Foodie News

On a recent trip to a local Morrisons’ restaurant, I was disappointed to see a change in the presentation of their sandwiches. Formerly served on a little red and white checked tray, with a salad garnish and mini pack of crisps, the sandwiches are now being presented on their own on a brown bit of card! However, on closer inspection, it was revealed that each pack of sandwiches came with a free pack of Morrisons’ crisps, although salt and vinegar was the only flavour available. I miss the cheerful tray and salad garnish, and quite liked the fact that the mini crisp packs allowed for a little treat without overindulgence. The sandwiches themselves are still good, however, with my favourite being the selection featuring egg and cress, cheese and tomato, ham, cheese and pickle and prawn – one of each for £2.49.

Admittedly, I do like a bit of chocolate cake!

After my recent comments about food products that are sporting the word ‘joy’ in their name or slogan, I would like to draw your attention to Cadbury’s Mini Rolls. One of the many slogans currently printed on the wrappers states, “Mini roll, big joy”. Is this meant to be a statement about what will happen to me if I eat too many? I do like a bit of chocolate, but still...

What’s happened to Tesco Strawberry Milkshake Powder? It used to have such a lovely, authentic strawberry taste, containing what appeared to be strawberry pips, but now it’s just bland! The ingredients have obviously changed, though the packaging and price remain the same. It’s very disappointing and I will definitely not be buying the product again.

I do enjoy the odd Lotus Biscoff caramel biscuit, but I don’t’ think that I can bring myself to try the spread of the same name. I mean, can I really imagine having the flavour of the biscuit spread on my toast?

What are your latest foodie loves and hates?

The Madness Of May

Let’s face it, May did turn out to be a bit of a mad month – the election was a complete madness in itself! The final result was a bit of a shock to many, not at all keeping with the forecasts; you can read my response at the-election-my-response

Having felt thoroughly disillusioned and fed up with certain issues, I’ve started a new blog as a platform to inform and campaign on certain issues, see www.purelypeoplepower.blogspot.co.uk to read more. Introducing this new blog means that my existing #OfstedNoConfidence campaign twitter.com/hashtag/ofstednoconfidence will move to this new site, and I have also started a petition calling for a review of Ofsted, which you can sign by visiting https://you.38degrees.org.uk/petitions/call-for-independent-review-of-ofsted  Shoppers’ Joy can will now revert back to its original use, which is to showcase product and service reviews, consumer issues and general shopping-related chat.

And so in other news...

This month I reviewed both Travelodge and Pontin’s, having experienced recent short stays in each, both of which seem to have undergone some improvement. Travelodge certainly seem to be upgrading their hotels, and whilst Pontin’s accommodation could do with a bit of an update, other facilities on offer are good. I’ll be interested to see how both progress.

In one post this month, I mentioned that my weekly shopping habits have recently changed, with more visits to Morrisons being the norm. I’m now using Sainsburys’ much less, partly because I now live further from a branch than I did before, but also the miserly lot have reduced the number of Nectar points that they’re awarding! Hadn’t you noticed? They’re now only giving one point per pound spent, instead of two, but the value of points remain the same – so basically you’ll have to spend £2 to get just 1p back! And there are no longer points awarded for re-using your own bags. Not a good move Sainsburys!

Finally, I was thrilled to hear that culottes are making a comeback. I think they’re great, offering the look of a skirt but with the comfort and practicality of trousers. I owned quite a few pairs back in the 80s, and I know they say you shouldn’t wear a fashion trend if you sported it the first time round, but I just couldn’t resist picking up a pair sitting on the sale rail in New Look. At £7 they were an absolute bargain, I just couldn’t resist!

How did May shape up for you?

A Move To Morrisons

Since moving to a new, more rural location last year, my shopping habits have changed somewhat.

At my old home, I did my main grocery shopping at the local Tesco Extra, with smaller top-up shops at Sainsburys’ and the Co-op, but all that has changed since the move.

My current nearest Tesco is rather smaller than the Extra at which I once shopped, with far fewer product lines on the shelves, making it impossible to replicate all my most common buys. Although the store can meet a lot of my needs, it falls short on others.

Similarly, I have neither a Sainsburys’ or Co-op within easy reach, so have needed to look elsewhere. Attempts at buying groceries in Aldi failed dismally, I couldn’t get on with their products at all, and although I like Lidl better, the journey to the nearest branch is too far to justify any savings. And when it comes to grocery shopping, I’m not a fan of doing it online, as I like to scrutinise the meat, carefully select the fruit and veg and take the time to mull over relevant offers.

