Are Tesco finished in Ireland, do you shop there anymore?

I don't understand the aldi/lidl love in. I go to aldi only if there is some piece of equipment on Thursday special I want to have a look at and usually have a look around. I don't think its particularly cheap and the quality just isn't the same as supervalue.

I don't believe stories like "I was spending 130 in tesco and now onky spend 50 in aldi" if you are making saving like that you are buying inferior products and buying less things imo.

It reminds me of people saying that they spend less using the prepaid electricity meters and how great they are, despite it actually being more expensive to use a prepaid system. They are simply using much less and monitoring their usage more. The same can be done with an normal post-pay ESB setup but people appear blind to the fact.

lufties

The Clonmel one does really well, Its big and is open 24hrs.

Fred Swanson

This post has been deleted.

lufties

Fred Swanson wrote: »

This post has been deleted.

Didn't know that about Clonmel, Think there's an aldi somewhere in town aswell.

homemadecider

LordSutch wrote: »

A tad harsh maybe :rolleyes:

Talking of fair play, at least Tesco do fair trade.

Lidl have fair trade coffee, chocolate and bananas. I highly recommend the chocolate!

LordSutch

Indeed, but I wouldn't say Tesco are scum

Capt'n Midnight

qapmoc wrote: »

the quality of stuff in lidl / aldi is worse, and the selection is much worse too. I bought something in the middle isle in lidl once and had to take it back as it was such poor quality / not fit for purpose, and their after care service in lidl is non-existant too. Plus I believe the profit and money spent in lidl in Ireland go straight to Germany.

and somehow you think Tesco profits stay here ?

It's been done to death but Lidl/Aldi would probably source more stuff here than Tesco who would get a lot of it from UK suppliers. Even stuff like cadbury's who have factories here. ( and UK cadbury's chocolate is yukkie because our milk is nicer )




after care service ?

ALDI / LIDL tend to be very good on returning stuff with a receipt and giving 3 year service on things that others don't

Capt'n Midnight

homemadecider wrote: »

Lidl have fair trade coffee, chocolate and bananas. I highly recommend the chocolate!

And fair trade caster sugar (cane) at €1.09 a kilo.

ThisRegard

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

and somehow you think Tesco profits stay here ?

It's been done to death but Lidl/Aldi would probably source more stuff here than Tesco who would get a lot of it from UK suppliers. Even stuff like cadbury's who have factories here. ( and UK cadbury's chocolate is yukkie because our milk is nicer )




after care service ?

ALDI / LIDL tend to be very good on returning stuff with a receipt and giving 3 year service on things that others don't

They have a staff share purchase scheme so more of their money would probably stay in Ireland than from the Germans, and they definitely buy more Irish produce than them.

Archeron

Anyone see the signs of the strikers at Marks & Spencers today?
This is not just a strike, this is a Marks and Spencer's strike.

Brilliant

Capt'n Midnight

hmmm wrote: »

Aldi and Lidl are supermarkets built with men in mind. You want jam? Certainly, red or yellow? The product you bought last week is in the same place this week. You go to a store somewhere else, everything is still in the same place. They don't do coupons and have women fiddling in their handbags at the counter.

Actually they do coupons this month and Aldi now take credit cards too

Produce coupon before they start scanning.
if you spend €50 or more get €10 off, simple as.
The hardest part is trying to spend €50

Last week - ask friends / neighbours if they still have last weeks paper
ALDI http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2057087398

Tomorrows Sindo
LIDL http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2057099531

mikemac1

Tesco Ballyfermot is the filthiest Tesco in Ireland. The entire management team should be sacked. And some of the wans in there too.

I've been in Tesco Clarehall which I believe is HQ for Ireland and it is pristine, well laid out and the staff are great.

How can there be such a difference and the stores are only a 30 minute drive apart?

Aldi Kylemore Rd is great, can't fault it

Capt'n Midnight

dark crystal wrote: »

Part of the reason Aldi and Lidl cost less, is because there's far less choice than in Tesco, therefore people tend not to pick up impulse buys and extras in the same quantities. I find I have to 'top up' my weekly shop in other stores whenever I do my shopping in Lidl and Aldi too.
...
and a lot of the fruit and veg tends to be hard and under ripe. Nowhere near as great as some people make out.

