Have you visited a Lidl, German owned, supermarket yet? There is one now in Exeter and another in Sidmouth. ExChecker readers report that it is certainly a different shopping experience, if only because the shelves are full of goods with unfamiliar names. One reader, who went in to the Sidmouth shop, got the impression that most of the goods had been packed for Lidl in this country but originally came from France, Germany or another EU country.
It was difficult to make direct price comparisons with other supermarkets as
the Lidl stock was rather limited and unfamiliar but the reader reported that an
acquaintance, found by chance at the check out and who had been in the grocery
business, thought there were quite substantial savings to be made. How about 1.5
litres of orange juice for 59p or a bottle of gin for £6.35?
The initial impression is off-putting. The first notice you see as you approach the Sidmouth shop says "The theft of Trolleys is illegal - we always prosecute". Are the inhabitants of Sidmouth notorious for making off with shopping trolleys? There are no free bags at the checkout, you have to buy them (3p) or bring your own. Also do not try to phone the local manager after your visit. His, or her, number is not available to shoppers who might wish to complain or make suggestions on how to improve the shop. Lidl do however offer a "right to return" policy (on all but used underwear!) if you can produce your receipt
Did you know that Croydon is one of the most expensive places, if not the most expensive in Britain? According to the money section of the Sunday Times last October this is so.
Trading Standards Departments are required to conduct consultation exercises as part of the Fundamental Performance Review required of Local Authorities by the Government. The Croydon Trading Standards Department asked members of the Croydon Consumer Group to help with this consultation, and some of them have joined the impressively named Stakeholders' Reference Group and others are invited to join. This is a good example of one of the advantages enjoyed by a Local Authority when there is an active local Consumer Group to call upon.
Although Exeter has not been named as a very expensive place in which to live, nevertheless there is valuable advice in the March issue of ExChecker, the Group's professional looking magazine. The Group carried out a tasting of supermarkets' own value for money products and compared them with leading brands. They found that buying the leading brands of basic items may give you a slightly better taste but it could cost you three times the price of supermarkets' own 'economy' or 'value for money' products.
The goods tas
ted were staple necessities in most households, baked beans,
rice pudding, frosted flakes breakfast cereal, fruit cocktail, orange juice and
lemonade. They found that the tasters preferred the basic orange juice and
frosted flakes and certainly found all the other basic items perfectly
acceptable as well as being much cheaper.
Why not try the taste test for yourself and find out whether you could save pounds every time you go shopping with little or no difference in
Residents in Croydon have become a target for a Netherlands based company sending out first aid kits and an invoice for £23.70. The invoice, from Royal Consulting, suggests that purchasers would be supporting various humanitarian organisations and charities but none of those named has ever received any benefit from Royal Consulting.
The Office of Fair Trading is contacting the Dutch Authorities but what should you do if you receive one of these unwanted kits? The Croydon Trading Standards advice is to either
No doubt others besides those who live in Croydon have been sent these kits and the advice will apply just as well to them.
The market, in New Street, Birmingham, is very close to New Street Railway
Station and could not be more central. When visited, the centre of New Street
was lined with brightly canopied stalls and only two out of the twenty did not
have a name and address visible. Most had leaflets about their wares and printed
bags with instructions on how to find the farms etc. The sellers came from a
wide area around Birmingham.
The object of the visit was to find out the range of goods on sale rather than to look for bargains. Cheeses were sampled from three stalls and the favourites were Elgar Mature and Hereford Chive. Freshly dug organic carrots, very fresh purple sprouting broccoli, free range organic eggs, dry cured bacon from outdoor reared happy pigs (according to the leaflet) which must have made the farm a mess, were found and purchased. All purchases were carefully weighed and wrapped and labelled.
There was pure apple juice and lemon curd and plenty of varieties of English apples and some freshly baked loaves. However ostrich steaks, though cheap, did not appeal.
While congratulations must be made to the City Council for encouraging this market in such an accessible spot it was the traders themselves who attracted most praise for being very enterprising and providing a wide range of very local produce.
In the 
Spring issue of 'Trident', the Central Hertfordshire Consumer Group's
journal, there is a very spicy report indeed. Twenty five years ago the Group
carried out a survey into the availability, packet size and prices often popular
spices. Now they have done it again, to see what has happened in 25 years.
The retailers have changed; bigger supermarkets with different names, fewer neighbourhood shops, but more specialist suppliers. For the new survey members visited a branch of all the main supermarkets, Boots, four health food shops, stalls in three local -markets, an Asian store and an Italian grocer.
They found that the choice had increased. The new list repeated six originals, ground cinnamon, whole cloves, coriander seeds, ground ginger, whole nutmeg and black peppercorns and added cardamon pods, ground cumin, paprika and saffron but dropped ground white pepper, allspice and mixed spices for pickling as being too mundane nowadays, showing how times have changed. Twenty five years ago coriander was a 'rarer flavour', not included because so little was found. The new list was just a fraction of the wide range of spices now available.
There was no difficulty in obtaining any of the spices on the list. Sometimes one had to shop around when a particular spice was out of stock, and ask for saffron as it was not always on display in smaller self service shops. Boots, which 25 years ago had a wide range, no longer stocks any, neither did the Italian grocer. The Asian shop had a jumble of spices and exotic seasonings in unpriced 100gm packets.
The packages have grown. The little plastic or cardboard drums containing up to one ounce have disappeared. Some small plastic or cellophane packs were to be found, one containing saffron was 0.5 gm! The glass jars used by Schwartz and the supermarkets contain about 20 to 40 gm depending on density. Much larger packs are available and some stallholders make up packs themselves, usually in quantities between 60 and 125 gins to sell for £l.
Schwarts spices in their fancy glass jars were the most expensive. Refill packs were only a little cheaper. All ten spices in Schwartz jars would cost over £,15 while the whole lot could be acquired for about £.4 by extensive travelling! Saffron, however, was in a league of its own and varied from 11.25 to £,6 per gramme.
All packs were `use by' marked though some were difficult to read. Many use by dates were surprisingly far ahead, some as far as 2003. This is at odds with advice that spices lose their flavour after a year and ground spices more quickly.
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