Which supermarket has the cheapest basic foods?

Food, Nutrition and Agriculture
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prepfungus
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Joined: Tue Feb 12, 2019 11:35 am

Which supermarket has the cheapest basic foods?

Post by prepfungus »

I'm talking about basic basic foods, such as tinned goods; kidney beans. lentils. vegetables etc.
and bags of dried rice, dried pasta, lentils, beans etc basically, the basic carb stuff that'll be a base to a lot of meals in my household when SHTF.

where can i get them CHEAPEST in the UK?
sainsburys do bags of 1kg rice for 45p in their basic range, they also do brown pasta for 60p a small bag. anywhere cheaper?
where does everyone else purchase these items??

thanks.
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diamond lil
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Location: Scotland.

Re: Which supermarket has the cheapest basic foods?

Post by diamond lil »

I like Sainsbury but they are not cheap. I hate Asda but they are quite cheap. I have sort of tried Aldi and Lidl but for me its too much hassle trekking round looking for stuff and comparing prices - so I stick to Asda once a month or so for basic tinned preps, and use Sainsbury online delivery for the normal weekly shop. Bear in mind that I've no spare energy to waste and tend to just do it this way because I can't be assed to really look into it :mrgreen:
Oh and Costco for giant tins of coffee and bags of lentils and teabags.
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Jamesey1981
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Re: Which supermarket has the cheapest basic foods?

Post by Jamesey1981 »

I use Lidl and Aldi for a lot of my basics, I can't get everything I need in either though as I have four cats and I can't get the food they need.

Poundland are also good for some of the branded things.

I get the rest in asda, for stuff like rice I buy in bulk in the section that is aimed at Asian people, I'd I don't go to an Asian supermarket, I buy basmati rice in 10kg sacks. Not a fan of cheap rice, I prefer basmati and buying it in bulk keeps the cost down.

Pasta is cheap if you buy own brand anyway, but the bigger the bag you buy the cheaper it is usually.

My current 10kg sack of rice was reduced as the company that made it had changed their packaging design so it cost me a fiver.

Asian supermarkets are good for rice and can also be good for beans and pulses depending on where the people it is aimed at come from.

For dry basics like beans and lentils health food and vegan/vegetarian shops are often the place to go, but that depends on how much of a market there is and how much competition they have, there's a huge vegan and vegetarian population where I live so that keeps the price down, butvthey're often organic which pushes the price up, so if you don't care about it being organic then the Asian supermarket will usually be cheaper.

They're good places to get stuff like soya mince though, can't say it's my favourite thing ever but it's vaguely meat like and it's a dried product that contains protein so useful to have around, I like beans and lentils but they would get boring fast and a different texture will be welcome, and that's ignoring the rather unfortunate effect that a largely bean based diet will have on the air quality.

From this post it sounds like all I do is shopping, but buying in bulk is key, I visit asda every two weeks and the rest at most once a month and often a lot less.
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Arzosah
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Joined: Fri Jun 22, 2012 4:20 pm

Re: Which supermarket has the cheapest basic foods?

Post by Arzosah »

If you have an Asian supermarket, a largeish one, near you, it might be incredibly cheap compared to supermarkets. I researched one in my local shopping town, 10 minutes away by train: 1kg of turmeric was £2.99. I was shocked, frankly :oops: but NB prices of normal pack sizes were a bit more expensive than ordinary supermarket prices. Bulk buy, though, it won hands down. Usually - it can't beat the rice price quoted for Sainsbo basic. 5kg chickpeas, though, £8.99, quite a saving on supermarket prices.