Therefore, my weekly shop now tends to be divided between the smaller Tesco, and Morrisons’, as there is a large branch of this store near to said Tesco.

On my first few visits to Morrisons I tentatively tried a selection of own brand products, as well as selecting some well-known labels that were on offer. I decided that many of the products were of good quality and therefore represented good value, an opinion further enhanced by the introduction of the Match and More card. This loyalty card price-matches your purchases not only with other leading supermarkets, but also with Aldi and Lidl, converting any extra money that you have paid on your comparable Morrisons’ shop to points, which then accumulate until you have sufficient to be awarded a £5 voucher. Despite targeting many own brand and offer items in my shop, I always seem to earn points, and have received several £5 vouchers, further reducing my shopping bill.

In addition to this, Morrisons have been sending me a variety of additional money-off vouchers through the post – they’re really making an effort to gain custom!

I’ve now also become a fan of certain of their own brand products. Here are a few of my favourites:

Morrisons Laundry Gel (Bio) 540ml (up to 18 washes) for just £1.75 – just as good as the Ariel version in my opinion and much cheaper!

Morrisons Pure Fabric Conditioner £1.50 (up to 42 washes) is a great bargain buy that leaves my laundry really fresh.

Morrisons Bolognese Sauce 725g for 99p, we actually preferred this to many other makes that we have tried.

Morrisons Chilled 100% Fruit Juices, 1-litre bottles, 3 for £3 (£1.29 each), not only are these really tasty, but there is such a great range of flavours. In addition to the normal apple, orange and pineapple, I love the apple and mango, Clementine, apple and pear and red grape and berries.

I’m also a big fan of their deli items, such as vegetable samosas and olive selections, and am pleased to see that their meat tends to be sourced from British farmers.

It would definitely seem that I’ll be doing much more of my weekly shopping in Morrisons in the future.

January’s Highs And Lows

It’s been a strange month. The weather has been freezing cold one moment and unseasonably mild the next. With a general election looming this year, there have been debates on how and even whether there should be party debates and slanging matches have started between party leaders.

I’ve been trying to keep warm in the ‘glorified shed’ (you can keep up with the latest on that at www.ruraljoy.blogspot.co.uk) and despairing as to whether any party leader is actually fit to run the country!

 

Anyway, here are a few of my other highs and lows for the month.

Highs

Discovering a handy website for knitting patterns and wool, as I had been very frustrated at the lack of decent patterns available. My local craft and wool shop only seems to stock patterns that appear to belong in the 1970s and knitting magazines tend to print lots of patterns for small items, with only the odd cardigan or jumper that may or may not be appealing. I was very pleased therefore to discover www.deramores.com where you can sign up for a newsletter giving you access to free patterns as well as purchase reasonably priced patterns and wool. My order was processed and despatched literally within hours and I was very pleased with my purchases.

Grabbing some late sale bargains, including a pair of trousers from Wallis reduced from £30 to £10, a cardigan from Dorothy Perkins down from £25 to £10 and a perfume set from Boots for just £8 as opposed to its original £28! That amounted to £83 worth of shopping for just £28 – well £20 actually, as I used my Boots Advantage points for the perfume!

Receiving my first £5 Morrisons’ Match and More voucher, despite only purchasing quite minor amounts of shopping in the store and targeting offers most of the time, these points still added up very quickly!

Enjoying Father Brown on TV, although why it’s shoved into an afternoon slot on BBC1 I don’t know – it would make great evening viewing. In fact, that’s exactly when I do watch it, as I record it on my Humax box. It has a great cast and if you’ve never seen it I strongly recommend you start watching!

Lows

Finding out that Sainsburys’ online grocery shopping slaps on an extra charge for orders under £40, although I can report that Tesco only put an extra fee on the bill for orders under £25. My elderly mother-in-law particularly wanted to order some groceries from Sainsburys’ and enlisted our help. As she is only catering for herself, we checked that the minimum order for delivery was indeed £25. It was not until we got to the checkout stage, that we discovered the extra charge. Fair enough, there has to be a minimum amount to make delivery viable, but I don’t believe any supermarket should be charging extra for orders above the £25 mark.

The return of Broadchurch to our TV screens has been somewhat of a disappointment to me. I’d read various articles saying that the story was going to be really different and exciting, yet half of the programme each week seems to be going over old ground and dwelling on the court case relating to the last series. I would have much preferred more emphasis on a new story than dredging up the past – I can only hope it will improve as the weeks go by.

