<p>One opened in our area recently
I haven’t been yet </p>
<p>So what do you think of Aldi? What do you usually by there?
You need to bring shopping bags right? Anything else I need to know?</p>
<p>Yes you need to take shopping bags, but you can buy bags of various kinds there cheaply if you forget. You need a quarter for the shopping carts.</p>
<p>We get frozen vegetables and frozen fish and some other things there regularly. </p>
<p>There are a lot of things they don’t have, but their quality is pretty good and prices great and they have some interesting random bargains at times.</p>
<p>It’s a good place for Halloween candy and I’ve gotten yummy pfeffernusse there at Christmastime.</p>
<p>Thanks so much</p>
<p>Aldi owns Trader Joes. Everything is their own private label - no selection, just one choice for each item. They use the same suppliers as Trader Joes, so quality is very good.</p>
<p>In order to keep costs as low as possible they do not accept checks or credit cards for payment. You can use a debit card and, of course, cash.</p>
<p>My parents started shopping there about six months ago, and so far the only item they don’t like is the peanut butter.</p>
<p>Odd thing about Aldi ownership is the Albrecht brothers split the company and divided the territory. One branch runs TJ’s and the other runs Aldi in the US.</p>
<p>Aldi is managed by Aldi Sud and Trader Joe’s is owned by the other Aldi branch. The two store chains do not use the same suppliers so do not expect the same quality! Trader Joe’s has much higher standards. When I shopped at Aldi’s (none around my current home) I mostly bought canned/boxed goods, sometimes dairy products, but that was it. You can either bring your own bags, buy bags right at the store, or hunt down some empty boxes. You do need a quarter to use the grocery cart, but you get the quarter back once you put the cart back (there is a nifty chain that connects the carts to one another and once that is inserted into the receiving end on your cart, the quarter pops out).</p>
<p><<no selection,="" just="" one="" choice="" for="" each="" item.="">></no></p>
<p>In some ways that is kind of appealing. I am often overwhelmed by too many choices.</p>
<p>Thanks everyone this is all good info
I did not know that about the CCs I use them a lot -so thanks for the heads-up</p>
<p>Aldi is a great store. The food is usuually fresh, and the prices are very affordable. </p>
<p>Also, if you’re really into enviromentalism, you’ll love how it’s efficiently run.</p>
<p>The above information regarding Aldi in the US is close enough, but not entirely correct. </p>
<p>The owner of TJ is the Markus-Stiftung, the trust formed by Theo Albrecht. The 1960-61 split of Aldo occured well before Theo purchased TJ, which has been running as an independent company since then.</p>
<p>Incidentally, Theo Senior died in 2010 and his son who supervised TJ (Berthold Albrecht) died last December at 58, leaving the sole Theo Junior in charge of both Aldi Nord and TJ. </p>
<p>There are few, if any, parallels between TJ and the more spartan operations of Aldi, which is a hard discounter. </p>
<p>PS I am surprised that the Albrecht brothers did not try to keep the quarter for the use of the carts. In their history, they never saw a quarter they did not like. Or a penny, for that matter. The need for a coin is standard in European grocery stores. Just as the need to bring your own bag. You can count on the free bags to disappear in the US shortly.</p>
<p>Oldtime Aldi shopper here - I remember back before scanners when the cashiers memorized the prices of all of the items so that they could key it in without having to look.</p>
<p>Aldi moved into our area a couple of years ago, but I’ve only started shopping there regularly in the past couple of months. Most things are private label, but some national brand items do appear. The food is not as organic/natural as at Trader Joe’s, and much of the product line resembles typical canned/mix/boxed food that you are likely to find in the regular aisles of a non-Trader Joe’s supermarket. The quality appears to be as good as most national brands of those food stuffs, and the price is definitely less expensive. Last week I did a TJ run on the way to Aldi, and noted that for the items on my list, milk and o.j. were the same, but everything else was discounted by something like 30% at Aldi.</p>
<p>I do like the small size of the store, and the efficiency of the lay-out. Much easier to shop there than at Giant or Safeway!</p>
<p>I’m very much a fan of the spirits they sell in Aldi - they taste just like the big brands and cost less than half as much. </p>
<p>Other than that, some chilled puddings in there are quite good, along with frozen food, coke and the vast array of chocolate and biscuits that they have in stock. They also have some particularly good laundry powder, branded as Almat (the one with stain remover in). It’s outperformed big brands in independent tests. The only thing that I would avoid is the meat - mainly because cheap meat never comes from animals that have been looked after properly - it does come from factory farms. </p>
<p>What’s particularly good about Aldi though is that it has specials which change every week - they have everything from food specials to clothes, gardening, bike accessories, household, car etc. etc.</p>
<p>Thanks all
I would love to see plastic bags go away or decrease in number.
I hate it when I forget my bags and I feel like the baggers are putting in one thing per bag and double bagging everything.</p>
<p>I dislike our Aldi. Limited selection, wide range of quality, name brands rare. It gives me sensory overload, lots of stuff in a small space.</p>
<p>Definitely agree about the plastic bag bit - and these small charges do work. When the Irish government made it compulsory for retailers to charge, usage dropped by 90% nationally. I wish more shops would charge!</p>
<p>I LOVE Aldi. It is small so I can be in and out in a snap. We use it like a 7-11. Milk and eggs are really inexpensive. Their whole grain bread is like Arnolds. We get all of our chips and crackers there…prices are great. Shredded cheese is good too. So are pastas and canned goods. Their trash bags are great. I’m not a fan of their produce section…it is small and limited. Their Fit and Active line of lite foods is very good.</p>
<p>And if you like chocolate, they have a dark chocolate bar with chilis that is out of this world terrific.</p>
<p>ohh thats sound interesting </p>
<p>Thanks all!</p>
<p>As a small tidbit, one should realize that the success of Aldi in offering low prices stems from its purchasing model. Aldi actively works through RFQ and makes its suppliers present bids. They are not responding to manufacturers offers; they create their own supply mix. </p>
<p>While this ensures low pricing, it also opens the door to uneven quality and few long term relationships. Many of the mainstream vendors do participate in the “auctions” and package their wares under one of the Aldi own brands. The bottom line is that your chocolates come for weeks from a great supplier such as Cote D’Or or Suchard, and the next batch from a lower quality supplier a la Hersheys, or even worse. </p>
<p>In Europe, Aldi uses a lot of “seasonal” offerings and keeps the supply lines short in its stores. This means that the great price on a Wireless Telephone might only be available for a weekend or a week. It happens less for basic food supplies but the rotation is still present. Some items never return.</p>