Cost of Groceries in Britain vs America – Comparing ALDI in the UK vs US
Added 2025-02-26 14:00:06 +0000 UTCComments
Probably worth noting that salaries in the US are much better than the UK and Europe. Obviously rent etc can be a lot more expensive in the US. Everything is relative. I know I just complicated things further 😂 As a Brit living in Germany and Spain, you should see the prices here for most things. Even lower.
Andy B
2025-03-01 12:16:22 +0000 UTCFree range chicken is phenomenally expensive here in the UK, but, having lived on a farm in the middle of nowhere as a teen and been tasked with rearing and killing chickens, ducks and geese, I won't buy anything else. I'd prefer to eat vegetables and pulses than force chickens to lead the short, miserable lives they live in batteries and barns. I'm no animal rights fanatic (let alone a knowingly dishonest one like the repugnant Ricky Gervais), but animals should be treated with at least a little dignity, well apart from the lack of nutrition and disease inherent in the meat and eggs of the poor birds treated that way (and the reason it's chlorine-washed in the US, to hide the appalling conditions in a country that has no animal rights enshrined in law, unlike UK law dating back to the 1830s).
Eddy
2025-02-27 00:23:10 +0000 UTCI couldn't bother to watch the whole video, but I'm guessing she was trying to buy strawberries out of season in the UK, which is never a good idea. The summer climate here is ideal for beautiful, sweet strawberries, but the ones she was looking at were from Spain, which I never see in the shops in strawberry season, but are all that's available the rest of the year and expensive and pretty awful tasting. I guess I'm a bit of a connoisseur (!) when it comes to strawberries, because I eat them EVERY day of the year - British in season (late spring and summer) and frozen the rest of the year.
Eddy
2025-02-27 00:14:22 +0000 UTCJust pictured KP flying in as "The bullshit man" when mike said bullshit about the seeded bread😂
Andy M7
2025-02-26 23:28:31 +0000 UTCI couldn’t see anything wrong with the bananas or strawberries, maybe I’m really bad at shopping 😂 I wonder if US supermarkets have a lot of waste if everything is a perfect colour.
Julian T
2025-02-26 22:33:16 +0000 UTCAlan Partridge working the checkout at Tesco supermarket is something to behold.
Thomas
2025-02-26 21:23:15 +0000 UTCI would eat them at home if they ended up looking like that. But I wouldn't buy them looking like that.
Yvonne E
2025-02-26 20:57:53 +0000 UTCYes I think Aldi label the chicken as corn fed chicken or free range chicken and is definitely more expensive than basic chicken breasts.
Yvonne E
2025-02-26 20:55:03 +0000 UTCI have been to New York multiple times and can confirm my jaw has dropped at some of the prices of food produce and groceries. Some great sales on clothing that you would pay more than double for here.
Yvonne E
2025-02-26 20:49:46 +0000 UTCWith regards to the bulk stores. They are not common in the UK. Even Costco - this is generally for trades as a wholesalers although it is open to certain employment groups and employees within it . I do have a Costco card but as an add on to my sisters membership. This costs around £20 per year. I don't love it. Its ok for some items, but definitely cheaper to shop in local supermarkets. I wonder if it is a space issue and that is why in the UK we don't tend to bulk buy, because we have nowhere to store it. We don't tend to have space for the huge double sided fridge/freezers etc . And if food items have been opened for a chunk of time it will put me off it.
Yvonne E
2025-02-26 20:34:37 +0000 UTCMagenta Otter also did a video about British Garden centres that I think you would both enjoy 💯👍🏼
Janine Crainich
2025-02-26 20:11:27 +0000 UTCRemember an American colleague over here and we're out for lunch. They really like mustard... They had some kind of posh sandwich and started smearing mustard on like it was mayo and calories don't matter. We tried warning them, that's English mustard... They ended up scraping a lot off after a couple mouthfuls.
Andy Robinson
2025-02-26 18:55:19 +0000 UTCI love English mustard and quite like the Dijon too. Years ago I once took a Canadian flatmate at uni for his first Toby Carvery. He was dolloping on the English mustard and I tried to warn him but he didn't listen.. it nearly blew his head off 😂
Dan G, Leicester
2025-02-26 18:54:56 +0000 UTCI love French Dijon mustard (they invented it after all as the poor person's black pepper), but English is far too hot for me!
Eddy
2025-02-26 18:50:46 +0000 UTCMike, you need to watch 'Grammar Nazi' by Mitchell and Webb: someone gets shot dead for saying 'expresso'!