Aldi pears in particular. You have to let them age for a week. But after that they are usually the nicest pears out there.

But that's the whole point. You buy the basics in them. Some of the stuff isn't great, but mostly it's better than Dunnes own brand. Tesco extra value peanuts are OK but anything in that range that needs a recipe is just scary.

BeerFear

I buy my fresh fruit and Vegetable out of Dunnes Stores.
I buy my meat out of a Butchers.
I check what offers are available in stores online and that's where I buy the rest of the stuff. Save a lot buying stuff on special offers between the stores and there only a 5 min drive between each one.

road_high

mikemac1 wrote: »

Tesco Ballyfermot is the filthiest Tesco in Ireland. The entire management team should be sacked. And some of the wans in there too.

I've been in Tesco Clarehall which I believe is HQ for Ireland and it is pristine, well laid out and the staff are great.

How can there be such a difference and the stores are only a 30 minute drive apart?

Aldi Kylemore Rd is great, can't fault it

That's singer Mary Byrne's old workplace

BeerFear

road_high wrote: »

That's singer Mary Byrne's old workplace

I wonder would they still have her chair and if I could sniff her seat.

moxin

mikemac1 wrote: »

I've been in Tesco Clarehall which I believe is HQ for Ireland and it is pristine, well laid out and the staff are great.

Didn't Tesco move some of their Irish HQ to India recently?

ThisRegard

moxin wrote: »

Didn't Tesco move some of their Irish HQ to India recently?

Their HQ is Dun Laoighaire, they do their new product development and testing in Clarehall and some of their call centre stuff is done in Asia/India direction somewhere.

wmpdd3

Lads does anyone honestly know how much they spend on food per week? Really.

I take out €65 and get the shopping, I make a full list and stick to it. If its more than that I put back, I calculate it as I'm going around. I never go to the local shop, if I run out, I borrow from family.

Most of my friends say their shopping is €100, but they make 3 trips to different shops and pick up 'bits'.

You just can't be sure what your spending if you got to a few shops, especially if you have a 4 days spread between shops then do you big shop again.

I also don't believe people who say they save a mint in the discounters, but stop in boots and buy €14 worth of shampoo etc, which I've bought in the supermarket.

What you spend is your own business until you brag about how stupid I am to be shopping where I shop!

BeerFear

wmpdd3 wrote: »

Lads does anyone honestly know how much they spend on food per week? Really.

I take out €65 and get the shopping, I make a full list and stick to it. If its more than that I put back, I calculate it as I'm going around. I never go to the local shop, if I run out, I borrow from family.

Most of my friends say their shopping is €100, but they make 3 trips to different shops and pick up 'bits'.

You just can't be sure what your spending if you got to a few shops, especially if you have a 4 days spread between shops then do you big shop again.

I also don't believe people who say they save a mint in the discounters, but stop in boots and buy €14 worth of shampoo etc, which I've bought in the supermarket.

What you spend is your own business until you brag about how stupid I am to be shopping where I shop!

Yea between 40 and 50 usually for myself. I wouldn't really be that much of a stinge to borrow things off family or be worried if I went over by 5 euro really. Nothing wrong going to your local shop for a litre of milk or a loaf of bread

wmpdd3

True, but then you havent kept to your grocery budget, any overspend has to come out of the utilities money.

The_Pretender

wmpdd3 wrote: »

True, but then you havent kept to your grocery budget, any overspend has to come out of the utilities money.

I understand where you're coming from in relation to people who do absolutely no planning and buy bits from whatever shop they're near at the time, but if you only do your weekly in shop in one particular store then you will never get the absolute most out of your money.

If you look around and see what's on offer in different shops, then you can budget for it.

stehyl15

A lot of people here are saying they hate dunnes i dont know but i really like dunnes. The store in cornelscourt is very nice they recently put in self service checkouts which is handy. I hate the supervalu in deansrange it smells of sh!t and my local spar is cheaper. I dont know how it stays in buisness with dunnes nearby and a lidl across the road.

