My eldest daughter has a part time job in B&M to supplement her student loan.
The one she works in is quite big and like Lidl can be a bit of an Aladdin's Cave. It does well at Halloween and Christmas selling all the associated tat and decorations. They have a large selection of US sweets. Also sell branded paint at a good price too.
Our local B&M sells LEGO on the cheap. And really good (and cheap) kindling / kiln-dried logs. And those fab LOTUS biscuits that cafés give you with your coffee big pack of 'em for £1. It's approximately 80% utter tat and 20% goldmine level bargains. Wondrous place.
It's always worth having a sniff around Lidl and B&M. My 2nd daughter (also a student) works part time in another chain called Home Bargains. Similar deal though its layout is a lot cleaner and feels less haphazard than B&M.
I had a few bags of those Kettle Chips over Christmas. Luxury crisps, apparently. But Christ they're rank - all flavours. They taste like fake potatoes and vaguely gone off.
Salt and vinegar kettle chips are exactly the right balance of sheer crunch and mouth-tightening vinegar bitterness. I love them, and will happily polish off a big bag if it's in the vicinity, despite them causing my stomach to give up and die.
It’s bonkers when you look into who owns brands like that.
I was friends with a guy who acted as distributor for Tyrrell’s, selling them in Scotland. Did quite well for himself and got out when the brand was sold to an international conglomerate. Prior to that, Tyrrell’s was basically a family business run by a potato farmer. After the sale, the new owners dropped the founder as their supplier and bought cheaper potatoes from abroad. He went off and built a distillery. Makes vodka from his potatoes now. Since then, Tyrrell’s has been sold to a Bahraini company, then an Aussie one. The Aussies were bought out by Hershey’s, and they’ve now sold Tyrrell’s to KP. The original sale by the potato farmer and his family was for £40m. KP won’t say how much they paid, but two steps back the Aussie firm paid £300m so it’s safe to bet that KP have spent a lot more.
I just find it really depressing. Each year I go further and further off-grid. Long-term plan is the highlands and a completely (as much as possible) off-grid existence. Really.