According to the founding myth, the original inspiration behind Aldi were military logistics. The whole thing was designed to be efficient.

Only stock predictably fast-selling stuff, for easier logistics and less warehousing. Don’t stock wares into shelves, just dump the whole pallet or box on the floor to save on labor costs. Sell only your own generic brands so you can dump your supplier for a cheaper one. No big advertising campaigns, just print some leaflets and distribute them yourself. And then they massively expanded to benefit from economies of scale.

In Germany, in response to this, the competition created their own Aldi-style discounters with mostly identical prices and on average roughly equivalent quality, which are now everywhere. The other successful strategy is what Rewe did: This supermarket chain copied some of Aldi’s approach to cost-cutting, and is now a bit of a hybrid between a traditional supermarket and a discounter. Importantly, they offer similar price and quality own-brand product for most things an Aldi would sell, while also selling more expensive alternatives and having a larger inventory. Why go to Aldi when you can get same price/quality as Aldi, but also this thing and that other thing Aldi doesn’t have? No need to go to multiple stores.

Meanwhile Aldi and Lidl have expanded their inventory and become more supermarket-like themselves (my guess is computerized logistics made this easier to do cheaply, and they have to compete with Rewe).

One other thing that happened is that these very large chains can squeeze their suppliers with their massive buying power. They basically suck all the profit from the supply chain for the benefit of just a couple of superrich families (though this also happened in other markets with e.g. Walmart in the US.) Oh and they are militantly anti-union, but again the whole industry is.

We don’t have Aldi here, but Lidl is my go to grocery store, especially after they did the ultimate move of dropping the price of every vegan product.

It’s cheap as fuck and they let the cashiers sit down, which is incredibly rare in amerikkka

it’s p good, but i have one complaint, which is that i am a US customer, but apparently in Spain and Portugal Aldi they have these charming blue puppet mascots named Al and Di and in the UK they have Kevin the Carrot and his produce friends, whereas we have nothing but asshole security guards that harass homeless people. Please replace the rentas with puppets Aldi!

Aldi and Lidl are my go to places to shop. They have a surprising number of vegan options

You really can’t beat Lidl when your shopping list is something like:

• Bread
• Cheese
• Milk
• Eggs
• Kayak
• Plasma cutter

The staff all seem pretty relaxed too, the cashiers have seats and chat to pretty much everyone, but especially the older regulars. I know they squeeze their supply chain hard, but from the customer perspective it’s a pretty good experience.

Ancient mysteries explained: The middle aisle in Aldi

I love this guy. And Aldi is dope, so is WinCo.

I like aldi the price and quality seems good and that is a good trade for selection. Honestly I prefer the more narrow selection it feels more honest somehow. Also, I like that they let their cashier’s sit. It is probably one of my favorite grocery places. I don’t have a costco conviently near me. At least for the one where I am I get a little bit of the same vibes.

bit of hedacanon worldbuilding: i like to imagine the next great european war happening along these lines: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/95/Aldi_branches_in_Europe.svg

Absolutely love Aldi. I would be eating largely rice and beans without it.

Part of our normal grocery routine, I’m not buying anything from a different grocery store if I can get it from Aldi.

It’s pretty shocking how big the price difference is, at least the last time I checked it was.

Loves me an Aldis. I kinda like the limited choices? Sure it can be annoying when I gotta add a couple stops to get the less common indredients or the “no really you gotta get the name brand” stuff but are many fewer avenues for self-doubt in one of those places. They have lots of nifty useful things in that limited time offer aisle, I got a sonic toothbrush for 20 bucks there, so that was neat. The frozen pizzas are pretty good but like actually why are there 20-25 varieties there? Its kinda fucking insane like pizza is the easiest thing to add your own shit to why are there so many different kinds?

I will say, that a lot of the produce is very hit or miss and the bread all kinda sucks dick unless its that cinnamon swirl dessert shit.

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They have an especially great selection for cheese. The only place I can find reasonably priced Brie and Camembert

Aldi is name brand quality stuff with a generic price point.

I get most of my condiments there. Their produce is okay but I’ll get it on sale. For essentials they’re usually a dollar cheaper and high quality. They’re also some of the few stores that still do a heavy discount on almost expired food. Walmart only knocks off 25% but I’ve seen Aldi go as high as 75% before. I got 4lbs of really high quality chicken there before for $3.50. Cheapest Tofu and eggs around. Cheese is more expensive for some reason. Same with name-brand chips although their own chips are really good and decently priced.

The only problem I have is that I could have even more savings if I bought stuff in bulk but they only seem to carry smaller portions. I wouldn’t even car if they’re the same price per ounce, I just don’t want 5 bottles of mustard in my pantry when one big one would do.