Aldi meat aisle horrors.
I’ve been back in Ireland for the past week, spending some quality time with my parents, and my niece and nephew. I’ve just about gotten over the huge disappointment of Galway’s lose to Limerick on Sunday. I was motoring back out from Galway this morning after an early morning hike in the 12 Bens, when I got a call from my Mother asking me to call into the local ADLI to pick up some pots of Play-Doh for my nephew (strange request, but I was very happy to oblige – I’m good like that). Turned the 6-Series around and headed back into town. Mart day today, so there were some serious specimens of muck savage around – men with beetroot red faces, tufts of hair growing on their upper cheeks, pants held up with baling twine, not a full set of teeth between 5 of them.
Now I live in Germany, but it’s safe to say I’m not a regular visitor to German discount supermarkets such as Aldi and Lidl. They have a great business model, and are very popular, but I’m not their target audience as I’ve the disposable income to shop in more artisan and high-end stores. I’ve heard some of their produce can be quite good, but I’m a passionate and talented cook so I’d rather have the choice of more than one type of mushroom for example. Think the food hall in Fallon and Byrne for those of you familiar with the Dublin foodie scene.
I had intended to get in and out there as quickly as possible, but decided I’d have a browse of the products they offer. I was genuinely disgusted to see that you can buy a large chicken for €4. Who buys such a thing? How is it possible to house, feed, medicate, slaughter, package, and distribute a chicken to a supermarket for that price? And one has to presume that there’s profit being taken by the various stakeholders along this most depressing of supply chains. I can’t help but notice that there’s a big problem with Irishmen and ‘moobs’ these days. Surely some of it must be linked to the amount of hormones and growth promoters these chickens are being stuffed with during their short and tragic life?
The litany of food horrors continued – huge packs of sickly pink looking ham branded as ‘Family Value’, bags of chicken nuggets for €1.79, microwavable mashed potato (!!), blocks of heavily processed cheese for literally nothing, baked beans for 29 cent a can. Who eats this muck, and do they ever consider the impact it is having on their own bodies, and the bodies of their families? Probably the same people who then fill the rest of the trolley with bottles of cheap wine that you could use to strip paint from a trawler.
I picked up the Play-Doh from those middle rows they have and left. I was relieved to find that some fat tradesman in a van hadn’t scraped my Beamer despite parking dangerously close to it. I’ve been appalled since though at the idea of that flaccid looking ‘chicken’ wrapped in its clear plastic coffin.
Am I missing something here? Who is the audience for this? And surely they could push the boat out and buy a free-range bird for 7 or 8 euro instead? Maybe eat less, or be more creative with what they do with leftovers?
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