Best time to hit the 'Reduced To Clear' section?

[Epona]

Paid just under a fiver for nearly 3lbs of vintage Swiss Gruyere in Waitrose as it was “going out of date” (nearly £30 at full price). Looks like fondue is on the menu sometime this weekend

Lovely for stuffed chillies type stuff too, oooh also in burgers. Nice find!

 

[Epona]

After a lean few weeks on the reduced to clear, I did quite well today.

3x sweet & sour chicken with egg fried rice ready meals for 63p each (originally £2.25 each), straight in the freezer with them, they can be heated in the oven from frozen so will be perfect for some time when I can't be arsed to cook. No idea what they are like, probably shit, but will do.

A large mozzarella and pesto quiche for 50p (was £2), dated today so I put it in the freezer but will heat it tomorrow night and have some hot for tea with some boiled spuds and veg or salad, and will take some to my volunteer shift on Friday as part of my packed lunch. I've had Morrison's quiches before off the reduced to clear (they're a bit expensive IMO at full price) and they tend to be really quite nice, not had this particular variety before but I'm looking forward to it.

Some chocolate and orange trifles, very cheap (can't recall how much and cba to go to the fridge to check), no idea what they are like but will give one a go shortly and scoff the rest later.

 

[Part 2]

I've almost given up on the big supermarkets thesedays and our Aldi only ever does 30% off.

Bargain shopping for me is all about Farmfoods, I've been to loads round Manchester...completely addicted. Marmite for 99p, Popcorn KitKat chunky and 4 finger Zebra KitKat at 5 for a quid are my recent buys but they often have really cheap frozen veggie stuff aswell.

 

[Dogsauce]

Word reaches me on the grapevine from up north that local bargain paradise Jack Fultons has been bought out by Poundland, which probably means no more esoteric bargains as enjoyed during my Leeds days, like three litres of chocolate Alpro for a quid etc. I think Heron Foods is still about which was the next best thing, but nowhere near the randomness.

I think the proliferation of these types of shops in Yorkshire was due to the large number of food manufacturing places in the region like Arla (south Leeds) and places in East Yorkshire/Lincs, a lot of surplus and secondary stock passed through these sort of shops or through stalls in Leeds indoor market, often branded for overseas. Nothing like it down south.

 

[ouirdeaux]

I've had Morrison's quiches before off the reduced to clear (they're a bit expensive IMO at full price)

I'm trying to make some comment about a quiche-22 situation, but failing. Somebody help me out.

 

[Epona]

I did well today! Food for tonight is already planned but all this stuff was freezable, so it went straight in the freezer for another time.

A Morrison's "Best" range individual salmon, smoked haddock and king prawn fish pie - £1 (was £4)
A Plant Revolution spinach ravioli in rich tomato sauce ready meal - 80p (was £3.50)

I'd never buy these things at full price, but they are very useful for OH to pop in the oven from frozen when he gets in from work in the mornings.

A pack of onion bhajis - 50p (was £1.70) - will make a nice accompaniment to the chicken/fish pilau I am planning for later in the week

A pack of 6 Black Farmer premium pork sausages - 79p (was £3.25) - I love picking up posh sausages on the reduced to clear, gives me a great deal of pleasure to be able to level up my sausage game for cheaper than the basic own brand ones (although Morrison's own brand sausages are pretty decent and very good value).

They had loads of packs of Ostrich Burgers and Ostrich Steaks - I was very tempted, but there wasn't quite enough money off for me to take the plunge, although now I am back at home I wish I had picked up a pack of steaks.

 

[Dogsauce]

My youngest’s pre-school gets crates of out of date stuff from Waitrose to give away to parents. Usually bread and veg. Sometimes they have loads like this week, when I took home three packs of trimmed leeks, a fuck load of new potatoes, a pomegranate, small seeded loaf, some apples and pears. All pretty decent, spuds were staring to sprout and leeks getting a bit soggy on the outside, but all chopped up and frozen for making soup.

It’s a well-healed area so seems a bit odd to be given stuff for nowt but all about reducing food waste, they beg you to take stuff away. They do get really fancy bread sometimes.

 

[Epona]

Lots of stuff on the reduced to clear today, but not much of it with enough of a price reduction to consider.

HOWEVER - I did snag some individual quiches - 3x ham hock & mushroom, 1x quiche lorraine - for 33p each (originally £1.30)

Even better, the quiche lorraine must have been reduced by mistake, cos unlike the ham hock ones which expire today, that is good til the 9th. So that one is in the fridge and I may scoff it cold if we have a picnic Monday/Tuesday - OH can't eat it and even if it was veggie he hates quiche, but I'll happily have it and he can have other stuff instead. The rest have gone in the freezer.

I quite like Morrison's quiches tbh, I wouldn't pay full price for them but if I see them suitably reduced then I'll always grab a few (any size!) They make a nice tea hot with baked beans/green beans/salad/coleslaw and chips/buttered new spuds, or cold for my packed lunch when I am out volunteering.

