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  • Shopping without the supermarkets
  • oldgit
    Free Member

    I’ve been contemplating this for while now. And tonight the missus has laid into me for returning home empty handed from the supermarket. Thing is I can’t bring myself round to buying ready meals, forced veg and shrink wrapped meat.
    So if I want to go the local route, then I’ll have to do it myself.
    So we’ve got a great butchers and grocers, only chain bakers, a good weekly market with a great fishmongers, a fortnightly French market, an Italian deli and a coffee specialist.
    How long before I weaken and go back to the one stop shop 😐

    wwaswas
    Full Member

    How long before I weaken

    from the list of local shops you’ve given – as soon as you run out of loo roll 😉

    Junkyard
    Free Member

    i go once a month for stuff i need like washing up liquid bog roll perhaps the odd tin but never for fresh food

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    CaptJon
    Free Member

    Supermarkets aren’t all bad. The high street near me has been rejuvenated since Sainsburys open there.

    Spey-Stout
    Free Member

    Haven’t been to Asda or Tesco for a proper big food shop for over a month now. Walking to the Co-Op for most stuff and using the local shops as much as possible. I save more in fuel than it costs me in the slightly higher prices in those shops. Also, I don’t over shop so much and buy mountains of shit I don’t need as I have to carry it back.

    I get fuel from Tesco’s though, just for the points and I drive past it to work anyway. Not given up on supermarkets, just using them less as its actually more convenient to shop locally for most things.

    Kevevs
    Free Member

    life’s a bitch.

    neilsonwheels
    Free Member

    I do shop at the supermarkets but I don’t do a “big shop” with them.

    Chicken, sausage bacon ect… from the butchers in bulk quantities.
    Veg and milk from local farm shop
    Bread from farm foods because it’s dirt cheap.
    Local Chinese supermarket for fish, curry and chinky stuff.

    Supermarket for everything else, tins, pepsi, cereal ect…

    Marge
    Free Member

    Over here in Belgium, individual shops are still very normal.
    In the small village where i live, we have 2 butchers, 5 bakers (2 of which are on opposite sides of the same street), fruit & veg shop & a deli.

    I’m always surprised to see people queuing outside a bakers or a butchers for their preferred buys.
    I have to say though the quality is wonderful, particularly the bakers.

    I couldn’t imagine not using the supermarket though…

    RichPenny
    Free Member

    It’s really not that difficult, and the results are worthwhile if your shops are good enough and you make the effort to cook properly. What’s the worst that could happen?

    mastiles_fanylion
    Free Member

    Co-op! Like a supermarket only inferior food and rubbish stock levels. We have three within a mile of our house and regularly they have none of the things we require. The Sainsbury Local is normally much better.

    jonb
    Free Member

    Depends, do you have a job? The idea of going shopping on a saturday rather than riding just because that’s the only time the little shops are open whan I’m not at work is not appealing.

    I’ll stick to late night supermarkets and internet delivery.

    As a side note, we do have a great butcher near us (national award winning) and he’s open till 6pm so we can get joints and birds. There are no decent grocers. There’s a bakery but it’s a chain and not that much better than the supermarket. Heinz baked beans are heinz baked beans no matter where you buy them from…

    winston_dog
    Free Member

    I try to use the local shops as much as possible. Especially bakers and butchers. Quality is way way better than supermarkets. Cheaper to.

    The greatest trick the supermarkets have pulled is that they are cheaper than the alternatives.

    Disagree about the Co-op having poor quality food. Their chickens particularly the free range ones are far better than any of the big supermarket ones.

    I wish I could buy everything from the local small traders but hours of work do not allow it, also, tend to visit Waitrose on a Sunday afternoon or Monday evening and pick up the bargains from the meat and fish counters!

    freddyg
    Free Member

    Local shops for perishables, Makro every couple of months for stuff like bog roll, detergents etc.

    ebygomm
    Free Member

    We’re lucky to have a great farm shop that’s open Sundays and until 6.30 in the evenings otherwise it would be the supermarket for everything (it’s technically the local shop being the nearest anyway)

    I don’t think supermarkets undercutting local shops results in their demise, it’s the absence of opening hours that are convenient for the working population.

    mastiles_fanylion
    Free Member

    Disagree about the Co-op having poor quality food. Their chickens particularly the free range ones are far better than any of the big supermarket ones.

    Can’t say I have bought a whole bird from there (never really do ‘Sunday lunch’ type food at all) and only buy chicken fillets occasionally if I am out of them (£5+ for 4 fillets is their normally price, compared to £10 for three boxes of four fillets in Tesco/Asda). We bought a block of their ‘finest’ Wensleydale cheese just over a week ago – it had neither the flavour nor texture of Wensleydale AND it went mouldy in a week (kept in identical conditions to all the other cheese I ever buy – from deli cheese to supermarket blocks). And it wasn’t a one-off – I often find it with that cheese.

    I now tend to drive to the local Asda if I am in an emergency rather than walk to the Co-op – personally I find I can’t trust the quality nor the stock levels. And (ironically) I find all our local ones always have stock trolleys blocking the isles and hardly any staff on to either fill the shelves or serve customers.

    Well that is my experience of them anyway.

    Spey-Stout
    Free Member

    Never had that experience with our local Co-Op, clean, tidy and always got what I need and I would say the pork and chook is better than asda/ tescos, especially knowing its not from a battery farm in Poland is good too. Didn’t think it was much more expensive either, especially for a whole bird. Asda/ Tesco can be a good bit cheaper for tinned shit but I don’t buy much of that anyway. Sainsburys has a good stock of more exotic stuff but the closest one is 60 miles away. Likewise the other big two are 17miles away, nothing can be such an emergency that I’d have to drive to them especially. Co op is 3 miles away.

    Spey-Stout
    Free Member

    And can I just say that if I had a Booths nearby I’d probably never go anywhere else! THE finest supermarkets IMO.

    yossarian
    Free Member

    Use local shops for pretty much everything, being in Kent and by the sea there’s a massive range of locally reared, caught and grown produce. Suppliment it with an ocado delivery once a month for the few things we can’t get on the high street.

    RichPenny
    Free Member

    I never understand why people think it takes an entire day to visit the local shops. In my case, with one exception, the shops are closer together than the departments would be in the supermarket …

    binners
    Full Member

    I’m lucky enough to live in a mainly Asian area. They don’t seem to be in the thrall to supermarkets that we are. I have four local grocers within walking distance. Its brill. The fresh (and it is fresh) fruit and veg is about half the price of the supermarkets (including the smug organic, achingly middle-class one round the corner).

    They all have a Halal butchers which sells excellent meat at nowhere near supermarket prices. No digging on swine though 🙁

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