As a seasoned bargain hunter, I’ve been keeping a close eye on the cost of living crisis and have been on the lookout for supermarkets offering the cheapest goods.
So, imagine my surprise when I discovered a surplus food shop in Greater Manchester that had slipped under my radar.
The Company Shop is the UK’s leading redistributor and retailer of surplus products, operating a network of ‘surplus supermarkets’ that sell discounted items from over 800 brands to its members.
Membership is open to employees and pension holders from various sectors, including NHS, emergency services staff and registered charities. Each member can bring along two guests, making it accessible to a wider audience. I visited the store during the week and was struck by its popularity.
The only branch in Greater Manchester is located at Stakehill Industrial Estate in Middleton, with another just outside the region, in St Helens. The layout is similar to a typical supermarket, stocked with everything from tinned goods and frozen foods to baby food, pet food, and household products.
Around the edges, you’ll find pallets stacked with special offer products, like packs of Stella Artois I was thrilled to discover for just £3.50. A pack of four Stella Unfiltered 5% lagers would cost you nearly double that at other places like Tesco and Sainsbury’s where they’re priced at £6.25, reports the Manchester Evening News.
It wasn’t the only bargain I bagged and unlike many of these surplus stock outlets, everything was within its use-by date. Granted, some items were short-dated, such as ham and yoghurts expiring the next day, but most had a good few days or even months left.
Pots of Sainsbury’s houmous with a few days remaining were being sold off for 10p, while shorter dated ones were being given away for free at the tills. The stock here is much more varied compared to other warehouse-type places I’ve visited, which seem to focus on pantry items rather than fresh or frozen food.
And all the main supermarkets supply to this place. I spotted stock from M&S, Tesco, Morrisons, Sainsbury’s, Waitrose, Co-op, Iceland, Aldi and Lidl.
We’re talking big brands too, like Heinz, Hellman’s, Mr Kipling, Birds Eye, Nestle, McCains, Richmond, Ben and Jerry’s, Carte d’Or, Muller and more.
Some items were incredibly cheap, like 220g tins of M&S beans half price at 15p, 400g tins of M&S green lentils half price at 35p, Tesco’s 6 mini Melton Mowbray pork pies for 50p when they usually cost £1.99, and Mr Kipling French Fancies for 95p.
I managed to make some significant savings, including a 400g of Honey Roast Ham from Sainsbury’s for £1.65, down from the usual store price of £3. I also picked up a pack of three Asda sirloin steaks for £5.25, which usually retail at £6.75 for just two.
A 400g block of Iceland cheese was a steal at £1.80, compared to its usual price of £3, and a 524g Goodfella’s Pepperoni Pizza was only £2.40, a bargain when these usually cost £4.50 each. I mistakenly grabbed some vegan Sheese, thinking it was cheese, but at £1.80 it wasn’t too costly a mistake.
The fruit and veg selection was limited, but I did manage to pick up a 1.5kg bag of potatoes for a reasonable £1.10 and they had big 1kg bags of onions on sale for just 95p. My biggest bargain was probably the extra large gammon joint I found in the half price meat section.
Weighing almost 3.5kg, it was originally £18.96 from Sainsbury’s festive range. But it was still in date and reduced down to £9.48, making it £2.25 per kg, more than £2 less per kg than Aldi’s cheapest gammon joint.
I’ve divided it into three portions and frozen them, and will get a family meal from each one. There were plenty of sweet treats on offer too.
Freezer desserts included the likes of Magnums, Ben and Jerry’s Ice Cream, and in the fridge there were Gu desserts for £1, a pack of three Morrisons trifles for £1.05 and 100g pots of Tesco Finest Belgian Chocolate Mousse for 30p, a significant saving on the supermarket price of £1.10.
The shelves were also filled with cakes and biscuits, including Mr Kipling Moreish Sticky Toffee Loaf Cake for 90p, Lidl’s Rowan Hill Bakery Cherry Bakewells and Bramley Apple Pies for 80p and massive 600g bags of Gold Bars and Club biscuits for just £2. In total, with the packs of 9 toilet rolls I bought for £2.85 each, it was a rather successful shopping trip and worth the 25 minutes it took to get there.
I spent just over £50 in total and got loads more than I would have done at a traditional supermarket. Company Shop states that a percentage of its profit is re-invested in Community Shop, ‘a social enterprise tackling the root causes of food insecurity by providing access to deeply discounted food and household essentials, along with life-changing personal development programmes’.
Company Shop Middleton operates from 8am-8pm Monday to Friday, 8am-6pm on Saturday and 10am-4pm on Sunday. To find out more about becoming a member, visit the website here.
Everything I bought from the Company Shop
Total: £53.42
- Potatoes 1.5kg £1.10
- Sainsbury’s extra large gammon joint 3.4kg £9.48
- Asda Beef Sirloin Steak 3-pack £5.25
- Lidl Deluxe Cumberland Pork Sausages 400g £1.75
- Sainsbury’s Honey Roast Ham 400g £1.65
- Waitrose unsmoked bacon rashers £1.69
- Chicken Breast Mini Fillets 475g £2.50
- Tesco Finest Breaded Chicken Breast £2.50
- Morrisons Pork Cocktail Sausages 25-pack £1.20
- Tesco Greek Style Salad Cheese 200g 75p
- Iceland mature cheese 400g £1.80
- Cheddar style Sheese £1.80
- Tesco 6 Mini Melton Mowbray pork pies 50p
- M&S Green Lentils 400g x 2 70p
- M&S Beans 200g x 2 30p
- Goodfella’s Pepperoni Pizza 524g £2.40
- Tesco Finest Lightly Sea Salted Crisps x 4 £1.20
- Mr Kipling French Fancies 95p
- Mr Kipling Lemon Slices £1
- Gold Bars 600g £2
- Stella Artois Unfiltered 440ml x 4 £3.50
- fry light cooking spray £1
- Rinse aid 400ml 75p
- Good-Year De-icer £1.95
- So Soft toilet rolls 9-pack x 2 £5.70
