Once I stumbled across a rather depressing looking store in a strip mall in Woodbridge, VA. ALDI. I didn’t go in, but I knew it was a grocery store, that it was based in Germany, and it is owned by one of the wealthiest families in the world. I have recently heard that shopping there is quite a nightmare, and the food is all low-quality private labels.
Just curious, any experiences my fellow dopers have about this store?
I love aldi’s! I do all my shopping there, they are very cheap for alot of the same stuff you can get at the regular store, I would rather go to aldi’s than the commissary most days. When I moved away from an aldis to maine I drove to conneticut and stocked up. Long Live aldis!
The food might generally be mediocre off-brand stuff and the lines might often be long, but hey, it’s cheap.
They don’t display items on shelves like at other stores – the items are displayed still in the original boxes. You have to bag your own groceries and pay for grocery bags. At the one my family used to go to, you also had to put a quarter in some contraption to get a cart, and you got the quarter back when you put the cart back.
If what you’re looking for is cheap groceries, Aldi is great. If what you are looking for is quality and lots of customer service, go elsewhere. IMO, they really need to build some in the western US, and soon.
Actually, I find that some of the stuff that Aldi sells is exceptionally nice. Particularly of note is their ice cream - it’s really very good.
Mmm… Aldi icecream.
(Damn you Lactose Intolerance, damn you to heck.)
Aldi! Argh. Bring your box cutter. Most of the time, you have to open up a pallet of whatever it is you want.
I shopped there at times when I was a poor student, but I wouldn’t go near one now. Call me a snob, but I’ll gladly pay a little extra for a nice store and a quick check-out.
I have to agree with Coldfire and lel.
We have an Aldi and a Sav-A-Lot. It’s the same crap.
Off-brand stuff, and I mean off-brand, as in “distributed by an offshore company whose owners are going to rob the till and bolt next week.” Second rate crap, all of it.
You can find some interesting stuff, though. By “interesting” I mean things you wouldn’t consider eating, but might buy for the novelty value because it’s $.59.
I found an old-style rectangular-oblique can with the winding-key opening thingy that was mostly labeled in Portugese. The only English on it was, “Product of Brasil” and “Potted Meat Product.”
It’s cheap for a reason.
We’ve got one here in town, and we have to put the quarter in the cart. I don’t care for the store much because all the town’s “peons” flock there like vultures on a rabbit carcass. None of these people bathe or groom themselves, I swear. The only thing worth getting there is their flavored bottled water. Everything else tastes cheap.
One time, a friend and I went in there around Thanksgiving time, and I opened the freezer with all the turkeys in it, leaned in, and took a picture. Well, it must have been senior citizen day, because the store was full of them, and they all got confused and angry that I did that. Picture turned out very nice though. Let me know if you’d like to see it…
Also, it’s a very popular store for the Amish.
Sounds like Aldis overseas are different than the ones around here (Continental Europe)… Aldi is cheap, but not in the sense that it’s a bad quality, the prices are just very low. Some products are worse than “brands”, but with some things I wonder whether those are actual brand items, but provided as a lower cost and with a no-name wrapping especially for Aldi.
My personal recommendations are the crisps and those oven-ready rolls. Then again, they probably won’t have the things I have in mind over in the states anyway, heh.
Common practise around here.
In Renssalaer, NY, USA, “Aldi” seems to mean “Stuff that no one else wanted to buy, so you can have it for next to nothing. Just don’t look at the expiration date.”
Elsewhere, your mileage may vary. I haven’t been to your town, so I don’t know what it’s like.
Our Aldis which art in Galesburg
Hallowed be thy name
Thy lanes be empty, thy boxes be precut
In all aldis as it is in Mine
Hey, Phouchg, don’t steer clear of Aldi’s (even though that shopping center it’s in is in a pretty depressing area, now that all of the nearby anchor stores are gone!).
Their milk and eggs are just as good, and just as fresh, as what you’ll get at the Shopper’s over on the PW Pkwy, but cheaper. Often they get good produce (melons, cucumbers, romaine lettuce), so that’s worth a look. Big bags of Peanut M&Ms often show up at a can’t-be-beat price, and they’re no different from the ones in the big stores. Try their Matt’s Chocolate Chip Cookies - addictive, and they’re made with all natural ingredients, with no chemicals, no artificial flavorings, nothing.
For some things, of course, getting a “name brand” doesn’t make a damn bit of difference. Who’s fussy about the name on their box of salt, for example? Ditto for stuff like paper towels. Cheaper is better. And I don’t mean just a few pennies cheaper: on most items, they’re at least 20% less than Shopper’s, and about 30% less than Giant.
