As households struggle with the continued cost of living crisis families are looking for alternative ways to try and save money. With many people now facing the almost impossible choice of food or heat this winter, trying to find cheaper alternatives in your food shop could be one place to save on skyrocketing monthly bills.
Well known budget supermarkets Aldi and Lidl have been the main options for families trying to save a little on their food bill for years, but now Bristol is offering another alternative, Heron Foods.
Heron Foods originally started as a butchers before changing its name and opening its first Heron Frozen Foods store in 1979. In 2017, B&M took over the supermarket and now there are 250 stores across the country.
READ MORE: All the cost of living crisis help available in Bristol
And this week B&M’s supermarket chain made its official debut in Bristol, when it opened a store in East Street Bedminster on Thursday (August 25).
The chain often isn’t included when comparison sites put supermarkets head to head, so I went along on opening day to check it out for myself and see how much a (mainly) essentials shop would cost me.
Now everyone’s household essentials are different, and I live in a house with no children, which I know makes a huge difference when it comes to a weekly shop. I should also note that Heron Foods is well-known for its frozen food offering - but as I was going to have to have it in the office with me all day I avoided this section.
The essentials
Butter, eggs, milk and bread - to me these are the staples of any weekly shop. But like everyone else in the country I have been watching as the price of these items creep up and up in my local supermarket.
So what was the situation in Heron Foods? Pretty good actually.
In terms of butter we’re a Clover household, not a brand they had in store but they do offer the cheaper alternative of Utterly Butterly, which cost £1.49.
What did catch my eye in the butter section was the price of Lurpak. Now Lurpak has always been a bit pricey for me so I’ve never bothered with it - but I know for some people it’s the only butter they will ever buy no matter the price - which has been skyrocketing in recent months.
Back in June we reported that a 500g pack of Lurpak had shot up in price to an eye-watering £5, but I also know people had seen it advertised for £7 in some shops.
Well in Heron Foods it’s still one of the more expensive brands, but a 500g pack will only set you back £4.
I paid 99p for a six-pack of free-range eggs. There was a cheaper alternative available for non-free-range as well.
The milk section was slightly disappointing. We’re not big milk drinkers in my house and personally I’m a red top girl, but they only seemed to have green and blue on the shelf. Not a huge deal, and I picked up one pint of semi-skimmed for 79p.
The bread section had quite a few options that should keep most shoppers happy, I went with a loaf of Braces wholemeal for £1.20, which is actually slightly more expensive than the supermarket own brand bread which I usually pick up.
I’m also going to add toilet roll to my essentials list - as let’s be honest it is - and a four-pack in Heron Foods cost me £1.49. I also picked up some toothpaste for £1 as I actually needed it.
Store cupboard items
For me store cupboard items are those bits that go in my cupboards. So everything from sauces and spreads, to last minute meal options if we don’t have anything in the house.
I picked up quite a fancy brand of pasta sauce - Napolina Rustica Passata - for 59p, and a Patak’s Korma sauce for 89p. Iceland currently has it on sale for £1.25.
A medium size bottle of Hellman’s Tomato ketchup cost 89p - there were lots of other brand options available as well. And for mayonnaise lovers Heron Foods sells the Hellman’s and Heinz brand, whatever your preference may be.
I also bought a Heinz vegetable soup pot for 79p and a 1.5 litre bottle of their own brand squash for 89p.
Fruit and Veg
This was probably one of the smaller sections in the store, and definitely the smallest section on my list. But it was also where I picked up my biggest bargain - Pink Lady apples - which in my opinion are the Queen of apples. Unfortunately they come with quite a hefty price tag as well.
Nowadays for a four pack you won’t get anything for under the £2 mark - and you’re usually looking at paying around £2.50. So I was delighted to see a four pack of them on sale for £1.89.
The only other thing I picked up in this section was a four pack of baking potatoes for 89p.
Treat items
I’m a sweet treat person more than savoury, so my treat items came from the dessert and cake section.
A four-pack of Rolo mousse desserts cost £1.25, which I thought was quite good.
They had an offer on their flapjack bars. I got three for £1, or they were 39p each.
A pack of Maryland cookies cost me 59p and I was suckered in with a Gu chocolate spread jar that cost me £1.89, which was cheaper than other supermarkets but still not a brand I usually buy.
I also picked up a six pack of Pickled Onion Space Raiders crisps for £1. This was mainly because they were one of the cheapest options for a multipack of crisps and also purely for nostalgia reasons.
To be honest I didn’t really know where to put cheese. For me it’s an essential, but it’s also one of those items where I’ve noticed one of the biggest price increases so kind of falls into the treat category. Anyway, a 350g pack of Cathedral Cheddar cost me £3.20, by far the most expensive item on my shopping list.
In conclusion...
The total cost of the shop for 21 items was £22.72, which I didn’t think was that bad. I know I could have gotten some of the items cheaper at my local supermarket by just buying their own-brands. But if you know you like a certain brand - like Lurpak or Pink Ladies - then Heron foods is definitely worth a trip.
What was clear from visiting the Bedminster store on that opening day was just how excited the local community is about it. People even stopped me on the bus back after seeing my shopping bags to ask me what the store was like while also informing me it was the first day the store had opened.
The main question I got was , ‘is it cheaper’ and ‘did I get my free goodie bag’?
For people living in the area the opening of Heron Foods is welcome news. It means one less empty shop front on their high street, and one that offers the promise of cheaper alternatives during this ongoing cost of living crisis.
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