Aldi

So, as I’ve said before… we most often do our weekly shop at Birmingham Markets (where everything is fantastically tasty and a fraction of the price of supermarkets), but sometimes it’s just not possible to get to town on a Saturday morning. Now, we normally split our shop between Tesco and Market anyway (unfortunately, you can’t get everything at the Bullring), but the fruit and veg at Tesco is just so damned expensive, we need an alternative. It’s weekend like this that we trip down to Lidl or Aldi.
Personally, I rate Aldi more highly than Lidl. To start with they do their «Super 6» (6 different varieties of fruit and veg on offer for 59p). This weeks offerings were pears, cherry tomatoes, chestnut mushrooms, salad potatoes, rhubarb and babycorn. We managed to pick up most of the fruit and veg we needed for the week in one fell swoop for £2.95 (we skipped Rhubarb, not feeling in a crumbly sort of mood). On top of this we got a bag of sweet potatoes for just 69p.
As well as the fruit and veg offers, the meat is very reasonably priced as well. On the weekend there were small packs of mince for 99p, a good selection of fish and lots of BBQ’ing ingredients left over (when many of the other nearby supermarkets would have been ransacked). Whenever we have had meat from Aldi, it’s always been good quality too, so it’s worth picking up (especially if it has a discounted sticker on it). As well as frozen meat, there is a great selection of chilled continental meat (such as Frikadellen, Parma Ham and Bratwurst) which isn’t too expensive.
There are always weird offers to be found in Aldi. Every week on the website they showcase a variety of items which are for sale the coming weekend. Now, if you’re in the market for a pair of «mens leather boating shoes» or a blue «pop-​up tent», then you might be in for a bargain! Just have a little look at the website before you go to see what will be on offer that week.
As well as food and general kitchen cupboard stuff, they have a great selection of alcohol. There is normally a couple of craft beers on offer in store and there is an award winning selection of wines and spirits on sale. Some of the spirits you might want to avoid (memories of a particularly awful hangover from one of their brands of vodka come to mind), but the bourbon, whisky and liquors all seem to be pretty spot on.
If you need to do the weekly shop and don’t want to break the bank, I recommend popping into Aldi. Even the basics such as milk and bread seem to be vastly cheaper than the main branded supermarkets, so you could save a fortune (and pick up a wierd and wonderful bargain to boot!).