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Surprisingly good value in Tesco

tescoirelandMy sister-in-law recently told me that she went to Tesco with only €9 in her pocket and extremely low expectations.  She was pleasantly surprised to find that she got a very decent bag of groceries for the price.  I rarely shop in Tesco these days, but was driven in there by yet another damn rainstorm yesterday.  I was also pleasantly surprised at some of the bargains I picked up:

  • 300g pistachios for €2.49
  • 500g organic wholemeal spaghetti for €1.15
  • Ryvita sesame or wholegrain crackers for 99c
  • Lime juice for 60c

It would appear that their promise of thousands of price cuts is not all guff, and there are some really good bargains to be had. I would still keep a close eye on what’s on special, and what the discount is, however – some of the discounts were pretty minor (€2.09 to €1.99, that kind of thing).  And the prices of fruit and veg are still well above those at Lidl or Aldi.

What do you think?  Have you noticed improvements at Tesco?

6 Comments

  1. That’s so weird! I was just in Tesco last Friday and was very pleasantly surprised by how much my shopping bill came to. I was doing a big shop, which included (in my mind anyway) expensive things like Actimel stuff, dishwasher tablets, wine glasses and lots and lots of basics. My trolley came to E68. I was expecting it to be more like E100.

  2. their prices are definitely down a lot, though some items are still very expensive and a lot of stuff has disappeared off the shelves completely (for example, their range of pasta has reduced significantly).

  3. Things are definitely cheaper – especially meat – which had gotten really expensive there. You still have to keep an eye on prices, as you do anytime you shop, but it’s a good step in the right direction.

  4. I’ve noticed that prices have in general fallen and there is alot more selection for certain things(olive oils, pasta, sauces, sweets etc). But I’ve also noticed that some ‘cut prices’ have risen in the last few days

  5. The thing that really bugs me about Tesco is how items that seem to be selling well often have their price sneakily raised with no fanfare, and sometimes, unbelievably, with the claim of a ‘NEW’ price (e.g. sugarsnap peas which were €1.09 up to a couple of weeks ago, and then became €1.19). Some of these ‘long-term’ price cuts don’t seem to last very long. Some raised prices, and even completely unchanged prices, are actually printed on those larger special offer tags, presumably on the basis that they don’t expect people to notice the discrepency between the premise of a special offer sticker and the lack of an actual offer.

  6. That is some shopping list for someone down to her last nine euro.