Sir Humphrey Appleby

Simple economics, Tesco are wildly expensive, people cant afford that anymore.

LordSutch

Have to Love the 'Clearance section' in Tesco. The later in the day the better as the prices tumble. 7pm and I can buy a all sorts of meats & desserts to be used by todays date, and more often than not they are fine for at least the next couple of days.

The Diabolical Monocle

Where else to go when you're jonesing for some chocolate at 1am ??

manys the time they've saved me from the shakes.

Ah-Watch

I shop in Tesco the whole time for these reasons, prepare to call me daft if you like...

Tesco employs a good few friends - yes I'm aware the profits go out of town but They are still employed.

Dunnes even though I find them better quality for some things it's painful shopping there - it's a new enough store but my god it's full of old tellers who take all day to scan out your 5 items and count out your change- yes I do want the right change but it shouldn't take them as bloody long to count it out.

Lidl - our local lidl is pretty run down though they are currently in theoddle of doing it up, it's messy , dirty and anytime I go in I find it hard to get whatever I'm looking for ( yes I am fully aware of where everything should be) but cannot find it in stock / bad quality.

Aldi- currently looking into opening new store in town. Will prob shop there a bit as always found them good living elsewhere

Heroditas

stehyl15 wrote: »

A lot of people here are saying they hate dunnes i dont know but i really like dunnes. The store in cornelscourt is very nice they recently put in self service checkouts which is handy. I hate the supervalu in deansrange it smells of sh!t and my local spar is cheaper. I dont know how it stays in buisness with dunnes nearby and a lidl across the road.

The Lidl and Super Valu in Deansgrange might work well with each other.
People might tend to buy some stuff in one shop and then pop across the road to get the rest of the groceries in the other one. Otherwise they might just head up to Cornelscourt to buy the whole weekly shopping.

Smell of sh1t? Sounds like the dairy fridge needs a good scrubbing down. Nothing worse than a dirty dairy fridge. Sour dairy produce is vile

sparksfly

We buy our bread at a local bakery, our meat at the butchers and fruit & veg at a greengrocers. The balance comes from the local SuperValu that employees 110 people. The selection and quality from small local suppliers is without comparison. We buy Irish produce unless its unavailable.

Our total weekly bill is approx 95euro, less than our friends who shop in Tesco / discounters.
Looking at the amount of Irish retailers that operate in UK and Germany, I would do my best to support Irish stores where possible. Germans will absolutely not support foreign food retail. They are fiercely patriotic when it comes to competition from foreign stores.

That's only my decision though, I'm a believer in free choice when it comes to market forces in retailing.

awec

A mix of them all to be honest.

Generally we try and get stuff in Aldi / Lidl as much as possible but at times there are things they don't stock / we prefer the branded stuff. For fruit and veg and meat Aldi and Lidl are great - it's all the other random things that you might not find. They sell all the basics and they sell them cheap. Sometimes we need certain cuts of meat and you know you have no chance of getting that in Aldi / Lidl - they rarely do anything outside of the steak / burger / chop / mince categories.

Maybe they do if you buy frozen - but I don't like buying frozen meat.

malibu4u

sparksfly wrote: »

We buy our bread at a local bakery, our meat at the butchers and fruit & veg at a greengrocers. The balance comes from the local SuperValu that employees 110 people. The selection and quality from small local suppliers is without comparison. We buy Irish produce unless its unavailable.

Our total weekly bill is approx 95euro, less than our friends who shop in Tesco / discounters.
Looking at the amount of Irish retailers that operate in UK and Germany, I would do my best to support Irish stores where possible. Germans will absolutely not support foreign food retail. They are fiercely patriotic when it comes to competition from foreign stores.

That's only my decision though, I'm a believer in free choice when it comes to market forces in retailing.

good post

April O Neill II

I shop in Aldi and Tesco.

