Cut price shops

By Paul Fulford on Jun 30, 08 01:59 PM

On Page 3 of today's Birmingham Mail is a story saying that the cut-price supermarket Aldi is opening two new stores and recruiting extra staff in this area because sales are booming.

The reason, one of its managers says, is that hard-pressed punters are cutting back on spending so are switching from mainstream stores to Aldi.

I've never stepped foot in Aldi (or Lidl or Iceland for that matter). But my German-born sister-in-law , who's no stranger to pastries and other sweet things, swears by its cakes and, from those I've sampled at her house, they're pretty good.

And while I've not yet started using places like Aldi, I've begun shopping for fruit and veg at the Bull Ring markets and our weekly grocery shopping is now done at Tesco rather than more expensive (but oh so much more pleasant) Waitrose.

Maybe people are now driven more by cost rather than the environment and reputation of the shops we use.

Which is no bad thing - the big stores have had it their own way too long.