La Puce wrote:
Cat(h) wrote:

Lidl is indeed german. In Ireland, I can find very little wrong with
them.

(great snip)

Are you sure the stuff is local? If it is that is absolutely brilliant.

For reasons I will not go into, I can confirm that some of it is. But
as I said, not every vegetable is. And some of what should be (e.g.
carrots are French), isn't. Essentially because Lidl are looking for
the keenest prices and our producers are not always the most
competitive.

I also think because I'm French and from the south west of France, I am
very dubious of places like these. Why on earth someone would go to a
german supermarket in bordeaux, pau, sarlat or toulouse, when vegs,
meat and bread is there fresh and produced locally?!!

To a fair extent, I agree with you. However, I have lived away from
that situation for nearly 20 years, and where I live, it is *extremely*
difficult to get locally produced goods. I have tried repeatedly to
sign up for veg box schemes, only to find that no-one could guarantee
me regular deliveries. The costs were also pretty horrendous.


I've been brought up with markets and local stuff - I think it's kinda
deep in my blood now and I get funny seeing food stuff displayed with
weeks of shelves lives on them, I don't like tinned stuff, beside
tomatoes, sweetcorn and tuna. The cats and dogs love it though. I try
not to buy yet more plastic if I can help it. I'm not vegetarian, nor
am I campaining day and night etc. I just want simple fresh stuff,
locally made, in season and if I have to pay the extra 20p for my
biodiesel and my carrots, so be it )

I'm with you on teh above. But as I said, I now find myself in a
society where weekly markets are few and far between and those which do
exist are a recent yuppy innovation - I'm not joking - where an
*organic* chicken of medium weight, say 1.5kg, can set you back as much
as €15, locally produced jars of jam sell for upwards of €4 for 250
gr, and there is simply not enough variety to purchase most of one's
food needs.
There is no food market in my immediate viscinity. The nearest is
about 15 km away, it's on Friday mornings, but only starts from 9 am.
It is utterly impractical for me to shop there, as my first task of the
day is to commute to work, and I cannot reasonably be expected to take
half a day off to go shopping for food. Tesco, on the other hand, is
open 24 hours. It's simple, we don't really have the option of markets
in Ireland. However, we have great butchers, and some good fishmongers
in coastal areas. We also have some good greengrocers, but a lot of
these are finding the going very tough when competing with the multiple
retailers.
All in all, as I said, in the society in which I operate, I can find
very little wrong with the Lidl model.
But at this stage, I am so far off topic that I deserve a drastic rap
on the knuckles.
I'll shut up now :-)

Cat(h)