Your food shopping

Until the pandemic I used to vary my shopping and would go to certain supermarkets for different reasons – convenience in terms of how much time I had or for certain products I knew I couldn't get at one or another. The lockdown put paid to that routine and, like all of us, whether shopping once a week or on-line you were still at the mercy of whatever was available.

With the recent easing I have resumed my old routine, albeit very carefully and always at 8am when the “traffic” in both senses is quieter - on the road and in the supermarket too.

Have you caught the supermarket ads on the tv – the ones saying they have price checked and/or matched products with the cheaper supermarkets?

I thought you might be interested in my results. I'm not going to drone on and on, simply take three random items and their comparative costs. I have to confess I was gob-smacked at the results.

Here goes :

I suggested to my friend that we go to Aldi – like me she's an early riser so we could shop before anyone else had got out of bed!

Here's my random sample :

500g box of seedless green grapes – described

as “wonky” which means not all the same size - £1

with a use-by date four days hence

1.75L carton of pure orange juice - £1.55

480g British pork loin steaks - £1.89

My comparison is with Waitrose simply because it happened to be my next port of call.

500g box of seedless green grapes - £2

in the interest of fairness they were all the same size

with a use-by date two days hence

1.75L carton of pure orange juice - £3

which was an offer - normally £4

480g British pork loin steaks - £4.50

I think my maths is accurate – by my reckoning I saved £5.06 - £1 on grapes, £1.45 on the orange juice (based on the offer price of £3) and a staggering £2.61 on the pork loin steaks – just three items - I dread to think what the saving would be on a full shop. It's true to say that I can't get everything I want at Aldi but it does show that if you become a savvy shopper with selected items you'll save a lot of dosh!

Two other random points to raise for those who may not shop at Aldi or Lidl – they've never made a secret that their fruit and veg needs to be used straight away – I found their use-by dates were as good as, in this case, Waitrose.

My original reason for shopping at Aldi was the excellent quality and cost of their cod loin. I should say that it's still £3.79 for 280g (£13.54 per kg). During the lockdown the only “supermarket” I could get cod loin was Marks and Spencer, sold in different weights, but typically £6.56 for 285g (£23 per kg).

Food for thought – you bet!

It's time to take stock, literally, and look at how you plan, shop, cook and eat.