This article appears in September’s edition of Bite Magzine.
A quick glance at my monthly bank statement reveals the extent of my food-shopping mania. In my younger years, fancy shoes were my Achilles’ heel. These days it’s a quest for the finest edibles. We all love supporting independent stores, but reality also says that most of us are in a supermarket at least once a week. Waitrose is always top of my list for quality, but it knocks a serious dent in budgetary terms. When I’ve over-spent once more and can’t quite give up my Parma ham additcion, a trip to LIDL will always keep me sweet.
It’s an ugly ‘ol place, and a visit here will never have you leaving with a warm and fuzzy feeling but neither will it seduce you into multi-offer buying, or chasing ‘loyalty points’. I’ve been known to quickly pack my bags, push the trolley to the car park and have a sneaky look at the receipt to verify that I managed to buy ‘all of this’ for £26.94.
Some of the stuff on the shelves is uninspiring, and frankly weird. However, many products are the same as (if not better than) the average supermarket version, only here it can be up to 50% less pricey. Some of my faves are the Italian tinned tomatoes, passata, basmati rice, extra-virgin olive oil, organic eggs, walnuts and cartons of juice.
The fruit and veggies aisle is always worth a look. I recently picked up a box of organic heirloom tomatoes, pots of fresh basil and coriander (all between 80p- £1.50), and rooster potatoes. Far from all being Euro-imports, the majority of the fresh produce is from the UK, and things like apples are great in season.
Fresh meat can be hit or miss, but they do have good Scottish free-range chickens (£3.29/kg) and farm-assured pork chops which are tops for the BBQ. The deli section is my fave, and whilst there are some dubious processed items, there’s also some highlights including the D.O.P Parma ham and aged Parmesan, the Gorgonzola and Jamón Serrano. The Greek-style yoghurt is creamy and tasty dolloped onto their own-brand luxury muesli (£1.89)
I couldn’t swap to LIDL for my main shop, but it’s well worth a monthly visit to stock up on some of these goodies. The shoes can wait.
Stores across the UK. www.lidl.co.uk
ps – we used loads of the LIDL goodies for our pizzas on PIZZA NIGHT
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