'Why I shop at Lidl: It was a budget-related decision'

As a new report reveals that discount supermarkets have cashed in over the past year, shopper Hazel Close explains why she has switched to a budget supermarket over the pandemic.

Charity worker Ms Close lives in Peebles with her husband, Alex and two children, Theo and Lucia. She started shopping at Lidl when the family’s usual supermarket was unable to deliver to them during lockdown.

A Mintel report has found that sales at Lidl and Aldi – which do not offer an online delivery service – grew by 11 per cent this year.

She says: "We used to get online deliveries from Asda, but in lockdown, I found I couldn’t get the delivery slots any more, so we had to make a change – also, I wanted to leave the online slots for people who were shielding and needed them more. It was also a budget-related decision. I found that having the kids at home – my son didn’t get his school lunches and my husband, Alex, was working from home a lot of the time – you just realise how much a family of four eats when they’re all in the house. We were spending so much walking to Sainsbury’s all of the time to pop in for a few things, so we just decided to do a big shop at Lidl and save some money.

"Most basics are just a little bit cheaper. Also, even the fancy things from Lidl are cheaper than the basic things at Sainsbury’s, so we can afford some nicer foods, like smoked salmon or nice breakfast cereals that are cheaper than in other places.

"I don’t find the lack of staff an issue, there are queues everywhere at the moment anyway. I’m trying to be less brand conscious and buy the supermarket own brands when I can, so sometimes it’s quite good to have less choice. It’s not as pleasant an experience to browse, but it does make us more organised and we go in once a week, rather than popping in every couple of days.

"We’re really lucky that we’ve both got jobs at the moment, but there's so much job insecurity around and people are being made redundant or cutting their hours, so it makes sense to save money where we can.”

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