Coles And Bi-lo Delete Home Brew

[jivesucka]

what's the farmland lager and draught like? anyone actually tried them?

 

[petesbrew]

My local Coles had a better hb stock than the woolies, but the queues - like Kmart & target - are horrendous, as they only ever have 3 out of 12 registers happening at any time, usually operated by complete ******* or narky old women.
Just for the hell of it, I sent coles a note saying basically that, and a heads up to Woolies, saying to up their stock a bit.
Always handy for bottle caps, dextrose, and toucan supplies.

 

[Pennywise]

I've always found the Coopers kits at Coles to be a couple of bucks more than the same ones at BigW, but agree they're good for emergency supplies

 

[DU99]

within 2km's from where i live i have 3 coles stores 1 woolworths 2 aldi's 1 iga,bulk butcher,2 fruit and veg..plenty of choice..

 

[MarkBastard]

Just to continue the off-topic stuff. I mostly shop at Woolworths in Brisbane because a lot of other shops e.g. Butchers are rarer or a let down. When I lived in Sydney it was a different story.

People focus too much on Woolworth's prices etc and fail to realise that for some people being able to buy everything in the one place is worth the extra $10 or whatever per trolley load.

I couldn't imagine going to several different places like Aldi, Woolworths etc all in the one day to save $5. Hell it's annoying enough going shopping in the first place! One of my most hated things.

 

[petesbrew]

Just to continue the off-topic stuff. I mostly shop at Woolworths in Brisbane because a lot of other shops e.g. Butchers are rarer or a let down. When I lived in Sydney it was a different story.

People focus too much on Woolworth's prices etc and fail to realise that for some people being able to buy everything in the one place is worth the extra $10 or whatever per trolley load.

I couldn't imagine going to several different places like Aldi, Woolworths etc all in the one day to save $5. Hell it's annoying enough going shopping in the first place! One of my most hated things.

+1
I do our weekly shop, and the only time I go into different shops is when I'm after something special or Woolies doesn't have what I need. I won't argue that better stuff is at the butchers, but I couldn't be arsed.
And the nappies are good at Aldi.... Hang on...why the **** am I talking about nappies on AHB?
Beer, I'm thinking about beer... and ****ies... Much better. :icon_chickcheers:

 

[SpillsMostOfIt]

The Off-Topic stuff is fun...

Our nearest Coles is 9km away. Our nearest Woolworths is 51km away. I can't afford to shop at the IGA across the road from Coles or the local specialist green/meat grocers (the wonders of tourist towns *sigh*). We tend to do big trips to the Woolworths (and use the savings from buying petrol in Ballarat to pay for the trip) and just buy what we have to from the local Coles (which is one of the most expensive in Vic). We're slowly getting the hang of growing our own veg.

The On-Topic stuff is fun...

Coles appears to be pursuing a strategy of slowly removing brand names from its shelves. I'm sure that makes great business sense to them right now. In the future, it will most likely back-fire on them when it becomes plain that they are buying all their stuff from companies that are bigger than them and now hold all the cards. The true desperados will buy the farmland homebrew stuff, but the amount of business Coles loses from this decision is likely to be really very small.

I think it is a bit disingenuous of Coopers to complain - if the quality of their product doesn't motivate their customers to travel to another store to buy it, I'm not sure that is the fault of their stockists.

 

[DU99]

BIG W carries a better range of cooper's than all the local supermarkets in my area and BIGW have it on special occasionally

 

[juzz1981]

Not that im using kits anymore, but we only have safeway and coles here that sell home brew kits.
Guess safeway have the monopoly now, no more kits on special

 

[Pennywise]

BIG W carries a better range of cooper's than all the local supermarkets in my area and BIGW have it on special occasionally

I agree, the BigW I go to even has a better Coopers range that G&G. Of course though G&G have a much wider range of brands

 

[Wonderwoman]

My local coles axed their homebrew range a few months ago which prompted me to switch to safeway (which is in the same complex, so really no extra effort on my part), but unfortunately their range is pretty small and they don't stock any accessories like the carbonation drops or crown seals. Not sure if they even have dextrose/BE2.

i'm just not going to do any k&b anymore as my LHBS only stocks $20 black rock kits.

 

[Yeastie Beastie]

Now it will be like living in the country.
My choices when I was K&K was:
Foodworks - Coopers Lager, Coopers Brewing Sugar and carb drops.
IGA - Coopers Lager, Coopers Draught Crown Seals and BE1.
Had to wait to go to the city to get anything half decent.
It is my reason for going AG, postage of grain is cheaper that a trip to the city.

Good to see a bit more business going to the LHBS though.

 

[komodo]

On Topic:
It'll be based on shelving fronts. Home brew takes up a reasonable amount of space for something that I would expect is probably not that high a turn over catagory.

Off Topic:
My partner and I shop using coles online. Mostly because Woolworths homeshop is **** house. The reason we buy online is because for both of us our time is worth more than the savings to be made tripping around shop to shop in search of items at the cheapest prices. Also we can be cooking dinner use the last of the tinned tomatoes and simply add it to the coles online shopping cart there and then.
The delivery drivers are friendly (they often give our dog treats etc and know whats going on in our lives - more so than the check out chicks at any of the supermarkets would ever get to know us).
We realise the meat isnt the best quality (mostly due to hanging time) - but its miles ahead of the quality of supermarket meat of 5, 10+ years ago. As for the fruit & vegies. Id actually say that unless your looking for organic produce you'd be hard pressed to find better produce than what is available at coles and woolies as they have strict guidelines for growers (for example friends of ours grow apples for coles/woolies and they have to have their entire orchard netted to protect the fruit from weather damage and birds etc - this is a requirement given to them to be used as a supplier to coles / woolies) and its all kept in purpose built coolstores.

