A long time Tesco shopper has stated that he "won't be going back" to the supermarket after he managed to complete a food shop at Marks and Spencer for only £16. The shopper, who had previously believed the stereotypes of M&S being overpriced, was shocked when he reached the checkout and discovered the cost of his reasonably-priced shop, Manchester Evening News reports.
M&S has recently sparked some competition between budget rival Aldi, as it introduces more low-cost, own-brand products. Many shoppers have been impressed, as the quality of their food is generally thought of as far better than many of its competitors.
Amid the cost of living crisis, the popular retailer has recently taken a leaf out the books of ASDA and Tesco, and brought in more of its own branded food, which allows shoppers to buy their items at a cheaper cost. Their personal products, which have been branded as the 'Remarksable Value' range, have received a huge amount of praise from online shoppers, who are now ditching their old favourites to move to M&S.
Dan, a reporter from MyLondon, made the decision to switch his usual weekly shop in Tesco for a trip to M&S, which came to a total of just £16. The prices of the stated items were accurate at the time of the original article's writing.
He said: ''Having caught wind of this I felt I had to go and check the range out for myself so I headed down to my local food hall in Finsbury Park to see what all the fuss was about. I decided I'd get the items I needed for a pair of simple recipes, incorporating as many of the value ingredients as I could to make the most of the range.
"The recipes were a beef and bean chilli with jacket potatoes and a simple slaw, and sausage and broccoli spaghetti. Upon walking into the shop I headed for the bread section where I picked up some large white rolls for 95p, I've seen the exact same ones in Tesco before for the exact same price so this was a promising start.
"Soon the bargains started appearing left, right, and centre, with spaghetti for under a pound, eggs for £1 exactly, and eight pork sausages for just £1.50! Beef mince for £1.80 was another steal and as I secured all my veg for the week for just over £6 I started to wonder whether I'd walked into Aldi or Lidl by mistake.
''Gradually though, I became very aware of my surroundings as some more expensive outliers began entering my basket, red kidney beans for 75p felt particularly egregious and £2.75 for 350g of cheddar is pretty hard to take, the 'value' option in the cheese range a £4 block of 550g.
''The total shop ended up coming to £16.19 overall and should sort my lunches and dinners until at least the end of the weekend. Whilst there were a few regrettably expensive items, I do feel like the value was approaching what you get at an Aldi or Lidl, and certainly better than your local Tesco.
''What I would warn though is that despite the genuinely great value on the items in the 'Remarksable Value' range, there just wasn't enough variety in that range to make doing an entire shop at M&S a viably cheap option, unless you're sticking closely to the basics. That said, I was impressed, and it left me certain of one thing - I wouldn't be returning to Tesco for a while.''
A Tesco representative confirmed its current prices for the items featured are as follows:
- Large white rolls - 80p
- Spaghetti - 23p
- Eggs - £1.15
- 8 pork sausages - £1.20
- Beef mince - £1.79
- Kidney beans - 33p
- Cheddar- £2.65
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