We have recently dropped Tesco in favour of Aldi. Purely down to money if I’m honest.

My Tesco food shop had steadily increased over the years then they reduced delivery costs and the food prices seemed to rocket.

So now it’s Aldi for most stuff and co-op/Sainsbury’s for bits and bobs.

Aldis single malt isn’t bad either.

Aldi bubbly is surprisingly good!

Used to say that for Tesco too….

Agree, round here Lidl and Aldi are cheaper and Sainsburys and Waitrose are better for the rareities, plus this is rural North Yorkshire so independent farm shops and butchers abound.

To buck the trend we dropped Tesco for ethical reasons.

Food shopping now shared between Ocado, Sainsbury, Waitrose and local shops/farmers market.

For me it was poor quality meat and veg/fruit at Tesco. And just endless rows of the same ready meal.
I like aldi stuff, its selective and to the point. Shopping at aldi is quick to, so I can nip to Waitrose and local specialist shops for the same time spent in a miserable Tesco.
Our weekly shop is also now far cheaper.

Aldi is also doing well because it reduces choice.

Although the chocolate range is confusing.
Best to try them all.

Wow, I thought supermarkets were all the same. Waitrose has far tastier checkout girls though.

Only use Tesco for a wee.

Clean up in aisle 7….

Aside from the quality and competition from others issues, Tescos have simply become to big.

The problem with organisations like this is that growth and profit has to be bigger than previous years as demanded by the shareholders. They are starting to go backwards, and the company has that panic-stricken air about it.

Unless it winds it neck in and becomes fighting fit for today’s market by actually shrinking its size, all I see is a self-induced collapse by trying to maintain the growth at all costs idealogy.

They should learn the lesson from their fresh and easy chain in the US, and cut their losses.

We’ve just got a new local Aldi and tbh it’s carparks always crammed ….
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We’ve also got a nice M&S which mrs DoD shops in , it’s not dirt cheap but tbh it’s not bad as the food is very good…

I get a lot of my meat online from musclefood and that’s amazing well priced for healthy meat. Always amazed at how little if any fat comes out there burgers 🙂

I used to get market research reports every week in one of my old jobs. For the thick end of 3 years, the supermarket trend that Waitrose, Aldi and Lidl were gaining market share, and everyone else was losing out.

This is called “p ❗ g in the wind” by all respected market watchers. Basically, no matter how good a company is, if they’re trying to go against the weather, they’re screwed. Can you imagine the rise of Aldi, Lidl and B&M etc. happening during a massive economic boom? No, me neither.

Tesco have got a fair few things going wrong at once.

1) Pricing. Buy one packet of bacon for £3 or 3 for £6 or whatever just does not work in their convenience format stores, which they’ve opened a lot of lately. Maybe in the 150k sq ft warehouse where you’re doing a massive family shop, but not in the convenience stores.
2) Cannabalism. You can barely travel 5 minutes in any direction without finding a Tesco. This means that when Tesco open a new store, they take sales off another Tesco store.
3) Quality. Own label ready meals etc. aren’t as good as Sainsburys, M&S, Waitrose or Ocado, and I’d say not as good as Aldi or Lidl.
4) Profitable customers are going to Aldi and Lidl. The ones with good salaries and company cars who buy Prosecco, ready meals and all the mid / upper tier products that you actually make margin on. And they are completely unashamed about shopping at a “cheap supermarket”.
5) Overseas ventures have gone very badly for them, and cost them a lot of money.
6) Convenience. It’s not convenient for anyone to spend an hour walking around a supermarket the size of an airport. However, this could be said of any of Tesco / JS / Morrisons.
7) They have reached the “try anything” stage of retail management. It’s fairly obvious that they’ve told store managers to try out their own ideas to get sales, which tends to result in a rather odd in store experience on occasion.

I’ve tried many supermarkets over the years, we used to do each weekly shop in a different one for variety at one point, and as an average heres what it cost…

Tesco £85
Asda £75
Morrisons £70
Aldi £50

Tesco always had that feeling of pants taken down, nice big airy stores with wide isles but prices way OTT.

Asda although they claim to be the cheapest we could never make it so with the products we’d buy from there.

Morrisons was our staple for years once we settled on one supermarket, detested the BOGOF offers and would rather just get the one product cheaper in the first place.

