Is lidl/aldi a rubbish quality food store?

Lidl Stan here, to the point we drive 20 minutes to our nearest Vs 5mins to the local Aldi. Zero issues with veg or fruit lasting.

Aldi we only get Meatsters, Lidl has better variety especially with the weekly themed changes.

Tesco is once a month for tampons, cheese slices and berlinki frankfurters.
 
I used to work for a company which relocated down to Cambridge. They offered a relocation package (which I didn't take) which included tours of potential places to live around the Cambridge area, guided by locals. People from the WI and such I think.

On one of those tours, a colleague asked if there was a local Aldi - and the lady guiding them said no, but provided directions to the local food bank instead.

Not terribly useful to this thread, but the anecdote came to mind. I reckon she wasn't an Aldi fan.
 
Diddums x said:
If anyone wants to see why some stores are best avoided, I'd actively encourage you to vist Asda in Roehampton on a Friday evening.


Makes my skin crawl just thinking about it, disgusting.
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I used to live in a place that backed onto a 24 hour Asda's car park. It was great, 2 minute sneak through the industrial estate and I could get my dinner at midnight after a late shift.

It was pretty grim going during daytime hours though - shelves were somehow more bare and disorderly, customers fighting over the reduced shelves. At least at night it was just full of pallets of stock and bleary eyed shelf stackers.

They started closing at midnight and I once saw two punch ups in 5 minutes, the second involving the door security guy. That was the last time I went to an Asda.
 
We've used ALDI for years and I have loads of their copy stuff.
My lady played tricks on me so for example she asked me what my diet coke was like and I said it's OK, she then told me she had been filling my bottle up for the last two weeks, I've never had the real stuff since.
She's done the same with tomato soup and ketchup and I couldn't tell the difference, there's loads of copy stuff I have now.

I've even bought nearly all of their Ferrex cordless tools and put all my major brands in storage.
 
I go to aldi for quality apples, wagyu burgers and their stone baked pizzas are very good for the price. Crisps no, cereal prob no, knock off hellmans mayo dunno, it is horses for courses tbh.
I did get a £5 back clock from aldi once randomly and it keeps the time ok.

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I swear by Aldi brioche burger buns - though the fact that they keep and remain soft for so long makes me think they have similar amounts of preservatives as MREs.
 
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I live in a very dense area, I have an ASDA, TESCO, Iceland, Farmfoods, Waitrose, Lidl and Aldi within 2 miles and a Sainsbury and Morrisons within 4.5miles.

ALDI has been my more frequent lately and I went only two days ago. I use most of them depending on what I need to shop for.

But as far as quality goes with ALDI and Lidl I find both of them far superior to TESCO.
 
pre said:
I swear by Aldi brioche burger buns - though the fact that they keep and remain soft for so long makes me think they have similar amounts of preservatives as MREs.
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Heh.

I try to look at the ingredients, they offer nothing on their site and say this:

our products and their ingredients are liable to change at any time. If you need any specific information about any of our Aldi-branded products, please visit your local ALDI Store.
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Well isn't that magical, they have so little faith in keeping a supplier chained down to a wafer thin margin that they won't commit to an ingredient list.

I check Asda, Sainsburys, Tesco, they're all giving full ingredients.
 
Rai200 said:
For Lidl at least their Deluxe range is usually very good, especially for cured meats, cheeses, sausages, olives etc.

Their weekly specials are often pretty good, and their fresh fruit and veg is pretty comparable to other super markets.

I don't really buy much in the way of snacks or overly processed foods so I can't really comment on that... apart from their Magnum/Solero knock offs which are great and about 1/2 the cost.

Also buy their knock off Fanta/7Up and they're pretty good.