I do shop the markets when we have time. We love shopping the markets its a pleasure. We can get things unavailable to us at the supermarkets and we can often grab a bargin. We also buy seafood from a local seafood store as the quality from coles online is a bit naff.
We find when we shop the markets it becomes an all day event as we have to shop the markets for certain items, then go to a grocers store for items like flour, sugar, **** tickets etc, bottle-o for some wine or spirits, butcher for our meats and on it goes.
Sure we save about 25% on our grocery bill and get generally better quality produce. But it takes all day and when you really only see one another on the weekends and you have a house mid renovations and a puppy to walk and play with as well as trying to have a social life - spending that 25% extra and compromising on quality of some items is worth it to have it delivered to your door when you get home from work.

I suppose its like foxtel. I could have FTA TV and watch good quality TV/movies when its available or could spend my $120 a month and have good quality TV/movies any time I want. I have foxtel, I shop online.

Theres plenty of good greengrocers, independant supermarkets, good butchers etc out there. If they had a website where I could do my shopping and the local green grocer, local butcher, local supermarket could arrange a delivery of my items at a time that suited me for a comparitive price to coles online Id use that service. The florist industry does it - why not the food/grocery industry?

 

[Pollux]

Rip off? With the average family looking at what you (granted old days) used to be able to buy a car for every year in food bills (7K-14K depending on size of family) each year. You could be smart and bring in land consultants and buy in 6K worth of food trees and plants and start your own gardens and cut your food bill way down or to nothing if fully independent minded individual. Imagine what you can do without an Austrlalian Supermarket rip off bill each year? You could even reduce the number of days you work and spend more time in the garden, get a lower paying lower stress job perhaps right close to the house so there goes your fuel bills as well

My medium term goal is to reduce food bill and increase gardens and home orchards on all the free land on the property. Long term goal is to sell up and go sub tropical and start an entire food forest of exotic fruits and do a small holding and cut my supermarket bills down to literally nothing.

Cheers,
Brewer Pete

LOL, you've just described my dream lifestyle. I'd love to be able to get out of Sydney, purchase a moderate block of land (say 20acres) and set it up to provide me with all the food we would need, install solar power, rain water and also water recycling and basically be self sufficient. The wife would still work to bring in some money and I could spend my days taking care of the property. I grew up on a farm and I swear beef tastes better when you've hand fed the steer

As for the coles dropping HB thing, my local one even has the Coopers starter kits, might see if they drop them significantly, I'd like another fermenter/hydrometer. But their prices are weird, one thing I've always loved is that they sell the same 23L willow esky I used to use for my MT for $47, but the regular price at K-mart is $29.....Go figure.

 

[MeLoveBeer]

Not the end of the world; Coles range was always atrocious at best and kmart (also wesfarmers owned) would still be stocking the product lines.

I can understand this being an issue for remote brewers who can only get access to Coles, but prices from the sponsors above or your LHBS would still be comparable (plus they have a far superior product range). As far as I'm concerned I'd rather see the money go into the pocket of a small time operator than either Coles or Safeway.

 

[Lord Raja Goomba I]

Much rather buy from my local HBS for home brew stuff, but I haven't done the kit thing for a very long time.

For those on a kit - they'd much rather it, because it is signficantly cheaper to buy from a supermarket (from my experience back in the bad ol' days). By removing coles, then woolies don't have the competition from the big ones, and you can guarantee the LHBS won't be able to compete, based on margins. So this does effectively drive the prices up.

 

[MarkBastard]

Well said Komodo.

It annoys me when people make out that Woolworths and Coles shoppers are ignorant, or dumb. It's not always the case. Some people are literally happy to spend a small premium for convenience and I am often one of them.

 

[cdbrown]

I shop at Woolies for nearly all items - the butchers nearby are more expensive, the sunday fruit and veg market cost just as much and the food's no better as they all just go and get it from the same distribution centre.

 

[pdilley]

LOL, you've just described my dream lifestyle. I'd love to be able to get out of Sydney, purchase a moderate block of land (say 20acres) and set it up to provide me with all the food we would need, install solar power, rain water and also water recycling and basically be self sufficient. The wife would still work to bring in some money and I could spend my days taking care of the property. I grew up on a farm and I swear beef tastes better when you've hand fed the steer

Mate, its all Permaculture today. People have already been doing it and leading the way. You and me are the stragglers. You can get some magazines at the news agency on it, or get the books from permaculture research institute if you want, even get the dvd on establishing a food forest (great DVD by the way) at the PRI website as well.

Get with it!

Cheers,
Brewer Pete

 

[pdilley]

I encountered a great Coles experience this weekend. Quality of supermarket goods are dependent on what competition is around. In my main shopping centre, its Coles on one side, Woolies on the other, and quality of produce is not that great.

My other shopping centre has my fav. butcher, the produce of the supermarket there is not great either.

The new shopping centre has a butcher, a fresh produce store, and even a liquorland right next to it. This Coles had top quality produce compared to everything I've bought in the area so far, it actually had a decent beer selection (drop dead kid you not!) and even good prices on meat.

So experience is always local and always competition dependent.

Cheers,
Brewer Pete