Aldi attracted me with the cheaper shoppping bill challenge 6 months back, and now never looking back. Better quality, and fridge + cupboards absolutely overflowing. To the point you open fridge and stuff falls out LOL I’ll never look back now, unless Aldi really rock the boat. Quality, especially the fruit/veg puts the other three to shame.

Although the chocolate range is confusing.
Best to try them all.

Ha ha. I am indeed trying out all the chocolate range 🙂

Quality, especially the fruit/veg puts the other three to shame.

Exactly. In Aldi and Lidl the fruit/veg is way, way better and way cheaper. It really is a no brainer.

We’ve just got a new local Aldi and tbh it’s carparks always crammed ….
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We’ve also got a nice M&S which mrs DoD shops in , it’s not dirt cheap but tbh it’s not bad as the food is very good…

I get a lot of my meat online from musclefood and that’s amazing well priced for healthy meat. Always amazed at how little if any fat comes out there burgers

You seem to have pasted a RM tracking number in your post, dude.

…apparently they tried to deliver, but you were out, so left a card 😀

My local tescos (big box and express) sell local Kelham Island bitter. None of the others sell anything local at all. Just bland mass produced brands.

Tesco do get some things right.

with tescos issuing another profit warning I was wondering when this shift in buying to Aldi/lidl was going start effecting the big brands profits ? I know for a fact some of aldi breakfast cereals are made by weetabix but even so the profit margin can’t be as good as their premium lines.

The Tesco fruit and veg thing is a funny one.

Tesco Prestwich – Poorly stocked, damaged crap
Tesco Cheetham Hill (4 miles away) – Much better.

Incidentally Cheetham Hill has many Asian supermarkets with spectacular produce displays. Prestwich has none.

…plus they have THE WORST self checkout machines. Don’t even take £2 coins FFS.

Well my Friend works in Morrisons and they actually do take the £2 coin, it’s just the size of them fills the coin box up too fast so they put a note on saying they don’t accept them.

That’s not a joke, my Friend works on them checkouts. Unbelievable.

They are the worst checkouts ever.

Personally I have hated Tesco with a vengeance for over a decade due to their evident joy at destroying and ill treating suppliers. And the land banking issue as well. In both respects they are worse than any other supermarket apart from maybe ASDA. Terry Leahy has a lot to answer for and deserves a lot of ill fortune.

They’ve clad the trolley sheds in wood effect plastic now…..that should sort everything nicely I reckon.

I N R A T S but I hope folk see the parallels with Wiggle, CRC etc.

I like Tesco. It’s convenient, and they got the online grocery/click+collect thing nailed before many others.

I’m not surprised; you spend so much time on this forum, I doubt you have any time to do an real shopping. Click and collect must be manna from heaven for oyu. reay meal for one again is it? 😉

Fortunately we don’t need to shop at supermarkets. Our local shops wil get stuff in for us specally, if we ask for it. We even have stuff grown of rus. 8)

I don’t like the quality fresh food and meat they sell.

That;s because they don’t sell fresh food and meat…

I’m not surprised; you spend so much time on this forum, I doubt you have any time to do an real shopping. Click and collect must be manna from heaven for oyu.

That’s quite amusing, coming from Singletrackworld’s resident boomerang.

I’m a big fayn of local shops.

Yeovil is really good for them.

i worked for tesco throughout northern england and in eastern europe for over twenty years. i worked at the coal face dealing with customers and staff all day.

despite been ‘sold’ the line that the business was the cheapest retailer when they obviuosly were not, and this is still pedalled to staff today the clearest indicator is where the staff shop.. and it isnt tesco. morrisons and asda were the frim favoruites and the discounters now take a ssignificant share. a trip to aldis and lidls reveals many older shoppers and many ethnic communities using the store .. these grupos know where to find any bargains.

we staocked far to many different marmalades.. we ‘d have no tinned tomatoes onsale but have another 5 fancy tinned products still full on the shelf next to the gap, we d have no vimto on sale but lime cordial filling half a shelf.. i was once the lone voice in a discussion about incresing the range of vitamins.. why they take up space they cost money they get stolen they take an age to fill.. fill the shelf with loo roll.. they sell out everyday.. i lost to the vitamin hungry trend setters.. pile it high sell it cheap is a good motto so is Keep It simple..

far too many managers or desk fillers or dorothy perkins power dressers.. and some massively overpaid.. 100k is not unusual for a superstaore manager 50k is not unusual for a bloke looking after the shelf fillers on a night.. yes i have done it yes its not easy no its not worth 50k..

and finally the biggest white elephant of all.. dot com.. it does not will not can not ever make a legitimate profit yet is seen as the saviour by all those university chums setting the trends..

sell what folk want cheap, sell it cheaply.. its not that difficult.

