Australians have few options when it comes to saving on groceries at supermarket giants Coles and Woolworths, with a new report by Choice finding a price difference of just 75 cents between the two for the same basic items.
ALDI is pretty terrible if you don’t have a really basic White Australian diet. Lack of range has always been the reason I avoid doing big shops there.
You can’t get your whole shop at Aldi. It’s great for what it’s great at, though. Aldi’s home brand is a class above the home brands of Colesworth, but tends to be priced at the same price or even cheaper. I usually get eggs, cheese, yoghurt, brekky cereals, biscuits, snacks and some veges there. Yes - basic ‘white’ staples.
I would likely get more frozen goods at Aldi, but when I do the grocery shop Aldi is the first stop. I don’t want to be roaming around for another hour or two with a trolley full of melting food.
Yeah I would agree that many of the home-brand food items are better at ALDI and the frozen stuff is also pretty good. I basically never go out of my way to visit an ALDI though, it’s always like “oh there’s an ALDI in this shopping centre that we came to for something else, let’s buy this thing we forgot in the main shop while we’re here”.
The biggest problem we have with ALDI is that it seems the produce goes off way quicker.
For busy families that try and get away with a single weekly shop, that can often result in a fair bit of waste, which negates a good chunk of any price benefit.
Yeah. I do my shop fortnightly but have had to start doing a weekly produce shop so that I have salads and veggies past the first 5 or 6 days. I do buy a lot of salad kits, which tend to not last very long, but also produce does pretty consistently get a few days to a week less life than colesworth stuff. Even things like strawberries
ALDI is pretty terrible if you don’t have a really basic White Australian diet.
I get what you’re saying. They’ve got the basic Aussie Italian, Mexican, Asian covered. You’ll never beat shopping at the specialty supermarket/shop for whatever cuisine you’re cooking.
But as a somewhat counterpoint to this, I quite enjoy their weekly(?) deals where they have mostly pantry foods and specialities from a particular country. Sure, they’re not available all the time, but there’s been plenty of times I’ve gone ‘OMG, it’s xyz from country 123!’ and you’d be lucky to find it anywhere in Australia. My eyes must’ve bugged out of my head when I saw they had white asparagus 🤣
It has to be augmented with other sources, yes, but then I already frequent the local markets, fish mongers, Asian grocery etc for specific ‘non basic’ stuff. But more often than not, the convenience of Woolies having (almost) everything in the one place wins out.
Yeah I had assumed a smaller gap too. Or is that part of the collusion too - the appearance of competition and consumer choice?
I really need to shop at ALDI more.
ALDI is pretty terrible if you don’t have a really basic White Australian diet. Lack of range has always been the reason I avoid doing big shops there.
You can’t get your whole shop at Aldi. It’s great for what it’s great at, though. Aldi’s home brand is a class above the home brands of Colesworth, but tends to be priced at the same price or even cheaper. I usually get eggs, cheese, yoghurt, brekky cereals, biscuits, snacks and some veges there. Yes - basic ‘white’ staples.
I would likely get more frozen goods at Aldi, but when I do the grocery shop Aldi is the first stop. I don’t want to be roaming around for another hour or two with a trolley full of melting food.
Yeah I would agree that many of the home-brand food items are better at ALDI and the frozen stuff is also pretty good. I basically never go out of my way to visit an ALDI though, it’s always like “oh there’s an ALDI in this shopping centre that we came to for something else, let’s buy this thing we forgot in the main shop while we’re here”.
Crumpets rounds 6pk are $4.40 at colesworths (and frequently “half price” $2.20) and $1.89 everyday at Aldi. I’m done playing their stupid games.
The biggest problem we have with ALDI is that it seems the produce goes off way quicker.
For busy families that try and get away with a single weekly shop, that can often result in a fair bit of waste, which negates a good chunk of any price benefit.
These days I don’t buy fresh produce from supermarkets, it’s always cheaper and better quality at my local independent grocers and wholesale markets.
Yeah. I do my shop fortnightly but have had to start doing a weekly produce shop so that I have salads and veggies past the first 5 or 6 days. I do buy a lot of salad kits, which tend to not last very long, but also produce does pretty consistently get a few days to a week less life than colesworth stuff. Even things like strawberries
I get what you’re saying. They’ve got the basic Aussie Italian, Mexican, Asian covered. You’ll never beat shopping at the specialty supermarket/shop for whatever cuisine you’re cooking.
But as a somewhat counterpoint to this, I quite enjoy their weekly(?) deals where they have mostly pantry foods and specialities from a particular country. Sure, they’re not available all the time, but there’s been plenty of times I’ve gone ‘OMG, it’s xyz from country 123!’ and you’d be lucky to find it anywhere in Australia. My eyes must’ve bugged out of my head when I saw they had white asparagus 🤣
It has to be augmented with other sources, yes, but then I already frequent the local markets, fish mongers, Asian grocery etc for specific ‘non basic’ stuff. But more often than not, the convenience of Woolies having (almost) everything in the one place wins out.