Re: Groceries
 

That's interesting as I find Walmart Superstore pretty good, apart from the fact they don't have a deli / fish / meat counter - and they stock many of the same brands that Metro / Fortinos stock, but at a lower price; the range of foods they stock at my local one is extensive... one of those 'depends where it is' things I suppose!
:)

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Save On is my favorite store, generally clean, modern stores with good selection and wide aisles and doesn't feel like a sardine box, and prices are decent on most things, just gotta shop smart.

The Superstore in Vancouver is far too busy and crowded for me, and I don't find their prices low enough to go there and suffer...lol

Safeway is okay not my favorite.

Choices is well high priced but the hipsters seem to like it, I won't shop there since the prices are idiotically high like Whole foods.

No Frills is the only grocery store within a close distance to home, but eh I'll go further out now to avoid them.



The Wal-Martin Vancouver sucks, there is only 1 and its smaller then your typical Wal-Mart Super Store, smaller selection and crowded so I don't go there either.

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I never liked Walmart. Never thought it was as cheap for food as people said - better prices in Superstore and even Sobeys. But when money was tight and a pair of jeans was needed they usually had an option around $15 and Wranglers for just a few $$ more.

Ask a member of staff if they had something - or where it might be - and you'd get a "not my section" response. :confused: But if you need jeans...

But since they went 'super centre' or whatever they call it, and added fresh meat, fruit and veg - and a great bakery department - it's so much better than it was. In the food area, that is. The rest of the store is much the same.

The much improved food part has also had a bit of a knock on effect with the other stores too.

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Living, as we do, at the end of a long Supply Chain our choice, even in metro St John's is limited. Essentially we have Dominion (aka Loblaws), Sobeys, No Frills & Colemans which is a local chain. Dominion and Sobeys are much of a muchness - we have a new style sobeys which opened nearby a couple of years ago with a big fresh produce and bakery area but not so much in the area of general dry grocery goods. Does good sausages though. Being at the end of the supply chain fresh produce is more expensive than the mainland and can be pretty poor quality. Plus it's no trouble to tell when the Gulf ferries haven't been running for a day or two as the shelves get bare. Walmart hasn't moved into fresh groceries here much I believe. It's a store I avoid as much as possible so I might be wrong. Costco is the store of choice for meat, fruits and veg. Not terribly eco friendly but one can often buy veggies and fruit there in large portions that is equivalent price to the smaller portions at the other stores. So if some gets thrown out because you just can't eat 5lbs of peppers in a week, then we're still ahead!

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No Frills varies enormously from shop to shop, unlike Loblaws/Zehrs which is pretty much the same whichever one you go into. I recall being amazed at the No Frills in Shelburne (a small town north of Toronto) as it was clean and no shoppers had nibbled the fruit. What does differ with Loblaws shops is that the items on the shelves differs with the location, if you want to know the dominant ethnicity in an area a butcher's at what's in the "International" aisle and what's in the "normal people" aisles is instructive.

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Of course, Loblaws owns No Frills, same as Superstore, Independent, etc.

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The same organization owns the names but Loblaws stores belong to the chain, No Frills and Bulk Barn are franchise operations under that umbrella. I imagine this accounts for the variations in the No Frills shops.

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It does and from what I can find the owner of the store decides what to stock and such, our store is run on the cheap so out of stock a lot of the time, and flyer items may as well not even try, they rarely have anything in the flyer, its a poorly run store, but because of the area it is in, nobody will really care, mostly poor people shopping there. The previous owner was much better at keeping the store up and stocked, but the new ownership isn't so great, and doesn't staff appropriately, will have 2 check out lines open at a busy time with 15-20 people in each line.

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Indeed. Our nearest No Frills is actually branded as "Kevin's No Frills". Not sure, that if I were Kevin, I'd want to be known for my lack of frills...

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Would that be "Cheap Frills" ?? :rofl:

Re: Groceries
 

1200 PC points for every $6 spend on PC coffee pods today. Nabob was advertised for $4.99 for 12 which is a great deal if you like it. The dark roast was always good in the drip version so I'm very okay with that price.

But when I got there, the store had responded to the Nabob price by reducing the PC 12 packs to the same $4.99, including the very wonderful Sumatra version :thumbsup:

Five packs, $25, 60 cups, plus $4.80 off the next shop. Works out to 34c a pod.

