Lidl £1.50 veg boxes

Some months ago Lidl were trialling cheap boxes of fruit and veg in some of their stores.....not our one though.  This week it was announced (I read it first on Facebook) that the scheme had been so successful that they were rolling it out to all of their stores, with immediate effect.  We needed some milk, cheese - and veg! - so decided we may as well go and see what the boxes were like, if indeed our branch had any.  

They're called Too Good to Waste and are supposed to be produce that is good to eat still, but may be slightly damaged or less than perfect.  I'm guessing they're also what was left over from the previous day, or on (or even past?) the use by or sell by date.  They're apparently available in the mornings, anything left by midday they will send to a local good cause or charity.  It could be a mix of anything, you can't choose what's in the box, although can of course choose which box to have - each box contains slightly different things.  

The boxes are right at the front of the store, behind the checkouts - a slightly odd position as most people won't see them until after they've gone through the checkout and paid for their shopping...so then you'd have to pick your box and then queue up again to pay for them.  Unless of course you see them (or know about them, as I did from FB - somebody had mentioned where the boxes were) first.  We got to our store at 08.30 (it opens at 08.00), by which time there were only 5 or 6 boxes left to choose from, we picked one and put it straight in our trolley before going off to do the rest of our shopping.  I'm guessing they don't put the boxes by the fruit and veg in case people add extra produce to them, or swap fresher items for what's in the boxes.

So what was in ours?  A good mixture of things, all of which we regularly use.

Fruit
6 lemons
Apples - 2 red and 1 green
1 grapefruit (husband can't have grapefruit but I love it)
5 bananas

Veg
Bag of cherry tomatoes
1 large tomato
2 courgettes
1 large aubergine
About 8 new potatoes
3 large potatoes
2 large onions
6 or 7 Chantenay carrots
Large head of broccoli
3 pieces of fresh ginger

The quality of most of the stuff is pretty good....the bananas are fully yellow with the odd brown spot, the aubergine has a small blemish on it, as has one of the courgettes, a couple of the carrots are going soft.  Other than that, everything is fine.  I did notice an avocado in a couple of the other boxes, both of which were so totally squishy that they would have been rotten, I should think.  There was also a lettuce in one box that I would have chucked straight on the compost heap.  

So you do have to check the boxes carefully before choosing which one you want, but for the price they are certainly amazing value for money, you get a lot of fruit and veg for a very cheap price.  We'll certainly get one again, it's a cheap way of getting fruit and veg until our own produce starts to be ready, which won't be for a good few weeks yet.  You really need to get to the shop as early as possible, though.