Mostly Aldi, but does anyone else find their veg to be of poor quality? I find if I buy a bag of onions, half of them will be rotten when I go to use them, despite looking fine on the outside.

I find Tesco and Lidl far better for veg. No Lidl nearby.

April O Neill II

SV wrote: »

Ah it's all about Aldi.

Lidl is not in the same category as Aldi, Lidl can feck off.

Lidl's veg is of far better quality than Aldi's.

Uberbeamerman

The quality of produce is important, but I find what makes me go back to a place is the quality of service...I mentioned before that I like Lidl, their staff in my local store are always friendly, they hand the change back to your hand and not on the counter, if you have a query they'll stop what they're doing and assist you (and their food is cheap and decent quality!!). Go to Tesco or (unfortunately) some local shops (vegetable shops, butchers and the like) and the staff hardly speak to you, you hand them the money and they put the change back down on the counter (lack of respect imo), you ask them a question and its like you were asking them to give up a day off to help you...

SpaceTime

Uberbeamerman wrote: »

The quality of produce is important, but I find what makes me go back to a place is the quality of service...I mentioned before that I like Lidl, their staff in my local store are always friendly, they hand the change back to your hand and not on the counter, if you have a query they'll stop what they're doing and assist you (and their food is cheap and decent quality!!). Go to Tesco or (unfortunately) some local shops (vegetable shops, butchers and the like) and the staff hardly speak to you, you hand them the money and they put the change back down on the counter (lack of respect imo), you ask them a question and its like you were asking them to give up a day off to help you...

I have to say that I haven't found that with any of my local shops at all (including Tesco).

I'm in Cork City and we've quite a few local specialist shops of various types near where I live and I find that most of them go way above and beyond in terms of being helpful and friendly.

The staff in our nearest SuperValu are extremely friendly too and they'll offer to help even without asking sometimes.

I shop in Tesco Mahon and Douglas quite a bit and also Dunnes in Douglas Court and the staff in there are all very friendly in my experience. If you ask someone for something they'll walk you to the aisle it's on. The check out staff are friendly and chatty if you chat to them and in both Tesco and Dunnes they'll actually hand you your change and explain any vouchers that pop out of the till.

M&S staff are extremely friendly too and will actually have a proper chat while scanning your groceries.

I find Aldi and Lidl pretty friendly too and their checkouts are very fast although they don't generally have as much time to chat as they scan the groceries very quickly!

I'll also quite happily wander around the English market shopping and having a bit of banter with every stall holder / shop keeper I deal with too. It's a proper old-school urban shopping experience and most of the retailers in there would talk the hind legs off a donkey!

I'm a Dub and I've always found most retailers in Dublin extremely friendly too. You get the odd grump everywhere or someone having a bad day, but in my experience it's the exception.

Maybe you're just in a particularly unfriendly part of the country ?

gramar

I've never shopped in Tescos but I remember being a student years back and was eating in a friends house. Everything was Tesco's own brand and it was rubbish.

I remember 'paying' for the dinner after by washing the dishes and using Tesco washing up liquid. I may as well have been squirting me baby gravy onto the plates for all the good it was.

SpaceTime

The problem with Tesco own-brand is that it's operates like the British class system!

"Tesco Finest" - Upper Class
"Tesco" - Middle Class
"Tesco Value" - Working Class

The Tesco Finest range is usually pretty top notch and the regular Tesco brands are quite good. I've tried a few of their household products and found them quite OK like their sensitive skin fabric softener for example and laundry detergents are all pretty decent quality and all made by either McBride or Persan in Spain both of which are very reputable manufacturers that produce decent quality stuff.

However, they also do their Tesco Value range which seems to be aimed to compete with the hard-discounters like Aldi and Lidl. The problem is that it tends to be both cheap and also low quality.

In their price comparisons they often pitch a Tesco Value item against a Lidl or Aldi item and in most cases the Lidl or Aldi item is at least as good as their mainstream own brand or even their finest range.

The problem I find with Lidl and Aldi though is the lack of well-known brands.

