The Best Supermarket to shop at

I think you might be surprised where all the supermarkets obtain their products. For example bread might be made in the same factory for M and S and Tesco and Morrisons. This 'multy company supplying' is hidden by clever wording on packaging which says for example produced for Tesco. It is but not exclusively.

I am obviously not saying that applies to all foods but there are a large number of products from bread, cereals and convenience foods that are packaged as being a food retailers own brand but they are also in another food retailers with their name on the exact same food.

Waitrose without a doubt - supplemented by the local Co-op and farmers market. I hate Tesco with a passion but maybe that's just me??

JammieB, I am with you on that. They use their size and money to bully local authorities over planning and I think it is no coincidence that more horsemeat was found in their burgers than any others. When you have the power to drive the price the you pay your suppliers right down almost below profitability because your order is so big the supplier faces ruin if they lose the contract, it is hardly surprising if the supplier tries to cut costs by substitution.

Pogs, the fact that a factory manufactures for several supermarkets doesnt mean the product for each supermarket is identical. Each purchaser will have their own specification for the bread and other goods they want to buy and the supplier will make white sliced bread for three supermarkets, each loaf to a formula set bythe purchaser's buyers.

Whether or not the product varies depending on the outlet being supplied, I think a lot of us are saying much the same thing; that it is not just the food itself but the whole shopping experience which colours how we feel about any particular supermarket. Many of us I think dislike the loud musak and bustle of big shops, whatever name is over the door. I find it really distracting and know I'm not alone - early morning on Christmas eve found me in Tesco with dozens of others, all calm and smiling, giving way to each other's trolleys and so on. On the smack of eight o'clock the music started blaring out. Groans all over the store and the atmosphere changed instantly. It really doesn't matter if it's Asda or Marks, if the place is busy you feel hastled and worn out, if it's quiet it's a quite pleasant way of pottering about for a bit. And I think the only reason we tended to look down on the Lidls and Aldis was the presentation - we assumed the stuff was rubbish because it was just piled up in boxes along the aisle instead of being expensively displayed on brightly lit shiny shelves. I'm beginning to learn how wrong I was

I don't like either of the two mainstream supermarkets (about 3 or 4 miles away), so I avoid with a vengeance and travel 7miles to Booths. By far the best fresh food - and much of it local. Small enough for me not to be overwhelmed wth choice, big enough to stock everything and more that I need/want. And asistants that know you and to you; and who know the products they are selling.

Sadly, Booths hasn't reached this corner of Cheshire - Knutsford is nearest - but at least I have Waitrose as my corner shop.

Flickety

I stick with my original post.

POGS my husband used to drive for Waitrose, and while he frequently found himself parked next to a Tesco lorry or an M&S one, all collecting the same goods in different packaging, there were several manufacturers who had completely different sections supplying the stores with meals made to different specifications.
I do all my basic shopping at Aldi although I think Lidl have better fruit & veg - but they are further away. I do some shopping in Sainsbury's because it is close, but having found them a horrible company to work for I don't enjoy going there. At least once a week I go to Waitrose for a few extras (and of course the staff discount )

Waitrose is calm, the aisles wide, the selection amazing but best of all is their customer care and attention.Maybe they are a few pennies more - not even sure about that! I go armed with a list and stick to it..............having said that there are a few things that I can only buy in Aldi.
I hate the ethics of Tesco - the riding roughshod over local small business - having had one I know their power and I dislike it intensly.
I'm also puzzled by the angry people who seem to shop there, children being screamed at and elderly people being intolerated - maybe that is just the branch nearest to me and not a generalisation - and one last point is that nobody dings my car with their trolly in the Waitrose car park but I'm guaranteed one in in Tesco!! OK - rant over!!

Waitrose refer to it as trading up - you go in for half a pound of Anchor and find yourself picking up the hand made organic jersey butter for five times the price Go with a list like I used to do for my MiL and you don't have to spend too much.

I feel a bit guilty using any of the supermarkets - none of them seem to have a particularly good record in terms of workers' wages, what they pay producers, etc. The trouble is, it's so convenient to go to a supermarket rather than trail round lots of individual shops.

I used to go to Sainsbury's - and do still shop there occasionally - but I find that Asda is much cheaper (though their selection of goods - at least in the smaller stores - is much more limited). The major supermarket - you know who I mean - seems to be taking over the world and I avoid it.

I moved from Sainsburys to Waitrose about 20 years ago when our local Sainsburys did an extension too far and the time it took me to do my weekly shop increased by over half an hour.

I discovered a small but comprehensive Waitrose in a neighbourhood shopping precinct that also contained a wide range of other shops, banks, hairdressers etc and discovered the joy of the High Street and being able to do all my shopping in a range of outlets offering a variety of goods!!!!!