Or, you could just look at them and say bloody hell, these things are normally $8.99 and today they're $4.99. :ohmy:

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Tim and Heather's No Frills is a large, clean shop with hitching rails outside. I tend not to go in there as it caters for people who go to the grocer's by horse and cart. Accordingly, it has the sort of food one might expect at a country buffer restaurant in Nebraska and a spectacular selection of ice cream. Massive consumption of commercial ice cream is one of the less discussed aspects of Mennonite life. Jim and Lee-Anne's No Frills is where you have to go for Marmite, shortbread and Quality Street.

I don't know any of those four but I do know slightly the owners of a large Foodland. Owning and operating a large supermarket seems like hard work and lots of risk. For example, they have a generator but not an automatic one, failure to get to the shop and power it up when the grid breaks means risking the business as they don't have a cushion to fund replacing everything in the freezers and cold room. Selling local produce in the summer brings in the public and is high profit but falling below order quota with the big suppliers risks not having vegetables in the winter. It all seems a bit marginal.

Re: Groceries
 

No plastic. All compostable.
However, the pods are in reserve for when only one cup is needed and I don't want to make a pot of the 875g ground arabica dark roast for $7. It's the best of both worlds.

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Re: Groceries
 

PC Ground coffee - the big tin not the smaller one - $6.99 again at Shoppers this week.

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Tariffs? ;)

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Time to start looking, Charmin is from the states, Purex from Canada. I bought the 5 lb bag of "imperfect" English cucumbers (produce of Canada) for $4.95 at No Frills so paid less than half the individual price, meaning I can have large pink gin till hell wouldn't have 'em and still have a bunch for making kimchi if I don't dawdle and let them go bad.

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I'm astounded at how much sodium is in Yogurt.. I've only found one that has 30mg or less per pot.. it's ludicrous. That's a third of my daily allowance in one tiny pot!

Got some tahini today so I can make hummus - the commercially prepared ones again have far too much sodium (as does just about everything, I've found.. hence making everything from scratch, including peeling and chopping tomato's to make a spaghetti (wholegrain 0 sodium, 0 fat, of course, sigh) sauce base or the tomato element of a base sauce for a curry.

Bought something I've never heard of before, Freekeh - has anyone else used it? Any tips?

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Bloody hell. I just looked at a tiny one we have (it really is tiny) and it had 60 :ohmy:

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Once every few years I find myself, usually against my will, at McDonald's and the only things I ever order there are a milk or small fries. I always ask for the fries with no salt and usually get quite a look but when you see how much salt they shake on them you'll know why. It also guarantees your fries are fresh. Fast food and processed food is full of it due to its relative low cost.

I do find people put salt on food without even thinking about it as it is just a habit they get into. I never add it to food but I do like prosciutto, genoa salami and dijon mustard which all have lots of salt in them.

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Isn the salt and high BP relationship in the same disputed category as fats and heart disease?

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Tell that to my body.

I am keeping mine under 100mg a day Sodium. On the very few occasions that I have eaten out and there has been some (a little) sodium in the meal (despite my care in ordering and asking them specifically to ensure that no sodium or dressings are added) my blood pressure has shot up.

As an example - I had a salad 2 weeks ago where they had crumbled about an ounce of feta cheese over it. I ate it without thinking. When I got home my blood pressure had increased to 159/81 - far too high for me.

I've also tested it at home (I have to take my blood pressure twice a day minimum) and any day I've had shrimp or other food that has a high sodium level my blood pressure has shot up.

It's not fun having to micro manage what I put in my body, trust me. If I could have sodium at even half the normal daily quantity I would be a happy bunny.

I'm not sure about 'disputed' - eating the wrong fats in excess is not good for your heart. Everything in moderation!!

Fats and oils | Heart and Stroke Foundation

https://www.canada.ca/en/health-cana...sodium.html#a4

Canadians eat about 3400 mg of sodium each day. This is more than double the amount we need. A 2009 study of 177,025 participants showed that high sodium intake significantly increased the risk of stroke and cardiovascular disease.

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I could believe that Canadians eat twice the recommended amount. A diet of processed junk and bacon etc doesn't help.

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Anyways, back to Groceries, lol.. sorry for going off on a tangent!

So I bought some of this yesterday when I went to buy groceries.. Freekeh! It was blooming expensive too so I may not buy it again.
It's young green wheat, toasted and shucked.. you eat it like you would quinoa or rice or similar.. I'm very interested to know if anyone has used it and can give some tips so I don't waste it!
:)

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No Frills needs (my local store anyhow) self check outs.

