Review rated by 34 Ciao members on average: very helpful
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Many people try to hide the fact that Lidl is a discount food store and often say that the quality of food is as good as other leading brands - these are the people who shop at Lidl. The sensible people who stay away from Lidl will tend to agree with me that their overall quality is poor and the standards of the store even worse! Yes, worse.
Lets start off with a quick description of what exactly Lidl tries to do as a food supermarket, just incase you haven't got one in your area yet as a few places are lucky enough not to have one. It is basically a discount food store. No, not like Kwik Save because Kwik Save sell branded products (along with their naff no-frills) but Lidl do not. Well, we in this country would never have heard of them anyway as virtually all their products are made overseas. Fair enough, unfamiliar names, but what does the stuff taste like?
Well, to me, it's nearly all bad i'm afraid. I have had the displeasure to eat Lidls food a couple of times when i lived at home with ma&pa when they were going through a rough
patch (but people generally don't like to admit they can't afford to go shopping at the bigger supermarkets) and it was quite awful. Biscuits are often have a soggy sort of texture as do crisps etc. Coffee and tea tend to be quite weak in flavour and you have to put double the dosage in your cup to get any real flavour. Tinned beans are like bullets (don't eat if you have toothache) and spaghetti is awful.
My mum used a lot of the cleaning products and reported that they were useless and once again you have to use double the amount to get standard results. Bin bags were thin as was bleach and washing liquid and apparently soap powder and softner were appalling. We wouldn't even dare feed the poor animals the dodgy branded pet foods after all it wasn't their fault ma&pa were skint!!
So that's just a few products to mention but a lot of other products i have personally tested have been equally rough. And the store isn't much better. It has a very dated look about it and it's definatly all back to basics. Hardly any shelving (boxes are just ripped open and put on the floor) or any organisation. E.g cat food will be sold next to shower gel(?!). The store is generally quite rammy and intidy and there are always objects obstructing the middle of the aisles from what i can remember. It was a while since i last went into a Lidl store so if things have got better then...
a, i will be shocked b, i will be equally impressed c, please tell me by leaving a comment. And if anyone reading this opinion shops at Lidls please, please bear in mind that i'm not poking fun in any way, shape or form - it's just what i remember them as.
On to checkouts....unfortunatly. I have NEVER been into a Lidl store where there hasn't been one ginourmous queue for the tills. And i have also never been in one with more than 2 staff on checkouts (usually there are about 5 available tills). Infact, all around the store staff are rare and hard to find and when you do find them you are usually 'greeted' with a grunt. No customer service training whatsoever i'm thinking. Lidl i think only accept switch and delta cards at the moment along with plain old cash and cheque. I don't know what valid reason they have for not accepting credit cards as the little corner shop at the end of my street does, so surely a big supermarket chain should right?
Ok, enough already about those pesky little tills. You won't have any help at the checkout at all. Packer? Ha! Don't make moi laugh. You have to struggle to pack your bags and are made to feel you are an inconvinience (so mother used to say). Oh dear, i really am trying to find it difficult to put a good word in for Lidl. A-ha! They do sometimes stock other non-grocery items such as c.d players and televisions which i am told are very good value for money, we just wont dare ask about refunds and after sales service right? Oh and they do have free parking too as they are usually out of town supermarkets and there's always places to park. Which sounds worrying for them!
So there you go, all in plain english and i'm not going to beat around the bush. Lidl is a discount store and there is no hiding it. You really are getting the service you are paying for in this store and the same goes for the food. However, there is nothing like checking the store out for yourself so next time you are passing one, just pop in and have a look and then have a good rant at me at how wrong i am (i can see it coming). Happy shopping!
Some products do come from siame suppliers, but you will quite often find that Lidl buy the stuff that no one else wants, have you tried round roast!! Fruit & veg especially, I have never seen oranges that go off one day after purchase.
Why does everyone believe that Lidl food is rubbish.
In Germany Lidl is ranked along side like Marks and spencer and Sainsbury.
Germans only eat good food not like ourselfs who rely on junkfood so when you eat something from Lidl your palette is not able to tell class.
We had delivery one day of a pallette that had came from the a factory of fresh chickens and in this box where Lidl chickens priced at 2.99 and Marks and spencer priced at 5.99 and Sainsbury priced at 7.99.Marks where in the sale!
So is our food that Crap!
All food all comes from same source just packed in different tins!
by (3%):
by (3%):
06.01.2004 20:31
Some products do come from siame suppliers, but you will quite often find that Lidl buy the stuff that no one else wants, have you tried round roast!! Fruit & veg especially, I have never seen oranges that go off one day after purchase.
10.06.2002 09:32
Why does everyone believe that Lidl food is rubbish. In Germany Lidl is ranked along side like Marks and spencer and Sainsbury. Germans only eat good food not like ourselfs who rely on junkfood so when you eat something from Lidl your palette is not able to tell class. We had delivery one day of a pallette that had came from the a factory of fresh chickens and in this box where Lidl chickens priced at 2.99 and Marks and spencer priced at 5.99 and Sainsbury priced at 7.99.Marks where in the sale! So is our food that Crap! All food all comes from same source just packed in different tins!
25.04.2002 16:12
I disagree with you strongly