantly cheaper such as a face cream Mrs H likes which is a fraction of the price elsewhere. We'd never do a full shop, but some people do.