 

[Part 2]

Loads of raspberries and strawberries 25p a pack down from £2.75. Avocados 40p for 2 and some nice tomatoes for 50p

 

[Epona]

Hit the motherlode today...

	Was	Reduced to
Harvester Loaf	0.99	0.25
Savers Trifle (scoffed while unpacking)	0.30	0.06
Pack of 2 Bread & Butter Puddings	2.09	0.42
Pack of 3 Fruit Cocktail Trifles	1.85	0.37
Chicken Curry with Egg Fried Rice	3.25	0.65
Chicken Curry with Egg Fried Rice	3.25	0.65
Southern Fried Chicken Goujons	2.25	0.45
Minced Beef Hotpot	3.25	0.66
Spaghetti & Meatballs	2.99	0.60
Spaghetti & Meatballs	2.99	0.60
Moussaka (Morrison's "Best")	4.38	0.88
Cottage Pie (Morrison's "Savers")	1.35	0.27
Total	28.94	5.86
Saving of	23.08

I basically won at shopping today

 

[Epona]

I don't even eat ready meals as a regular thing and I like cooking, but I do sometimes suffer from fatigue or cba or general wtf unable to get it together mode, so they are worth it to have in - I wouldn't ever pay full price for one, but will happily yoink them off the reduced to clear and stash in the freezer for when I don't have the wherewithall to cook from scratch, or if I have run out of stuff and can't afford to shop to make one of my usual meals. Having a freezer stocked off the reduced to clear (mix of ready meals and other stuff) has saved me from going hungry on multiple occasions.

 

[ATOMIC SUPLEX]

What shop is this?

 

[killer b]

Morrisons - they do very deep discounts there but I've not seen a haul like that in ages. Good work.

I had a fillet steak for tea off the Booths buffet - two quid

 

[Epona]

What shop is this?

Yeah as killer b said it was Morrison's - it's the luck of the draw whether there is anything left, but you have to go after 5pm because they only take something like 20p off the normal price in the morning (OH sometimes does a shop in the morning and there is never anything worth getting because not enough discount at that time of day) - so there is an optimum time to get there. Some days are better than others, this was a particularly good haul and yeah I've not seen the like of it for a while. I left plenty of stuff for other people too.

Not today, but I recently also got a tub of clotted cream normally £2.40 for 60p - that's a treat we don't often afford so I got that. It wasn't that near the best before either, but the promotional "win somethingorother" campaign had finished so they were selling off all the ones with the promotional packaging cheap.

A particularly good time to check it out is if people are expecting good weather so the supermarkets stocked up on BBQ stuff but then it rained and they didn't sell it all - last time we had a wet weekend, a few days later there was a whole load of prime ostrich steak and ostrich burgers on the reduced to clear. I've also under similar circumstances seen the entire reduced cabinet groaning under the weight of packs of chicken wings and fresh burgers and tubs of coleslaw and potato salad.

 

[mango5]

I've switched from hunting for reduced stuff to nabbing bargains via too good to go. It helps to be based in a big city where there are lots of options. Best for breakfast/lunch items but have nabbed good cheese, fruit and veg too.

The breakfast/lunch stuff is generally fancier and lots cheaper than home-made. Mr mango got a sarnie, two brownies, two pasties and a chocolate muffin for less than four quid today.

 

[Epona]

I've switched from hunting for reduced stuff to nabbing bargains via too good to go. It helps to be based in a big city where there are lots of options. Best for breakfast/lunch items but have nabbed good cheese, fruit and veg too.

The breakfast/lunch stuff is generally fancier and lots cheaper than home-made. Mr mango got a sarnie, two brownies, two pasties and a chocolate muffin for less than four quid today.

I'm a bit dubious about too good to go, because it strikes me (what with OH having worked in catering/hospitality for a while) that the stuff they are selling is the stuff that previously would have been taken home by the staff (for free) - which as their pay is so shit, was compensation of a sort. Now they are selling that to people instead of giving it to staff, so it is a bit more profit for the company and a bit less on the table of people who work for them.

 

[mango5]

I did think about your comments on this issue on another thread but there's such a vast quantity of food available. I imagine there's only so much cake/squashed fruit the staff can consume! Sometimes things get cancelled at the last minute and I hope it's because the staff have taken it.

Pretty sure there's no profit in it for most businesses.

 

[Epona]

We did end up with way more courgettes than any one household needed once (free to staff because they were going to be thrown out) but we distributed them around locally

Free food (made too much, cancelled orders, leftovers at the end of the night) is fucking brilliant for staff and we lived on that for a while which was awesome. Best though was when OH was working as a market cleaner at a posh London market and coming home with a bounty of fresh organic fruit and veg each day that was being thrown out because it wasn't quite perfect - OMG we didn't have to buy food that month but I still got to cook, it was like a free organic veg box every day, it was brilliant - and a massive help.

