Aldi and Lidl have done very well in the UK; they’re well run businesses. They’re private and focused, pay & treat their staff well and they have a focused but good product range. They used to have a bad reputation but when the financial crisis hit in 2011 people started taking them seriously and they’ve expanded rapidly. They really do offer good quality at good prices.
I don’t know what the US retail industry is like, but if it was anything like the UK’s (dominated by a few large supermarket chains with big stores, and bloated product lines) then they will do well. There are 1,020 Aldi stores in the UK - and we’re about 1/5 the size population of the US wise. 800 stores is a sizeable number and they apparently already have 2,400 stores there.
New England resident here. I find Aldi to be alright. The lower price point is definitely noticeable, especially when you compare with other big players in the area like ShopRite and Stop&Shop.
I switched over to Aldi since 2020, they are quite decent when it comes to the basics.
Good to know they are expanding. Aldi’s Sister concern Trader Joe’s is already heavily present in the New England region, although I suspect they have a more ‘niche’ group of customers.
Maybe it’s just variable location to location but if you haven’t been to one over the last 5 years they have really stepped up their game in my area. The selection certainly isn’t quite as good as the normal supermarkets but the quality well above Walmart for a lot less money.
We recently switched to Aldis. I thought that the produce was going to be a big hangup for me. However, I think it has been fine.
The problem is that it just seems to bad much faster than when we buy it elsewhere. So with that in mind, I just only buy produce at the beginning of the week that I know we will eat quickly.
And they have people with… Dark (!!!) skin colors and funny languages there, can you imagine?
The place has been ranked cheapest and best products for years, wouldn’t want to have that because the brands are not the known overpriced a level products, and as said, those weird foreigners there!
In Germany you usually have a little shopping center with Aldi and/or Lidl, a DM and an Edeka. Once you have finished shopping at Aldi and DM you can pop into Edeka and get the 1 or 2 items you didn’t get at Aldi and DM.
Many people in Germany are doing it like that. Edeka seems to florish from the people who prefer branded products and/or can’t get into 2 shops because they don’t go grocery shopping by car and can’t really visit more than 1 shop, because you can’t enter a 2nd one with a bag full of goods from the 1st one.
Oh, I go there too, occasionally. Especially for returning “Pfand” and buying wine, I really enjoy “Albali Reserva” (not Gran Reserva). It’s a more than decent Tinto for only 3.59€/bottle.
But somehow I never really grew fond of Kaufland. Somehow it’s always sort of filthy in there, shopping carts are often not to be found at the entrance, not enough registers are open, “chavs” are loitering at the entrance… I don’t know, I am always stressed out at Kaufland. Aldi, Lidl and Edeka feel more “cozy” to me, I guess.
Yes that’s how we use it as well. Aldi is for staples and then we either do the international grocer or another specialty grocer. Not really a big deal at all, especially if you don’t do your shopping all at one time.
When I have enough free time I shop like this. We don’t have Aldi but we have Grocery Outlet. It’s a discount grocery that has some reliable products but mainly over stock or discontinued labeling or some small flaw in packaging or product (ice cream with all the mix-ins at the bottom) or near expiry that wouldn’t fly at a regular store. So you never know what you’ll find there, for very low prices. Then I hit up Safeway, decent quality, where half the store is usually on some buy-one-get-one sale, then to the high end, employee owned, small chain where I can get farm stand quality meats raised a few miles away, high quality cat food and local produce.
Shopping this way saves about $400 per month. When I don’t really have time (I work 72 hours per week, take online college classes and have elderly family members to look in on) I end up spending about $1000 per month on groceries at the fancy store.
For some people who aren’t too picky, it might be a one-stop shop. Also true for some basics, like bread, milk, eggs, some produce, or common frozen stuff.
If you are looking for extra variety or less-common ingredients, you’ll have to also shop at a bigger supermarket. But since we usually use cars in the US, it’s not too big a deal to do both the same day
I like how from the perspective of outsiders, Aldi is “small”. They’re huge here in Europe along with Lidl. The two make a meme of establishing shops next to each other wherever either exist.
I am glad that Aldi is setting up shops in US. The chain is pretty cheap though the food quality is okay compared to others. I haven’t really heard anything bad about Aldi so they are pretty good employers unlike many American shops like Walmart.
Yeah they’re ALL over at least northern Illinois and southern Wisconsin. And for the longest time, it was the only place I could find zero-carb bread that didn’t taste like garbage.
They’re not a small company but their locations do typically have a very small footprint compared to the typical US grocery store… Much lower square footage.
They’ve been in US markets for decades at this point. They just don’t have locations in every region of the US or so many locations even in the regions that they do exist as to be considered ubiquitous.
Aldi definitely isn’t small in the US. This is like calling Publix small just because you don’t live in Florida, or Love’s small just because you don’t live in the massive swath of the US they cover.
Its strange that they couldn’t get a hold of Denmark. They closed all their shops here last year, even shops that opened that same week! Must have been a very abrupt decision!
People will argue that it’s working in Switzerland. But, I don’t think so. They are a little cheaper on certain article. And, I don’t see lots of people there during the day.
Where I am in the US all our supermarkets suck, and are over priced. Aldi offers a clean environment with inexpensive food at decent non farm stand quality. When your alternative is double the price in a run down store or Walmart. Aldi is a very nice alternative.
I really don’t think it takes much for Aldi to compete in a large part of the US market. Even if they’re not the best because we have so much of the worst in supermarkets.
Do you like famines? Cause that’s how you get famines…all governments have their farmers run a surplus, so when a year is bad…we don’t all starve to death.
Yes I am clearly suggesting that I would like farmers to starve. Any honest person would conclude that from what I wrote. Are there any other views you have magically determined that I hold?
