Lidl: Clearance and Vegan Food and My Thoughts

Dear all grocery stores,

Why do you insist on making your best plant-based/vegan/vegetarian foods “limited time”? Is it a supply chain thing? A demand thing? By “all” grocery stores, do I just mean Aldi and Lidl? (Mostly, yes.)

Please stop doing that, thx.

Marla

So according to Lidl, “Earth Day” is actually a week, and during that week they are willing to expand their selection of veg*n and organic things and sell more of them. BUT ONLY THEN.

To be fair to Lidl, they have a really good veg*n line all the time - Venmondo - that has tasty veg things. I just was sad because the Earth Day line was VERY intriguing to me.

I went to Lidl specifically for these items, but first I hit up the Easter clearance. By accident. Because it was in a random spot in the first aisle. But oh what clearance I discovered!

TWO boxes of fun skincare face masks with animal prints for $2 each (4 masks/box!).

A teeny little dark chocolate fondue pot (that I’d been eyeing at full price) for 99 cents!

And a box of Peeps (which are NOT vegetarian and are also gross but also I remember then fondly - always preferred them stale and a little crunchy…..) that came with a very cute stuffie bunny for $2 (I gave the candy to a friend’s son).

But this was interesting - a bit further away, there was Passover clearance - and the bargains were NOT as fantastic, but the ORIGINAL prices were. I was able to get 5 pounds of name-brand KfP matzah for approx $1/lb, which is an AMAZING price. But marked down post-Pesach, it was still close to that price. My theory - which is based on my day job! on science and data! and knowledge! - is that Lidl was already selling the Passover products at a RAZOR THIN margin (good lord I write “razor thin margins” all the time at work) so the prices just….were good, with little wiggle room for markdowns. But the Easter crap? THAT CRAP was marked WAY THE FUCK UP so there was LOTS of room to mark it down again and still make a small profit. In any case, the difference was jarring. I mean, also, Easter clearance is fun (see above pix) and Passover clearance is not (I still have matzah - so much matzah - I don’t need any more and nobody else really does either). But yes, I noted this.

Then onward to the limited-time veg stuff. The dry goods were in the regular ol’ limited-time aisle mixed in with the other special weeks (Italy! Greece!) and the frozen stuff was also more or less mixed into the frozen sections.

I picked up (but as of this writing have not tried) frozen vegan GYROS with onions (WHAAAT?), frozen vegan fish (square, doesn’t look like Gardein faux-fish) coated in potato starch (?), and vegan chick’n patties (not really THAT unique but hey). I love processed fake meats! I also got tofu-based spread in three varieties (so good - another “why can’t this be available all the TIME?” thing) and two coffee syrups (agave-based - vanilla and chocolate - also very good). And I got some Violife vegan cheese because I am trying to cut back on my dairy consumption without cutting it out completely. (Violife and Chao are both really good - would I lie to you?)

BONUS: There was a 10/$10 sale so I stocked up on organic ketchup, organic veggie broth in cartons, and organic beans - whee! GOOD SALE!

Also they had baby bellas and while they were about 30 cents more than Aldi (IT ADDS UP), they were also GORGEOUS and HUGE so I bought some. Lidl’s produce section overall is really really good. I got plums too (although the first one I pulled from the bag was a little mushy). All in all, a good haul.

I’m going to stop publishing this newsletter every week - you probably noticed! - and see what sort of cadence fits going forward or if I even feel like making something consistent.

Also I’d love more subscribers - feel free to pass this along/tell a friend!

I hope I gave you a nice little distraction from waves hands all of this……….