They only have 5 lanes in total and always 2 or 3 open despite the place being crazy busy.

Not unusual to have 10 or 15 people in line at once.

They could tear out 3 of the lanes and fit 16 self check outs.

16 self check outs is better than 2 or 3 lanes.

I stopped going there due to the long slow lines.

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Not yet, I've been on posh red and white quinoa with wheat berries the last few days (another new thing for me) and quite enjoyed it. Going to try the freekeh next week! :D

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Sometimes you have to be really careful. There's one particular Sobeys store here - it's closest to me but I prefer others - that leaves a lot to be desired.

Get there before 9.00am and there are gaps in displays where they've not put things out yet or some prices contradict the flyers. Or at the checkout you discover they've applied a limit on a particular item without saying so in the flyer or in the store. Today there should have been a BOGOF deal on Compliments ASAs but the notice was on something different. Nobody in the pharmacy was free to check.

The worst thing though were the tomatoes. Beefsteak toms @ $4.99 :eek: so I passed by those and came to two further sections of Hothouse toms @ $1.99. I was about to bag some when I thought hang on, they look the same as the others.

I looked at the number on the sticker and every tomato in all three sections had the same sticker. :nod: And, of course, the number corresponded to the sign with the $4.99 price. Of course there was nobody around to speak too - something else noticeable about this store.

So I've done my usual email complaint and I expect to get the usual general response about sometimes stock is short or whatever which completely ignores the nature of the different complaints I just made and the fact it's always that store, not the others.

Why do I go there I hear you ask. Because sometimes I don't need much or maybe there are only a couple of "give-away" things worth stocking up on. Like today, Pepsi was 99c for a 2L bottle and chickens were $1.99lb and there was a good deal on shrimps. It's my closest store and the taxi back is a few $$ less than the alternative store. For a bigger trip I'll pay the extra.

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This stuff is absolutely fabulous - and made in Canada (in Alberta) .. if you like chili-lime (slightly sweet.. ever had thai sweet chili-lime dressing? it's similar but not as sweet). It's thick like marmalade/jam and you can use it as a marinade, as a basting medium, as a dressing (mix a little lime juice with it), as an accompaniment or just eat it by the spoon, lol. It goes with pretty much anything, I've found. I've used it with ahi tuna steak, with poached chicken (hot and cold), in pasta salad, in couscous, as a salad dressing and as a bit on the side with potato - and it's been delicious with it all (maybe because I've been starved of anything flavourful for the last few months!).. would love to try it with a bit of baked brie and crusty bread .. but the days of eating brie - or any other yummy cheese - are over, sadly! They do other varieties too, haven't tried them yet.

https://www.somethingspecialdeli.com...ourmetRedChili

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Baked Bean Sighting!

Dollarama only has Clarks (my current goto) in the larger 500+ mg sizes. So I took a flyer on Northern Harvest beans, from Leamington.

Could be my new goto, a bit sweet (a dash of lea & perrins wookie sauce fixed that), but generally pretty good, And no maple syrup/ pork fat/ brown sugar b%^&#$ nonsense

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There is only one make of baked beans worth buying...Heinz. :thumbsup:

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I don't go there often but No Frills' baked beans in tomato sauce are okay. I'd recommend draining off most of the liquid, I think that's the bit that has most of the sugar, anyway, for 80 cents Canadian a tin, they are not a bad deal. Add them to a quinoa salad for some extra protein.

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I still pronounce quinona to rhyme with Winona, so that isn't on; if I can't say it I may not be ready to eat it. I like Clark's, Heinz when they're on sale, but haven't bought NN baked beans in some time. A can lasts through 5 or 6 breakfasts with a good dollop heated in the pan with some wooster sauce after my bacon or sausage and eggs is cooked. I should get back into making refried beans (you can use all sorts of beans, black, pinto, kidney, etc), worth the little bit of extra effort and the perfect vehicle for cilantro and grated cheese.

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I didn't even like Heinz in the UK- Branston Beans are by far the best over there. I have one tin I'm putting down in the wine cellar lol.

I don't mind the new Heinz BBQ beans though for a guilty treat.

My boycott of Heinz must be instinctive, as it was only in recent years I discovered the firm is form the hated cesspit of Pittbluergh.

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Me too, except I refer to it as F&%#@n Kwin-0-ar.