I was looking to change supermarkets from Tesco to try and save a little bit of money and I saw that Lidl offers the cheapest price for the average basket. My concern is though that the quality will be much lower and they have a much smaller range of food. Has anyone got any experience with Lidl?
I find them okay with what they sell, although I would say they cannot replace one of the bigger supermarkets on their own.
There is a difference in what each store offers*. My family use Asda, Aldi, and Lidl.
*each Lidl store
They are cheap for a reason. You may, or may not, notice the difference, either in quality or variety of products available.
The only way you are going to find out is to try it.
You will find that the stores are smaller than Tesco in general, and some stores get really busy.
Strange biscuits to the right of me, cheap beer to left, here I am, stuck in the Lidl with you!
FYI -
The biggest disappointment for me is the fruit & veg. It either goes off very quickly or tastes bland.
They are good for - baked in store goods, meat deals & household goods.
Confectionery for branded goods is dearer than ASDA but cheaper than Sainsbury’s.
The middle isle deals on the whole aren’t that bad but I prefer Aldi’s.
Give it a whirl - go with an open attitude & try new things you never know you may like it.
I think it’s pretty good on the whole. For me, there’s an Asda much closer and the average basket difference is small enough to balance out the extra distance.
I prefer Aldi over Lidl and shop there every week. I used to use Tesco and Asda which are better for somethings but my weekly shop is down from £80-£90 to £60 after changing to Aldi
I do my shop at Lidl every week. Food is way better then Morrisons were I used to go we save tons of money and the different weeks mean you get to try tonnes of food you wouldn’t normally eat.
I wholeheartedly recommend it.
Caveat that they will literally chuck your shopping at you at the till.
If Lidl delivered i’d use it every week
We use Lidl a lot. There’s little we go elsewhere for. I do like that you can use Google Pay over £30, which you can’t at Asda and Tesco.
However, be prepared to go in for beans and come out with a 6 man tent and a chainsaw.
I find Lidl much better than Aldi in this respect. There’s no pressure on earth greater than trying to keep up with an Aldi checkout operator. It should be an event in the next Olympics.
There shouldn’t be too much of a variety in what each store within a region offers. The only exception to this is where larger stores get, sometimes, extra lines of non-food.
They’re cheap because of the business model they use and their huge buying power. The classic example is ketchup - Tesco might offer 15 varieties of ketchup, Lidl offer two versions as standard (others might appear on special) and they stock those versions in ALL their European stores.
Their buying power is therefore much bigger than the other supermarket groups, they can negotiate much bigger discounts and because it isn’t branded also saves them money.
I agree re: fruit and veg. You have to look very carefully before buying it!
On a lot of their produce they don’t put use by/best before dates. This is mainly due to the fact that pesticides etc aren’t used, so there is a secret trick to working out which ones are actually freshest (I’d tell you what that is but I can’t remember right now and HRH is at work!)
Aldi put up a league table of checkout operators and what their scan rate is (or at least they used to) and while Lidl might have a conversation with an employee who regularly falls below 30/35 items a minute they aren’t nearly as funny about it as Aldi are.
Source to all this information is my OH who is management at Lidl (for her sins!)
Seems to be much better in Caerphilly compared to Ystrad Mynach near me
They do put the week number on them, if that’s what you’re thinking of.
I work for a premium supermarket but still love Aldi and Lidl. For me their quality is as good as any run of the mill supermarket but I love the fact that you just get every day low prices and don’t have to faff about with offers.
I’d wager that in a Pepsi taste test very few people would be able to tell the difference. It’s mostly just brand snobbery.
Some things are much worse quality, some things okay. To be fair, Tesco is awful in many respects too. It’s a good idea to go to the main seven supermarkets and work out what products from each you like and are good value.
e.g. the cheese selection in 5/7 is utterly woeful.
I’ve had a few staff at ASDA tell me there rate per hour is higher than Lidl or ALDI.
I’ve learnt at ALDI to put shopping on the conveyor belt as I want it put in the bags.
No packing in a corner for me!
Not found a till operator who goes too fast for me.
On that though you can ask them to slow down. Just don’t dither putting one item at a time in the trolley.
Much rather Tesco as there is so much more choice. At Lidl you do not have much choice and they don’t always keep selling an item that you might just have gotten a taste for!
I also can’t feed my pets at Lidl they won’t eat the food. X
