The Lemon Fool

I received an email from Lidl this morning - not sure why, as I've never had any communication with them - inviting me to sample the delights of their `Flavour Of the Week: USA'.

I honestly don't think I've ever seen such a depressing display of `food products' in my life:

https://www.lidl.co.uk/c/flavour-of-the ... =lidl-plus

No wonder so many Americans are obese - and no wonder so many UK people are if this is the sort of carp with which they're stuffing themselves at Lidl.

The only product that appeared to be labelled with any honesty was the Duff beer!

I suspect the nation's health would be far more improved by banning / super-taxing this sort of `food' than bothering about vapes.

All the food is nicely colour coordinated though - pretty much all are various shades of invigorating beige.

I had never heard of the Mcennedy brand. A brief search indicated that it is not an American brand at all, but rather German. Lidl is of course a German company.

https://thetravelingovereducatedhousewi ... o-germans/

That said the Processed Cheese Spread sounds particularly disgusting and a worthy alternative to Velveeta:

"Velveeta may look like cheese, smell like cheese, and even taste like cheese, but it is technically classified as a “pasteurized process cheese product.”

https://sporked.com/article/is-velveeta ... C%20fat%2C

Clitheroekid wrote:The only product that appeared to be labelled with any honesty was the Duff beer!

Stranger than fiction. As guzzled by the great Homer Simpson. Not necessarily to the benefit of mankind. https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/articl ... erous.html

Actually, the whole Mcennedy product range turns my stomach. Whether it's the apple cheesecake style ice cream, the loaded hot dogs (loaded with what, live rounds?), or the chicken rings. (Remind me, which part of a chicken is shaped like a ring, except of course for its @rse?)

Think I'll give Lidl a wide berth, thanks. So how long have they been running this Mcennedy brand? https://www.thesun.co.uk/money/5415807 . No further questions, apart from what McDonalds' lawyers will have to say about it.

BJ

bungeejumper wrote:Think I'll give Lidl a wide berth, thanks. So how long have they been running this Mcennedy brand? https://www.thesun.co.uk/money/5415807 . No further questions, apart from what McDonalds' lawyers will have to say about it.

Aldi do the same thing. Cheap, fattening, up the wazzoo. And packaging, bottles, that look like mainstream brands and similar names. But cheaper.
Seems to work for them.

Only been in Lidl once or twice so I don't know how their customer profile compares to Aldi, but you could fit two average Waitrose customers into one from Aldi.

V8

Only been in Lidl once or twice so I don't know how their customer profile compares to Aldi, but you could fit two average Waitrose customers into one from Aldi..

This is true. You could also probably fit two Aldi shoppers wallets in one Waitrose shoppers wallet. Horses for courses.

I do shop regularly at Lidl, and I've never picked up any of the products on that page. Nor indeed seen them, so far as I'm aware. The only one I think I might consider is the gherkins, and a jar of those (or of pickled onions) is a very occasional thing: not more than about one in an average year.

Lidl is excellent for some things. A few where they're our best supermarket ahead of Morrisons, Tesco and the Coop are
- croissants (they're the only place I'd choose to buy them)
- fresh fruit juice - especially the freshly squeezed orange juice (Morrisons and at a pinch the Coop are viable alternatives)
- deluxe yoghurts (again, Morrisons is a second choice, and Morrisons has a wider range of occasional indulgences in that line).
- seasonal indulgences for christmas, like mince pies, stollen, panettone.

and they're equal to the others on a much wider range of things.

The only thing that is more manufactured than this sorry array of food is the name Mcennedy

As for Aldi and Lidl, because I'm time rich and can split my food shopping across multiple stores both have a useful place in my shopping. For e.g. I get through loads of Cholula chilli sauce, put it on pretty much anything. It's £2.70 a bottle at Sainsburys and currently £1.40 at Aldi.

Lidl croissants definitely. Always fresh and never soggy. They could do with a fly-proof curtain over the rack though.
Lidl Ben Bracken Highland single malt (definitely)
Some Lidl meat is fine.

But there isn't anything in the Mcennedy range I would soil my dustbin with. And, unfortunately for the recipients, the range IS representative of the unhealthy garbage eaten in the US - as hordes of obesely waddling Americans will (probably willingly) testify.