When we moved to our current home I had a choice of a HUGE Tesco over a mile from the town centre, a Co-op and a Waitrose. Waitrose is smaller, I can get around it and out quickly and it has a free car park and, for me, the best range of goods so I found myself shopping there again. I get 1 1/2 hours of free parking so that when I have done my weeks shopping I can walk 100 yards to the High Street to get my hair done or look at clothes, go to the bank and all the other myriad of tasks you cannot, or may not want to do all with one retailer.

With the advent of the likes of Findus. Birds Eye, Tesco, Lidl, Aldi etc., all having traces of horse meat in their products I still stand by my original posts. I think it is now accepted that some companies have shared food companies for their so called 'own brand' items.

I was however quite shocked at the amount of countries that a product passes through from start to finish.

Hasn't Marks and Spencer been quiet.

I usually shop in Sainsburys but thought I'd try the new Aldi which opened today. I did my normal shop, including dog food, plus some extra wine as we will have friends coming for lunch on Sunday. When I got home I went on mysupermarket.com and compared the invoice with exactly the same goods from Sainsbury and Tesco.
The saving?....£29.73

Apart from meat which I buy from our local butcher, guess where I'll be shopping from now on.

Like Morrisons, DH uses Sainsbury because he often gets fuel there. I have boycotted our local Waitrose due to their treatment of a young friend of my DD. She was a very very new mum and absent -mindedly paid for her goods and walked out with a roll of foil balanced on hood of pram. She was stopped at the door, police called and banned from shopping there again. Disgusting.

I like Aldi and Lidl. they have quality unusual goods. I shop at the Co-op in the Outer Hebrides when on our breaks there and at their local shop. I use the next towns butcher (they have just won several awards for their shop and meat)

A lot of snobbery around Aldi and Lidl although my German friends swear by the shops liking them to M and S in Germany for quality - at certain times of day one can spy our local Middle Classes furtively sneaking around the isles of Aldi and Lidl

MrsRobinson When we lived in Lancashire we used to shop at Booths, which was a lovely supermarket. Also, I saw a programme on TV a while ago in which it was said that Booths went out of their way to use local producers. I wish they could be found in southern England.

I think Waitrose and M&S are overpriced and overrated.

In the UK it is Waitrose every time. Shopping heaven.
In France Lidl as much as we can because they have the best fruit and veg. We made it out through the snow yesterday, but Lidl was closed because of snow on the roof (there have been problems all over Normandy with collapsing roofs this week). Most super / hypermarkets are poor IMO, especially in winter. Yesterday in Carrefour there was one decent bunch of bananas, but my OH was sent back from the checkout to change them because the cashier couldn't read the bar code. All the rest were grotty so presumably this had already happened several times. Obviously far too much trouble to reprice them. Customer service is truly awful here, especially in the bigger shops.

Merlotgran merely repeated Stephen Fry's comment. She did not endorse it or in anyway suggest she supported it. Nobody ignored the remark they just read it at its face value.

For me the best supermarket is the one that is not in an out of town location but in a town centre where you can also get to a range of other shops as well as hairdressers, banks, the library and everything else you want to get to.

Currently that means Co-op and Waitrose. In nearby towns it might be Sainsburys or Sainburys and Waitrose. Tesco doesnt feature because it is consistently in out of town locations and as the nearest Morrisons and Asda are 30 miles away I never visit them.

Oh, the last message was from Cheelu when I wrote the first para of the above email. Not sure what happened when I pressed 'Post Message' as her message disappeared.

Suddenly realised, message was probably on page 1. Ah well we all have our ditsy moments.

Paradoxically I have become a more careful shopper since Waitrose has been pretty much my corner shop. That's because it has the reputation for being more expensive than its rivals. I look for reduced items, often fish that's near it's sell-by date and which goes straight into the freezer when I get it home. On Saturdays there is usually a selection of half-price bread with which I also stock up my freezer. I try very hard to avoid impulse buying - not always successfully.

Misplaced apostrophe in that last post should have me permanently exiled to Pedants' Corner. Multi-apologies!

I love Morrisons and I do the"big" shop there and any other products we need I usually get from Aldi. I have to be really honest and admit to never setting foot in a Waitrose as we do not have one anywhere near us. Listening to everyones comments about Waitrose tho, I think I need to see where the nearest one might be and go on a field trip.

Braved Sainsbury's on a Sunday (never a good move) because I needed some polenta for a bread recipe. Apparently they aren't stocking it at present - only the ready made stuff. Sadly no good for breadmaking or sprinkling on things.

Waitrose, Waitrose, Waitrose with the odd Co-op thrown in for good measure. Waitrose understands the meaning of customer service. I chicken out a fair bit though and go for Ocado for basics.