The fry up I just had for dinner (don't judge me) was entirely from Lidl:

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I am sure I saw this posted on Reddit. Also sausages and bacon + not overly processed? ;)
 
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Picked up an Aldi Katsu curry jar when I went the other day, curious to see if it's any good. Grabbed their version of kellogs clusters, nice but the lidl ones had chocolate swirls so they I want them :p
 
Hotwired said:
Well isn't that magical, they have so little faith in keeping a supplier chained down to a wafer thin margin that they won't commit to an ingredient list.
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That's one thing with Aldi and probably Lidl too, but I don't shop enough at Lidl to comment on their supplies. Aldi can and do change their products without warning or reason. One minute you'll like something of theirs and buy it regularly, the next thing you know it's been taken off the shelf and nobody knows why.

Although it's seasonal, I used to like Aldi's ginger wine. But last year they must have changed suppler and it tastes nothing like it used to - and not in a good way either. :(

A classic example is Aldi's laundry detergent pods. I've seen them change design numerous times, but I don't buy them often enough to care. I do like Aldi's biological soap powder though, it cleans clothes just as well as Ariel and it doesn't irritate my skin either - win-win for me.
 
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They're going to build an Aldi 5 minutes walk from my house and I'm delighted. There's only a Waitrose at the moment and it's a ripoff.

Can't wait to be able to walk down there and grab milk, beer, meat, eggs, other basics and essentials for buttons compared to Waitrose.
 
As long as you avoid the UPFs I don't think Aldi/Lidl can do you too wrong. Some of their imitation brand UPFs are atrocious in both quality and nutrition, but frankly even most branded products are also awful these days and have plummeted in quality while hiking costs that they should be avoided anyway... Although Aldi's imitation Pepsi Max/Lemon & Red Fanta are the real deal and both supermarkets' energy drinks taste like Citrus Sharp Polos which is very nostalgic :D

Meats are standard for a supermarket and are no worse than the other big supermarkets and a lot cheaper, but the chicken breasts stand out as exceptionally bad and are pumped with so much water that you end up boiling them when it floods out and don't seem to freeze too well and are always very tough when defrosted. But we already know you don't go to a supermarket for quality meat - that's what butchers are for and it will cost you a premium.

Fruit & veg are good, usually a bit cheaper but as a whole last a day or two less than the other supermarkets which doesn't really matter anyway. I can't comment on the bakery or general bread quality - we bake our own stuff.

I like both, at the end of the day they're not really any worse than the others and the price at the till is noticeably lower. We've all learned what's great and what to avoid in there by now, right?
 
We only have an Aldi within walking distance, so our main shop is exclusively there. I used to have the mindset that Aldi was cheap, so must have been poor quality. Now I prefer it over others and I can get much more my money.
 
Bluebozzy said:
As long as you avoid the UPFs I don't think Aldi/Lidl can do you too wrong. Some of their imitation brand UPFs are atrocious in both quality and nutrition, but frankly even most branded products are also awful these days and have plummeted in quality while hiking costs that they should be avoided anyway... Although Aldi's imitation Pepsi Max/Lemon & Red Fanta are the real deal and both supermarkets' energy drinks taste like Citrus Sharp Polos which is very nostalgic :D

Meats are standard for a supermarket and are no worse than the other big supermarkets and a lot cheaper, but the chicken breasts stand out as exceptionally bad and are pumped with so much water that you end up boiling them when it floods out and don't seem to freeze too well and are always very tough when defrosted. But we already know you don't go to a supermarket for quality meat - that's what butchers are for and it will cost you a premium.

Fruit & veg are good, usually a bit cheaper but as a whole last a day or two less than the other supermarkets which doesn't really matter anyway. I can't comment on the bakery or general bread quality - we bake our own stuff.

I like both, at the end of the day they're not really any worse than the others and the price at the till is noticeably lower. We've all learned what's great and what to avoid in there by now, right?
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Believe it or not, the butcher here is substantially cheaper than supermarkets. 400g of chicken breast in a supermarket is about £6-7 for their "best". In the butcher, 1.5kg of chicken breast is £12.
 
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