The Cedar Lounge Revolution

From today’s paper:

Price is the new imperative, and a new breed of covert shoppers is abandoning Superquinn and Dunnes for Lidl and Aldi. But there are also those for whom cheap is the new chic

And…

You could call them the nouveaux pauvres: middle-class folk with all the trappings of success – nice house, nice car, nice holidays and nice clothes – who are finding that moneys got tight. They talk about how expensive everything is, but still they don’t want you to think they do the family shopping in a German discount store, rather than in good old Dunnes or Superquinn. But these covert shoppers are being replaced by a new breed for whom cheap is the new chic. Far from decanting their obscure espresso blend into Illy tins, they can’t wait to tell you how they managed to fill the boot of the car for less than €100.

Not only:

Developers didn’t want them [discount stores] in their shopping centres for fear they would lower the tone, while shoppers were suspicious of the foreign brands and didn’t want to mingle with hard-up immigrant workers. Now they’re discovering that their friends are shopping there too, even if they don’t want you to know it.

“Nobody likes to meet a friend there . . . unless you’re very financially secure,” said one Wicklow woman who claims never to have darkened the door of the large Lidl outlet conveniently located next door to the 24-hour Tesco on the outskirts of the town.

“It’s so depressing with all that stuff piled up and the children don’t like the food. But I might have to start going there soon. Ive just spent €220 at Tesco and didn’t even manage to get the dinner.”

But also:

Typical Marks Spencer and Tesco Finest customers are being lured to the German stores by cut-price Parma ham, olive oil in elegant bottles and improved organic fruit and vegetables. More and more, they’re staying on to do the full family shop in the no-frills warehouse-style stores. With 150 outlets across the country (90 Lidl and 60 Aldi), the German chains now claim seven per cent of the market.

“It’s become respectable for the middle classes to go to Lidl and Aldi,” says Ann Fitzgerald of the NCA. “Traffic is really moving in their direction.”

… and so we reach meltdown:

Or as John Ruddy, editor of the top grocery trade magazine Checkout, puts it “the yummy mummies are shopping in Aldi now, which they might not have done in the past”.

Living in a dream world…eh? One can almost smell the sense of entitlement… Once more with the Irish Times, you couldn’t make it up.