Oh. besides the 15 cent heavy shopping bags, it is also acceptable etiquette to recycle any packaging in the Aldi’s for transportation of goods, in fact, it is expected. You buy a flat of canned goods and use the underlying crating for tote. Boxes and other recyclables for bulk transport are available as well. Different, yes, but enviro-friendly.
It is also worthy of note that the checkout process is much different than your standard supermarket. It may vary from Aldi to Aldi, but at the Aldi’s I frequent, it is custom, if you have a large purchase, to transfer your purchased items directly from conveyor, scanning, and ring-up back to your cart. Then you move to a counter directly past checkout to bag your items, thus moving the process along in efficiency. I have eight “brought” recycled paper bags from other grocery stores that I use in conjunction with my scavenged in-store boxes, that’s always more than enough to cover me. I have only had to throw out two paper bags in my multiple visits.
I was amazed by the fact that cashiers had to memorize the price/PLU of every item in the store. I haven’t visited one in years, but I remember that the cashier’s fingers used to fly.
I thank the Goddess there are no Aldi’s near where I live.
That’s cryptic. Why?
Not answering for her, but the city next to my mother’s is having fits over the application Aldi submitted to open a store there because “Some Village residents have questioned whether Aldi, as a discount grocer, fits within the retail development, which was characterized by the petitioner as upscale in nature.”
The response, from the meeting minutes:
While I question exactly what herb Mr. Holcombe was smoking to help him arrive at the conclusion that Aldi=Costco, it does show that Aldi itself is aware of image issues and is dealing with them.
Not just variation, but renovation and change, company wide. The ones around here are all being remodeled for more cold space - keeping their fridges, but adding cold cases with no doors and more freezers. Also, apparently, for “aggressive warmer colors”, but I have to admit I haven’t noticed. Everyone’s had scanners and debit card capability for at least 5 years around here, and I *think *they even take WIC and food stamps, but that may be because we’re in Chicago and they’re practically forced to.
Still gotta bring or buy bags, though. And shift carts when you check out (your stuff is put in an empty cart after it’s rung up) and take the cart to the packing counter where you pack it yourself. I really like that part, actually. I can make sure all my cold stuff is together and I know how to pack a bag so my loaf of bread (they have a great multigrain bread with 3g of fiber per slice, BTW - that’s more than most hamster-food health store bread!) isn’t abstract art by the time I get home.
The Goddess has dominion over the retail trade in Portland, although She is frequently challenged by Lo-ki and his brother Void-ki. They sent a mortal to found an Aldi’s in Portland. He sat sail on New Year’s DAy, 1997, and hasn’t been heard from since.
I’ve only been in one Aldi’s, on vacation in Denmark this summer. I didn’t find it creepy, I just found it vaguely depressing. Of course, that could be that particular store, plus the timing - Ebeltoft is a very pretty town, and you put a no-frills grocery in the middle of that and overfill it with bargain-hunting tourists, it’s bound to feel like a bit of a let-down.
Not sure we’re missing anything much by not having any around here, though the musli bars we got for the trip home were pretty yummy.
Yeah, the most embarrassing situation you could imagine at school was when your mum decided to pack your dinner in an Aldi bag.
I went there once. The produce was barely represented and looked pretty off (I wanted lettuce but couldn’t find any that looked like would last for longer than a day or two more). A glass of Aldi’s milk I accidently left on a counter overnight turned into something like yogurt in those 9 hours. In two days english muffins were molded (I didn’t even open them, they were in the bread box the whole time).
I don’t know if the milk and english muffins just were flukes, but in either case I had to go to the regular grocery store to buy more stuff.
And buying my own bags there? C’mon…
You pay for your bags one way or another in any supermarket.
Thank you Saoirse, best laugh all day.
Frickin’ pagans and their high falutin’ ways.
I’ll see you one Goddess, and raise you the Archangel Michael, with a side of Saint Leonard of Noblac, patron saint of grocers. Smite that!
(Hmm, wonder what the patron saint of a cheap bastard is?)
Raise the price of mayo a dime. I help pay their wages but I don’t see that on the bill.
Saint Andrew, of course!
d & r
I like Aldi’s. I go there every month or two for staples - stocking up on canned beans and corn, plus a lot of their new “upscale” items (best cheap wine outside Trader Joe’s - which we don’t have here - plus artichoke hearts, preserved, fantastic frozen veggies, the only vegetarian “Lean Pockets” I’ve ever found, and the upscale pasta/sauce), and their new light series (mock Crystal Light, yay). They have nice cookies, and inexpensive versions of my favorite cereals. I also usually get cheese and yogurt.
They often have interesting things in on rotation. I’ve gotten fantastic frozen flans there. I actually find some things are better than store brands of more upscale stores - frozen stir fry and the last frozen pizzas I got there were amazingly good.
I never buy produce or bread, though.
Really-and it’s perfectly good cheese, if you ask me.
Their chocolate ain’t half bad either.
I liked our Aldi store, and hated moving away from it. There aren’t any in our area, or other types of warehouse stores for miles and miles.
Never did buy many paper goods or pet products there, but meats, seafoods, cheeses, breads, and some veggies were great, and sometimes half price of other places.
I didn’t mind the layout at all except for the people people people everywhere. Took me forever to find a day & time when the shelves were still stocked, but I wouldn’t be squished or run into by 3 generation grocery cart derby contestants.
Shame on me as a data analyst, something I forgot to mention about Aldi is the effect it has on other stores. In Australia at least when an Aldi store opens somewhere all the major chain supermarkets in the area begin to reduce prices. So even if you don’t shop there you experience the benefit of their presence in the market place.
Don’t ask, from your last post I see we might be talking about different Aldis. I live in a somewhat rural area. There’s no chance that Aldis, new or not, could impact the two major grocery stores in the area. I’ve never seen the parking lot which it shares with a few other stores anywhere near full.
I’d like to hear how it is from Aldis to Aldis, perhaps while still being as bland as it has been described by other posters other aspects are different.
My experience with Aldi and their ilk is that some products are great bargains and some are horribly overpriced, but appear to be cheap (like your dishwashing stuff). The pattern I have noticed is that the appearance of cheap products is the important thing, so paper towels that sell at half price at Aldi’s look like a great bargain, but really contain only half the number of sheets and single ply.
But for food staples, their prices are far better.
Like anything else you have to be a informed careful shopper.