Eddy
2025-02-26 18:45:37 +0000 UTCInteresting video. Organic products are priced at a premium in the UK, so the basic UK chicken almost certainly wasn't organic. So probably not fair to compare its price with the US organic chicken price. Regarding English mustard, this is a completely different beast to American mustard, and if you get the chance to try it one day, you'll want to use a very small amount! 😂
Dan G, Leicester
2025-02-26 18:30:36 +0000 UTCInteresting timing, today Royal Mail picked up my package for Florida... It'll no doubt be smashed to pieces by the time you open it. What was fun though, due to the packaging it was just over 2kg (4.4lbs) which doubles the cost. The shipping to be tracked and whatever, cost more than the contents of the box. Without spoiling what's in it, in the UK 'most' of our food is exempt from VAT (value added tax), but there's a difference - cake is OK, biscuits are not. So a chocolate biscuit is subjected to tax, but a cake isn't. So one of the items I've sent IS a cake. To the point they went to court to prove they're a cake and not a biscuit... It'll be obvious which one when you open it.
Andy Robinson
2025-02-26 18:03:27 +0000 UTCEasy conversion for lbs and Kg. A Kg is 2.2 lbs.
Michael K
2025-02-26 16:46:58 +0000 UTCThose tomatoes were not the cheapest. I get 6 for around 69p or so Double cream is the same as heavy cream
Gem Lou
2025-02-26 16:38:07 +0000 UTCIf you do manage to get to the uk and want to try a sausage roll you must try a Greggs sausage roll first
Corey
2025-02-26 16:14:20 +0000 UTCMy wife is Italian, and food shopping is an art form for Italians. Consequently, she won’t let me near a supermarket.
Thomas
2025-02-26 16:04:35 +0000 UTCRegarding the diary products prices, the unknown variable is cream content. The money is in the cream. A dairy would love to be able to sell just skimmed milk if they could, because then they have more cream left over. Farmgate milk prices (what the farmer gets for the raw product), were a little higher in the UK than the US, so British dairy could be more expensive to the consumer, however, the corelation of the cream being cheaper and the milk more expensive means it could relate to cream content.
David Smith
2025-02-26 15:48:11 +0000 UTCYellow mustard isn't really popular at all in the UK, maybe on a hot dog but generally you won't find it in most people's homes. Ketchup probably would've been a more rounded product to compare or mayo.
Robert McMillan
2025-02-26 15:33:13 +0000 UTCI love the effort this woman went to in making this video! And yes, it's very European to have a big cheese selection in the supermarket
James Aston
2025-02-26 15:30:12 +0000 UTC30:05 lol Jess accidentally quoting Sainsbury's tagline there
Mark McKeown
2025-02-26 15:26:07 +0000 UTCMy wife is Spanish and she won't let me throw away black bananas, to the point they look mummified and she still uses them.
Jason Bonner
2025-02-26 15:19:36 +0000 UTC16:15 "Oo look at their jugs, that's fun", hey now, less of your filth, Jess!
Mark McKeown
2025-02-26 15:06:18 +0000 UTCI don’t like bananas till they are starting to get the brown spots. I find there’s a lot more flavour when they are like that.
George-Allan Stephen
2025-02-26 15:00:49 +0000 UTCI saw the US chicken had up to 5% water but when I searched UK chicken there was no mention of water, could this be the chicken had a chlorine wash pumped though it so therefore retains water? I believe all Aldi's in the UK have the same set price and same VAT (sales tax 20%) which is included in the price where applicable.
Jason Bonner
2025-02-26 14:52:09 +0000 UTCGood grief, those bananas are perfectly fine!
Silk
2025-02-26 14:35:47 +0000 UTCI remember meeting my friend's wife, who was from Kenya. She said when she first moved to the UK she was shocked we all ate yellow bananas because in Kenya they eat them as they are turning black because they are sweeter. It gives me the ick a little as well though!
Andrew PC
2025-02-26 14:30:29 +0000 UTCDo people enjoy eating a bruised banana though? I will always eat it, but it gives me the ick lol
Mark McKeown
2025-02-26 14:25:47 +0000 UTCTo answer Mike’s point: Prices across the UK are typically equalised for the same store regardless of where it is. So if something costs £1 in one shop it’ll cost a £1 in all the other shops belonging to that company. This is mainly because our country is much smaller and so transporting goods doesn’t incur many additional costs. Plus tax is set nationally not locally. In the US, each state acts as its own mini country, its own laws and taxes etc. Plus the transport costs are significantly higher. If a store imports fruit from Mexico then it’s likely to be cheaper in say Arizona than in Maine, because it’s got to be transported over a huge distance.
James Hyde
2025-02-26 14:22:25 +0000 UTCThe yellow and bruised bananas are the tastiest and basically perfectly ripe and ready to eat
Ricky
2025-02-26 14:21:57 +0000 UTC