The second aisle is always entertaining, since that’s where they stash the special “deals” they’ve got. These are whatever they managed to buy a truckload of. Recently, they were selling no-name 32" TVs for $299! You never know what’s going to be there, so every visit is an adventure.
Can you do all your shopping there? No. It’s a small store, and there are a lot of things they simply don’t carry.
It does pay to avoid the heaviest shopping times, if you can, since they are always short of help. Make sure you take a quarter (you have to put a quarter into a slot to get a shopping cart, which you get back when you return the cart), and bring your own plastic bags, since they charge for theirs. And they take only cash or debit cards - no checks or credit cards.
Aldi is an outgrowth of Benner Tea.
I worked for Benners for 2 summers between high school and graduating from Electronics school.
IIRC some executives started the buisness after getting their walking papers from Charlie Fitzmorris.
Its headquartered in Batavia Illinois.
I didn’t even know it was international.
As far as I can tell the food is first rate.
Oh the green beans might not be as long as the big name brands but who cares.
We do a lot of shopping there.
There are just no name brands there.
What did Kelloggs ever do for you that you’d pay 500 times the price of the grain that makes up the product.
Oh yeah MarlaDuren you are a jerk.
My sister lived in downtown Chicago, on the 17th floor, and one cold winter day she heard squealing tires on LaSalle street. There was a scream, and shouts, and a little later an ambulance and a police car. Later that day the Aldi bag was still in the crosswalk where the homeless woman dropped it when she got hit.
I realize this is MPSIMS, fessie, but WTF?
Been there once. Not for me.
There are a few Aldi stores in Sydney now, as of the last two years or so. I heard nothing but positive comments about them when they started, and a mate of mine dragged me out to one to show how great it was.
I was told to expect that there would be fewer product lines than in a regular supermarket (eg. two or three brands of product X instead of ten or twelve), that the stuff was in boxes, I’d have to bag my own stuff etc. All well and good if it was cheap, I thought…
The actual shopping experience wasn’t so bad (a bit crowded though) until I got to the checkout. I was prepared to bag my own groceries, but not prepared for the speed I’d have to do it at. Slow down for a second and there’d be rolled eyes from the cashier, and tut tuts from the clique of Aldi regulars waiting behind me. When I got home, I found the (slightly) cheaper Aldi brand dishwashing liquid was mostly water. Ditto the laundry detergent. The other stuff I bought was also pretty damn ordinary. An unfriendly atmosphere, and a glaring example of false economy in most of the products I tried.
I won’t be going back.
Hey Dog
I never could be a bag boy either.
My best friend from college worked at Hy Vee, a Employee owned store. He used to revel in bagging
groceries very very fast and visit with customers at the same time. Its a skill I guess.
I’m a little more clumsy. I worked at the warehouse.
30 trucks loaded a night was not unheard of.
The warehouse I worked at is now Aldi’s. Its expanded and I’m sure automated .
Wow it’ll soon be 40 years.
Question for all dopers.
Is the tea at your Aldi store Benner Tea???
Another Question for Dog
Didn’t they have a bagging area?
Here you let the cashier put your groceries back into the cart and then push it to a special area where you do your own bagging.
Here no matter how crowded the store is the bagging area has plenty of room.
Aldi has just opened up near us and the other grocery stores nearby have reduced their prices to match Aldi. So we get the low prices without the hassels of shopping at a new store!
There is a fantastic grocery chain in Melbourne called “Not Quite Right” which Thylacine introduced me too. You can get some really good bargains there as long as you don’t mind no-name brands, mislabled or stuff close to expiry.
The Aldis that I’ve been in: imagine Kmart, and up the grunginess by three.
If I could get the same stuff in an Aldi in the US that I can get in Germany, I’d shop there in a heartbeat. Ummmm, such as real Haribo Gummibears, Müller Milch, Weinbrandbohnen (Brandy-filled chocolates), Kinder Überraschungs-Eier (surprise eggs: banned here in the US because there’s a little put-together toy inside), marzipan, and my favorite: Brause-Brocken from Ahoj. (a candy that effervesces in one’s mouth).
Yeah, in Germany one has to bag one’s own groceries, and one gets one’s shopping cart by using a coin to release it from the cart corral. You get the coin back when you take the cart back to the corral. So what?
About the gurunge factor: The only Aldi’s I have been in have been in Germany where there is very little grunge on the floors or shelves.
I think there may be an Aldi’s here in Georgia, but like I said , if they ain’t got my stuff I’ll just get it sent to me or bring back a mess of it when I go home! 
Q
PS: Can I bold or what?