I bet your strawman could survive a dust bowl.
But hey I am 100% sure you have researched this topic in depth and know for a fact that literally every politician who demands farm subsidies is only doing it for the pure altruistic avoidance of a dust bowl. Never mind that all the progress that has been made in agriculture the past 100 years.
I dont know what the other poster was arguing at all, but the dustbowl was not caused by a shortage of farming. The dust bowl was a result of overfarming: native grasslands with incredibly deep roots hold down topsoil, crops like corn and wheat, which we very heavily subisidze, have much much much shorter roots which dont compact the topsoil. If we are to prevent another dustbowl, it will be by reviving the American prairie, not by planting more useless crops.
The other poster is basically saying we shouldn’t pay farmers to not grow crops. When the reality is we pay farmers not to grow to allow the soil to regenerate. The dust bowl was because farmers weren’t subsidized to not grow, so instead of allowing the land to rest and the farmer not go bankrupt, they kept growing crops. So now the government pays them when they let plots rest, so they aren’t forced to keep growing or eat and pay bills.
At times for some things. But tell me, is there a shortage right now of any major staple food/ingredient?
The farmers are not the ones getting rich. It’s Nestle, Kraft, PepsiCo, General Mills, Kellogg’s and so on. As long as they remain the big market for what the farmer’s are selling, food prices won’t change. But the farmers could go under if their prices crash due to oversupply.
Sorry why can’t you cosplay farmer simps keep your story straight? Half of you are arguing that farmers produce too much so the government is needed to make them produce less and the other half are arguing that farmers don’t produce enough and they need the government to make them produce more. Which is it?
Just a fyi you can hold two ideas at once. There are asshole food distribution companies and there are asshole cosplay farmers getting subsidies to not grow. I know, my hometown was basically this. People pretending to be independent successful farmers when all they could grow was dirt and could only produce meth.
Seasonally and yearly there are different demands for crops. The government incentivizes and disincentivizes growing different crops at different times to promote a healthy market, and stable food supply.
Very well. Why isn’t there a subsidy in the north during oct/nov for milk? Cows production plummets during the switch to hay. Which is why milk prices get that bump during that time. Couldn’t be because the milk lobby is less effective compared to corn since it is much more scattered and hence doesn’t get nice solid voting blocks?
Nah it must be for some deep metaphysical reason beyond our kin.
Maybe because you can’t manifest extra dairy cows out of the aether in the winter?
The government does try to help by buying surplus dairy and turning into preservable cheese, but that has just led to bad jokes about “government cheese.”
Maybe because you can’t manifest extra dairy cows out of the aether in the winter?
No but what you can do is use dried milk fat to even out production, you can do is simply pay ranchers more for that month given that they are making less, you can do is freeze butter a month earlier and release it when milk gets more dear, what they can do is subsidize hay so it can be introduced slowly creating less of a shock.
We don’t do any of those things. And why should we? Dairy lobby is no where near as powerful since it is spread out instead of concentrated. Which means less lobbying, less bribes, less government money.
Yeah that program from the 1970s very relevant. I am talking now. 2024. In 2024 anyone milking a cow in an area that they need to have that cow on hay once in a while is not getting money for the winter shock. Which shows that it has nothing to do with dust bowls, preventing starvation, helping farmers, stabilizing prices, global warming or any other argument that wants to be dragged out to simp for jt. It is corruption, plain simple and ancient.
You can always tell when someone is lying by the number of bad explanations they give for something. Why did you go to the bathroom just now? Because you needed to. Why do you believe the government should throw money at farmers who can’t grow as a reward for failure? Here is fifty different arguments that can’t all be true.
You can hold two ideas at once you know. It’s called lying. Or making shit up about something you thought you knew about because you have the most base-line exposure possible. Or cognitive dissonance.
I don’t know what the hell a cosplay farmer is, but I am assuredly not one. I do my even have a god damn garden on my 0.10 acre city lot.
Learn some history. Farmers have tried to overgrow to make more money, and it has led to collapse as the market forms a glut.
The government does do something different with corn subsidies, causing over abundance of corn, but that has just lead to the overuse of corn syrup sugar, which is a major contributor to obesity.
On the subject of wandering arguments: you never answered my initial question: what staple food are we experiencing a major shortage of?
We had shortages during the pandemic. They have largely resolved. But food companies have learned people still will buy food, so they kept prices high. What has truly hurt is consolidation. With so much food controlled by so few, competition isn’t working.
Growing food isn’t without a massive carbon and environmental footprint. Trying to force a glut which will just result is spoiled food and bankrupt farmers is not the answer.
what staple food are we experiencing a major shortage of?
Me personally? Nothing. Parts of the world are pretty messed up now.
We had shortages during the pandemic. They have largely resolved.
Yes black swan events tend to create black swan effects. Not relevant when we are talking about 90 year old programs.
But food companies have learned people still will buy food, so they kept prices high
Already addressed this. Free money to people who want to cosplay as farmers is not me saying food distribution companies are morally perfect. I don’t have anything against cosplay but I don’t think you would like me to get your tax dollars to do it.
With so much food controlled by so few, competition isn’t working.
Wandering argument. Go demand an anti-trust suit.
Growing food isn’t without a massive carbon and environmental footprint.
Just throwing everything you can at this now?
Trying to force a glut which will just result is spoiled food and bankrupt farmers is not the answer.
Supply goes up, price goes down. And cosplay farmers should go bankrupt. Free them to do something useful with their life. I would be lying if I can list off a single one I grew up with who wasn’t a total failure at what they did. Go do something else! Be a welder, be an electrician, be an accountant do productive things and stop pretending you are good at what you aren’t.
It makes as much sense to give fail farmers money as it does to pay my fat ass to play basketball
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