At the breakfast counter in a US hotel, I once saw a male waddler take an entire stack of pancakes (at least 6) and the jug of maple syrup. And later he came back for eggs, hash browns blah blah. The Grim Reaper - or whatever his US brother is called - was probably sharpening his scythe in readiness.

My wife left Christmas shopping to the last minute, as usual, and as usual we found it difficult to buy all the things we wanted. We searched high and low in the large Sainsbury's and Tescos for a Christmas pudding, and we were resigned to going without. To finish off our shopping we went into Lidl's opposite, and indeed the shelves were bare of all Xmas fare. Their sales philosophy is stack it high, and when it is sold, don't restock. So for them Xmas probably ended several days before the 25th.

But sitting alone on a shelf (mainly given over to DIY stuff I think) was a solitary Christmas pudding. Not expensive, but by appearances a Lidl's best quality range. I grabbed it as fast as I could.

By a long way it was the best Christmas pudding I have ever tasted.

Nimrod103 wrote:We searched high and low in the large Sainsbury's and Tescos for a Christmas pudding, and we were resigned to going without..... But sitting alone on a shelf (mainly given over to DIY stuff I think) was a solitary Christmas pudding. Not expensive, but by appearances a Lidl's best quality range. I grabbed it as fast as I could.

By a long way it was the best Christmas pudding I have ever tasted.

There's something about that touching story that might have belonged in Blackadder's Christmas Carol. Searching all through the night, and there it was, on the DIY shelf, where somebody had put it down because he'd decided to buy an arc welder instead. Hurrah! God bless us, one and all.

Mostly I go to Lidl for the barbecue bags and the price reductions on beer. Oh, and the rummage racks containing this week's special offers. Some of them are quite good.

BJ

Lootman wrote:A brief search indicated that it is not an American brand at all, but rather German

By virtue of being part of a pan-European group, Lidl UK do periodic promotions of items from their ranges in other Euriopean countries. So they've done French, Italian, East European, Alpine etc alongside the regular German stuff which is almost always available.

Alaric wrote:

Lootman wrote:A brief search indicated that it is not an American brand at all, but rather German

By virtue of being part of a pan-European group, Lidl UK do periodic promotions of items from their ranges in other Euriopean countries. So they've done French, Italian, East European, Alpine etc alongside the regular German stuff which is almost always available.

I keep an eye out for Greek week to stock up on olives, stuffed vine leaves and marinated feta.

Alaric wrote:

Lootman wrote:A brief search indicated that it is not an American brand at all, but rather German

By virtue of being part of a pan-European group, Lidl UK do periodic promotions of items from their ranges in other Euriopean countries. So they've done French, Italian, East European, Alpine etc alongside the regular German stuff which is almost always available.

I keep meaning to go to an Aldi or a Lidl, having never been to either. Neither has a location within a mile of me and, more generally they seem to be a suburban or rural thing rather than an urban thing.

I have been to a Trader Joe's in America, which is part of the same company as Aldi. They have real American food there rather than this fake stuff, and it is not all junk.

Lootman wrote:

Alaric wrote:By virtue of being part of a pan-European group, Lidl UK do periodic promotions of items from their ranges in other Euriopean countries. So they've done French, Italian, East European, Alpine etc alongside the regular German stuff which is almost always available.

I keep meaning to go to an Aldi or a Lidl, having never been to either. Neither has a location within a mile of me and, more generally they seem to be a suburban or rural thing rather than an urban thing.

I have been to a Trader Joe's in America, which is part of the same company as Aldi. They have real American food there rather than this fake stuff, and it is not all junk.

I guess as latecomers, Aldi and Lidl have had problems finding suitable sites in inner city areas, though I have passed a few on my occasional trips through Lewisham and environs. Locally, I find my Aldi quite a jumble, but apparently very cheap. Lidl I find much better organised and well run. But both suffer from the issue that you can't get all your shopping there, and often things turn up one week only to sell out and not be re-stocked.

Reading through this thread I am somewhat disappointed to find it has nowt to do with one of the world's finest tasty treats:

https://cooplands-bakery.co.uk/our-products/yum-yum/

As a son of Scarborough, the home of Cooplands, I can happily recommend these to the board

MM