(I'd have liked him to stay working there because the free ingredients put a massive dent in our food bill, but the work itself was only part time over the weekend, but also quite physically strenuous which he found difficult with his disability, so it is what it is. We did get a lot of fruit and veg though and occasionally salmon, cheese, very posh honey and at one point 4kg of posh chocolates that were nearing their best before, we were still scoffing those 6 months later).

 

[Orang Utan]

My local Waitrose’ freezer and chiller cabinets failed on the Monday of the pathetic heatwave and they were literally cordoning off those areas (ie half of the shop) as I walked in. I assumed I had been lucky and would get the mother of all bargains as they were emptying everything into the cages to be yellow labelled. Or so I thought. They were just going to bin all of it

 

[Epona]

I'm just wondering what I should use the chicken goujons for, they are not the sort of thing I normally eat - could use them to make chicken parmigiana of a sort? Or some sort of katsu? Or in a bun with a few of them instead of a burger with usual chicken burger condiments and accompaniments?

Or should I just make some sort of dipping sauce and cook them and eat them as is?

 

[ouirdeaux]

Aren't they just chicken burgers in a funny shape?

 

[May Kasahara]

Epona they're good in wraps or tacos, with lots of salad and condiments.

 

[Artaxerxes]

I've switched from hunting for reduced stuff to nabbing bargains via too good to go. It helps to be based in a big city where there are lots of options. Best for breakfast/lunch items but have nabbed good cheese, fruit and veg too.

The breakfast/lunch stuff is generally fancier and lots cheaper than home-made. Mr mango got a sarnie, two brownies, two pasties and a chocolate muffin for less than four quid today.

When I used it I found that best results were from day before and it didn’t quite work time-wise. Mostly cakes sold off at 4-5pm for quitting time and post 8pm for dinner so never quite matched up with what I wanted

 

[jimbarkanoodle]

My local Waitrose’ freezer and chiller cabinets failed on the Monday of the pathetic heatwave and they were literally cordoning off those areas (ie half of the shop) as I walked in. I assumed I had been lucky and would get the mother of all bargains as they were emptying everything into the cages to be yellow labelled. Or so I thought. They were just going to bin all of it

They may have been readying to take it into the big freezers the size of whole rooms out the back. I used to work for Iceland when i was 16 and thats what happened when one of the freezers went down.

Im really deflated with the reduced stickers at the moment. I rarely see anything decent with more than 20-30p off the price that is already much higher than a year ago anyway, which is thoroughly unacceptable. The gravy train has come to a shuddering, sobering halt.

I tend to scan HotUKDeals now to see what i can get on the cheap, but it doesnt bring anywhere near the sort of ecstatsy that comes with loading up a whole basket, or even a small trolley worth of heavily discounted booty.

 

[skyscraper101]

I've switched from hunting for reduced stuff to nabbing bargains via too good to go. It helps to be based in a big city where there are lots of options. Best for breakfast/lunch items but have nabbed good cheese, fruit and veg too.

The breakfast/lunch stuff is generally fancier and lots cheaper than home-made. Mr mango got a sarnie, two brownies, two pasties and a chocolate muffin for less than four quid today.

I've been using this a lot recently. Fortunately I live really close to a lot of takeout restaurants that rely on office trade and commuters so it's proved really handy to just reserve early in the day and then pick up around dinnertime.

 

[Epona]

Epona they're good in wraps or tacos, with lots of salad and condiments.

Excellent idea, thanks! Will break them out next time OH wants Tex-Mex (not that he eats chicken, he'll have veggie chilli and refried beans in tacos/tortillas with salsa and guacamole, I'll have the southern style goujons with peppers and condiments, good plan)

 

[killer b]

Got the £1.50 box of veg from booths today, sweet

 

[Epona]

Got the £1.50 box of veg from booths today, sweet

View attachment 339307

Niiice! I normally pay £1.50 for a melon, so you could consider all the other stuff as essentially free

 

[ATOMIC SUPLEX]

Niiice! I normally pay £1.50 for a melon, so you could consider all the other stuff as essentially free

Those two broccoli would be £1.50 round my way.

 

[pinkmonkey]

Word reaches me on the grapevine from up north that local bargain paradise Jack Fultons has been bought out by Poundland, which probably means no more esoteric bargains as enjoyed during my Leeds days, like three litres of chocolate Alpro for a quid etc. I think Heron Foods is still about which was the next best thing, but nowhere near the randomness.

I think the proliferation of these types of shops in Yorkshire was due to the large number of food manufacturing places in the region like Arla (south Leeds) and places in East Yorkshire/Lincs, a lot of surplus and secondary stock passed through these sort of shops or through stalls in Leeds indoor market, often branded for overseas. Nothing like it down south.

Definitely, recently moved back here and it’s still a thing. I miss the days when Davidson & Robinson (sm greengrocer chain) sold off M&S readymeals for 25p each. Leeds market still gets bits n bobs, we visit the chocolate & crisps man if we go to the junk market on Thursdays.