Reading ‘Natural Causes’ by James Oswald, which I’m not criticising for its writing or characterisation, but purely saying the plot was not for me. I like a good detective story, but this was too gory for me, with a higher body count than even a series of Midsomer Murders! It has some great reviews, but personally I prefer a little more mystery and a little less graphic content.

A Year In Supermarkets

With only weeks left of the present year, I thought it was time that I started looking back at some of my shopping experiences for the year, and in particular, what has been happening with the supermarkets.

Tesco were in the news this year for dodgy accounting, which has resulted in a criminal investigation. Now whilst this is serious stuff, and we should theoretically be concerned, as a shopper, I’m more interested in what is actually happening at ‘ground level’ so to speak. All the while I can go into a Tesco store, find what I want at a reasonable price, get good service from the staff and earn valuable Clubcard points I will continue to shop with the chain. They certainly operate the best loyalty scheme around, with points amounting to four times their value when exchanged for days out and Clubcard send out a regular supply of relevant money-off and extra points vouchers too.

Sainsbury’s, on the other hand, announced that they are set to cut the number of Nectar points that you earn on your weekly shop. (Loyalty cards) With their loyalty scheme already offering a poorer deal than the likes of Tesco I don’t think this is a very clever move. They are, however, pledging to cut more prices, so we’ll have to see how all this works out in practice.

Morrisons launched their new ‘Match & More’ card this year, (I want more) an interesting twist on a loyalty card, whereby you earn points on items that you would have been able to buy cheaper elsewhere – a price comparison that includes the likes of Aldi and Lidl as well as the other major supermarkets. What pleased me about this card was that Morrisons offered three options when it came to registering the card – online, by post or in store – a refreshing change from companies that expect you to do everything online!

Asda has never been one of my favourite supermarkets, but they’ve certainly put themselves in the doghouse recently. My daughter placed an online grocery order with them, but the goods never actually materialised (Oh dear Asda) and despite phone calls, completion of an online form, a blog post and a Twitter conversation (which reaps results in most cases) the company failed to properly apologise for the inconvenience, or offer any explanation as to what went wrong. Needless to say it’s not an experience she has rushed to repeat. In fact, my prize for “The Worst Customer Service of 2014” is hereby awarded to Asda. Perhaps they’d care to take note!

Whilst I continue to give Aldi a wide berth, having rated previous shopping experiences with them at 2/10, I have become a bit of a fan of Lidl. For me, Lidl have been one of the great emerging retailers of 2014. Most recently I’ve found them a great place to stock up with Christmas spirits – port, cream liqueur and cherry brandy all costing around the £5 mark, and tasting delicious – and I love their Stilton too! I’m sure that I’ll have much more to say about them in 2015.

So wherever you shop, I hope you’ve had good experiences this year – if not, let me know, I’m always keen to hear your shopping stories too!

I Want More!

When it comes to loyalty cards, I’m a serial collector, as many a blog post has demonstrated. It’s little surprise then, that when I heard about the Morrisons’ Match & More card, I just had to grab one and find out, well more.

Strictly speaking, this is not so much of a loyalty card as a price match tool. When shoppers get their card swiped at the checkout, the grocery spend is compared with Tesco, Sainsburys’, Asda, Aldi and Lidl – a selection of supermarkets that just sent the automatic spellchecker on my computer into meltdown!

Always looking to save valuable pounds!

If you would have spent less at these stores, then the difference (with an added zero) is converted to points and put on your card. My first shop with the card could have theoretically been 54p cheaper elsewhere (despite the fact that I targeted offers), and so earned me 540 points. Once I have accumulated 5000 points I will qualify for a £5 voucher.

When I first heard the details about the card, I was unsure whether the benefits would be worthwhile, but considering I’m already a tenth of the way to getting my first £5 following a relatively small grocery shop, it could prove quite handy.

In addition to the ‘match’ points, I’ve spotted a few items in store for which extra points are awarded and you also get 10 points for every litre of fuel that you buy at a Morrisons’ garage.

But what really struck me when I picked up my new temporary card and accompanying leaflet, was that Morrisons actually provide customers with a choice of ways to register – either online, by post (postage paid) or by dropping off the completed form to a box in store. Following previous posts bemoaning companies that only expect customers to communicate with them online, this was a breath of fresh air. After all, there are still people (some of my more elderly relatives included) that either do not have or cannot use the Internet. Well done Morrisons!