For me Tescos are the perfect example of the kind of greedy, ruthless, ‘lets screw the little guy’ type of company that I absolutely despise. It’s been over ten years since I last shopped there and I have no plans to shop there again.

hh45 – Member

Personally I have hated Tesco with a vengeance for over a decade due to their evident joy at destroying and ill treating suppliers.

At last, having worked for a supplier for many years the decision was taken to tell Tesco’s where to shove it. They even used the “Do you know who we are” line.
I’m led to understand our MD took great pleasure in telling them “We certainly know who you are. Your the people that are shafting your suppliers out of making a living, so as from now you can look elsewhere for your *****”
6 months later they came crying back as no one else could reliably supply them at the price they paid, even greater delight was taken in saying “sorry we are at full capacity supplying many of your competitors at a fair price” 😀
I have many contacts & family in the food supply chain that shudder when you mention Tesco.

6 months later they came crying back as no one else could reliably supply them at the price they paid, even greater delight was taken in saying “sorry we are at full capacity supplying many of your competitors at a fair price”

I love a story with a happy ending

I N R A T S but I hope folk see the parallels with Wiggle, CRC etc.

Not sure what to conclude from this, but reading this thread has caused my irony-o-meter to explode.

If you bought it from Tesco, they have an excellent returns policy.

If you bought it from Tesco, they have an excellent returns policy.

Bit like Amazon, then.

Tesco are on my go# list. I use them to go# for a poo or wee when I’m out and about at work. I like to give a little crap back it restores the universal balance.

All the major supermarkets are pretty much the same, using similar buying practices. Tesco May or may not be the most aggressive though ASDA could be worse when you remember that they are really Wallmart. The worst one in my view is the COOP, they spout their much prized ethics while giving suppliers the Tesco treatment.

Have not shopped at any of the major supermarkets since 2005, when ever possible try to keep it local or from companies/organisations I trust. This may not be possible for some given location but I can assure that it does not cost more.

We’ve just flund Tesco to be poor service, shelves empty, too many small stores locally and there home delivery service was appalling, multiple basic substitutions, turning up hours late and being very rude when complained to. They git far too big fast and believe their own hype. Couple that with discounters and recession they lost their way. They are a dog eared brand and it’s going to take alot to get back to where they were.

Ethically I dislike Tesco due to the was they muscle their Express stores in ignoring the legitimate local concerns. The large stores were also muscled through but this has actually come back to bite them as consumers now want smaller stores.
Most of our shop is done at Aldi with s supplemented by Sainsbury’s and local shops. Other than good value the main bonus of Aldi is how easy it is to shop – only 1 or 2 choices of every item but nearly always as good as brands, the shop can be done in half the time and stress of a Tesco one.
I’m not sure why Aldi and Lidl are called discounters as there prices are always low it’s the old school supermarkets that always have discount price offers and always on branded junk food I don’t really want.

Much fruit I’ve bought in Aldi is crap, plenty other good stuff though.

Are Tesco really that much worse than other big supermarkets?

Jamie – Freeloader!

I N R A T S but I hope folk see the parallels with Wiggle, CRC etc.

Not sure what to conclude from this, but reading this thread has caused my irony-o-meter to explode.[/quote]

How/why?

How/why?

It was a Tesco Value irony-o-meter. Cheap tat. A Finest irony-o-meter would have managed a whole STW relationship advice thread and still be ready for this one.

I N R A T S but I hope folk see the parallels with Wiggle, CRC etc.

Not really, in fact it seems like the complete opposite of the situation with Tesco from a consumer POV. Wiggle/CRC’s main selling point is that you can be pretty damned sure you’ll have what you want in stock and that it will be at a decent price. They also offer a convenient and pleasant shopping experience and reasonable customer service.

Maybe you should try not to struggle with long sentences?

How/why?

As per your comment, really. A lot of those who are ragging on Tesco being a marketplace behemoth, think nothing of using CRC/Wiggle. It’s not a perfect parallel, but there are some similarities.

Are Tesco really that much worse than other big supermarkets?

From a shopping experience, I would say not really. In some areas they are ok, where other stores are not…and vice versa.

Edit:

Maybe you should try not to struggle with long sentences?

Bit early for fighting talk? 😀