Supermarket Challenge Week 4 - Back to Aldi!

This week we (@yesdaveitsvegan and me @louisamoss) decided to go back to Aldi because I wrongly thought that they had tomatoes on offer.  Karen @yesdaveitsvegan needed courgettes and they did have them on offer in both stores, so we both got them!  Karen tells me that courgettes are good in porridge.  Hmmm, I thought.  I'll try it and report back soon!

The super six was pretty good this week and we both made good use of it.  However, we changed things up a bit with our list this week so that we were buying some vegan store cupboard staples.  It was good fun as always - I'm sure the security guards in the Dublin and Essex stores wonder what we are doing filming ourselves picking things up off the shelves!

Our shopping list this week was:

Item	UK £	IE €	UK price in Euro	Price difference
Spicy bean burgers	1.15	1.69	1.34	0.35
Soya Milk	0.55	0.75	0.64	0.11
Soyummy Yogurt	0.85	1.49	0.99	0.5
Ice-cream	1.99	2.49	2.33	0.16
Spinach	0.99	0.85	1.16	-0.31
Garlic	0.55	0.79	0.64	0.15
Courgettes	0.69	0.49	0.81	-0.32
Onions	0.57	0.59	0.67	-0.08
Potatoes	1.15	2.99	1.34	1.65
Cabbage	0.49	0.99	0.57	0.42
Lentils	0.99	0.79	1.16	-0.37
Strawberries	2.69	3.39	3.14	0.25
	12.66	17.3	14.79	2.51

 

I found this interesting because I’m a bit of a nerd like that.  Some of the items that I consider essential in my kitchen like split red lentils (honestly when everyone else was panicking about toilet roll last year I was stressing because there were no lentils left on the shelves – we eat them every single day) were much more expensive in the UK store.  Spinach was more expensive; onions were more expensive.

   But despite all of this, the overall shop was still cheaper in the UK by 16.9%. 

I swapped the potatoes though.  Karen bought 2.5kg of Maris Pipers for £1.15.  The same potatoes in in Dublin were priced at €2.99.  Aldi had a kg of white potatoes on offer for €.49 so I bought them instead which had a big impact on the bill, making the Irish shop only 3% more expensive than the UK.

A couple of other things to note:

1)      I couldn’t get the chocolate brownie ice-cream that Karen got.  I picked up the very last vegan vanilla ice-cream in the store.  Please Aldi, jeep stocking this, it is fantastic - despite the fact that it is much more expensive in Ireland!

2)     Yesterday was Global Recycling Day.  I took great care at the end of my shop to remove as much packaging as possible.  And then I looked around for a recycling bin.  I couldn’t see one, so I asked a staff member where the recycling station was.  Apparently, Aldi have never had recycling stations?  Is that correct?  Aldi shopping is new to me so I’m not sure.

 

So overall, a good shop.  I also picked up some growbags for €1.99.  I missed them in Lidl last week.  Had some success with vegetables last year and will be trying again this year. 

Food you have grown yourself tastes much better, it is free from plastic and it is like printing your own money.

 

Have a lovely day and look out for our next shopping challenge!  We will be mixing things up a bit next week and it should be a lot of fun.

 

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