I've also found that most of their own brand stuff is excellent and some isn't. You really need to try stuff once and see what you think of it and if it's good it tends to be really good but if it's not you might want to reconsider!

Lollipops23

I used to do all my shopping in Tesco (online), but am finding myself using Lidl more and more. The prices are just better there, although you have to get burned a few times until you know what you can and can't buy there.

scdublin

Mostly shop in Lidl/Aldi for the basics and Tesco for the rest. They're attempting to match prices lately or offer you the difference in a voucher. It's something.

Shenshen

sparksfly wrote: »

We buy our bread at a local bakery, our meat at the butchers and fruit & veg at a greengrocers. The balance comes from the local SuperValu that employees 110 people. The selection and quality from small local suppliers is without comparison. We buy Irish produce unless its unavailable.

Our total weekly bill is approx 95euro, less than our friends who shop in Tesco / discounters.
Looking at the amount of Irish retailers that operate in UK and Germany, I would do my best to support Irish stores where possible. Germans will absolutely not support foreign food retail. They are fiercely patriotic when it comes to competition from foreign stores.

That's only my decision though, I'm a believer in free choice when it comes to market forces in retailing.

As a German, I have to call BS on that.
Germans are nothing if not over-conscious of the money they spend - it's no coincidence that Aldi and Lidl are German, and there are another handful of supermarkets in Germany following the same philosophy but not having branched out internationally yet.
On the whole, your average German doesn't give a poo where what he/she is buying has come from, as long as it's cheap.

One German electronics chain used to run the slogan "Geiz ist geil" - roughly "Tight-fistedness is horny/awesome".
German shop where they'll get the most for what little money they have to spend, and that's that.

Shenshen

scdublin wrote: »

Mostly shop in Lidl/Aldi for the basics and Tesco for the rest. They're attempting to match prices lately or offer you the difference in a voucher. It's something.

There are very few things I buy in Tescos, mostly items for baking as Aldi and Lidl are fairly poor in what they off in that area, and sometimes things like quorn pieces.

When they first brough out this price promise, I figured "Great, they must have dropped some of their own-brand prices to match Aldi and Lidl, so". Walked in, checked the soy milk, and it's still 20c more expensive than both Aldi and Lidl.
So I walked out again. I don't see the point in buying something more expensive just so I get a voucher to keep buying more expensive items.

Uberbeamerman

SpaceTime wrote: »

I'm a Dub and I've always found most retailers in Dublin extremely friendly
Maybe you're just in a particularly unfriendly part of the country ?

Could be that I suppose!

RahenyD5

SpaceTime wrote: »

I have to say that I haven't found that with any of my local shops at all (including Tesco).

I'm in Cork City and we've quite a few local specialist shops of various types near where I live and I find that most of them go way above and beyond in terms of being helpful and friendly.

The staff in our nearest SuperValu are extremely friendly too and they'll offer to help even without asking sometimes.

I shop in Tesco Mahon and Douglas quite a bit and also Dunnes in Douglas Court and the staff in there are all very friendly in my experience. If you ask someone for something they'll walk you to the aisle it's on. The check out staff are friendly and chatty if you chat to them and in both Tesco and Dunnes they'll actually hand you your change and explain any vouchers that pop out of the till.

M&S staff are extremely friendly too and will actually have a proper chat while scanning your groceries.

I find Aldi and Lidl pretty friendly too and their checkouts are very fast although they don't generally have as much time to chat as they scan the groceries very quickly!

I'll also quite happily wander around the English market shopping and having a bit of banter with every stall holder / shop keeper I deal with too. It's a proper old-school urban shopping experience and most of the retailers in there would talk the hind legs off a donkey!

I'm a Dub and I've always found most retailers in Dublin extremely friendly too. You get the odd grump everywhere or someone having a bad day, but in my experience it's the exception.

Maybe you're just in a particularly unfriendly part of the country ?

As Cork is a small city, perhaps less fast paced so people tend to be more friendly than in Dublin. I've found shopkeepers, if not all, in Cork & Galway generally more pleasant and ready to help. Love Cork though, must go back soon!