Aldi plans to open 800 new locations in the US as Americans feel pinch of high food prices

Maybe this will start a trend of businesses letting their cashiers sit down.

The majority of checkouts at my local Aldi are self-service; I think Walmart might have started that trend.
It’s required by state law in California
I've seen a few cashiers at other places. Granted they were all older so maybe had a reasonable accommodation to sit, but maybe... Maybe..

Aldi is great. Walmart has been robbing small towns in America without competition for long enough. I hope more Americans shop at Aldi and save more money while getting healthier food at a fair price.

I drive 20 minutes out of my way to shop at aldi rather than win-dixie (which they've bought recently) down the street for my monthly large shopping.
Does Aldi provide better deals than Walmart?

I used to shop there, but the prices were comparable and everything went bad fast.
- That is what fresh food not overloaded with preservatives will do. You should really make fresh produce shopping more of a daily activity as you need it. But not everyone has that kind of time understandably bi-weekly also doable for truly fresh produce along with you plan out your meals for the week
- everything went bad fast.
  
  Yeah, that's because the food is fresh and less treated than what most Americans are used to. Going bad fast is not necessary a bad thing.
- Aldi provides way better working conditions than Walmart, that's for sure. Imagine being able to sit during a job that doesn't require standing – in America!!!
- Almost everything at Aldi is private label, which is why it is cheaper (again you only find a few recognizable name brands). However, I will not by fresh foods from Aldi as most of the time as it goes bad fast. I do like their snacks and prepackaged deli stuff tho.
- That's what fresh food is, not filled with preservatives and processed garbage that contributes to chronic low grade inflammation
- Learn canning and preserving like baba

Hell yeah. Aldi is the shit

smaller European entrant

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.

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.
IL native, so maybe its regional, but Aldi aint small here either xD

Not only are they everywhere, everyone i meet raves about the stark differences in prices between them and their other local stores.
- 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.
I had a cut of gruyere from there a few weeks ago that was top notch. They got some real bargains for what some people would see as luxury food.
- The Aldi Brie is very good.
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.
Aldi is fairly new to much of America. Kroger in America is much, MUCH bigger. And of course Walmart dwarfs both.
Not in all of Europe, I don't think I've ever seen an Aldi in Czech Republic or Poland
They suck so much, im glad they closed all their stores in Denmark

We have better alternatives with equal or better prices etc.

Such as Netto
- Scandinavian bubble I think
- They trully were bad in Denmark though. Although they did get better just before they closed

Please come to Colorado!!!!! I have my Aldi’s quarter ready!

Please please please! Aldi's would kill in CO, especially if the Kroger/Albertsons merger goes through. I kind of hope Aldi's stays out of CO until we know if the merger will go through, though. Their presence would weaken the case against the merger.
Specific locations for the new stores weren’t revealed, but the German company said it wants to strengthen its “already strong presence” in the Northeast and Midwest, plus expand out West in Southern California, Phoenix and new cities, like Las Vegas.

I did nearly all of my shopping at Aldi when I was unemployed. Now I have a job and Aldi is still great, no reason to spend more at other grocery stores. I genuinely like a lot of their store brand stuff too

Most of their store brands come from the exact same farms and factory lines as the expensive brand name stuff. Corporations want you to believe there's a difference but the marketing budget (and bonuses) is what you're paying extra for — wasn't the case in the 90's, but thanks to decades of corporate cost cutting, consolidation, and homogenization, that IS the case in the 2020's.

The rule of thumb is the more complex the recipe the greater the deviation. Crushed tomatoes? Possibly zero difference. Sugar cookie? Probably 5% difference (that most won't even notice). Elaborate cookie? As larger difference as between any other brand.

good. only problem with aldi is their produce is hit or miss. moreso than competitors in my experience.

I feel like the places that are less hit and miss probably just throw away more produce so you only see the good stuff.
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.
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.

Does the US have Lidl yet?

Kinda. There's not many locations. There was one near me, but it went out of business a couple years ago; they're stock was pretty sporadic and I couldn't rely on them to have everything I'd need, thus I would have to go to the regular grocery store anyway. The inconvenience of going to two stores took away most of the advantage off the (fairly small) savings they offered, and anecdotally I'm not the only one who felt that way.
- I couldn't rely on them to have everything I'd need
  
  This is a problem with Lidl in Sweden as well - great prices and all, but there's a large amount of things I'm interested in buying that they quite simply don't stock. As such, I go to Lidl for all of my 'primary' grocery shopping, and supplement with secondary shopping in other supermarkets and speciality shops.
  
  This is only really viable since I have a Lidl 10 minutes away by bike and another supermarket 2 minutes away by foot. Given what I know about the state of urban planning in the U.S, I imagine that having to go to two different stores will be a significantly higher penalty than here.
Fuck Lidl. I was close friends with a regional manager when they came to the US and they are fucking horrific about how they treat their employees.
- Not in the US, which makes me think the problem is not with Lidl
I have a lidl and I fucking love it! Best prices on groceries I've seen. I've also had issues where they don't have everything, but there's a bigger grocery store very close by that I'll stop at if Lidl is missing something I need. Even my wardrobe is slowly becoming clothes from their rotating section.
- I used to hate LIDL, but then I moved to a place where a LIDL was within walking distance, and started using it more frequently. Now I have to admit that I love it too. Fair prices and a fantastic selection of vegan options.

We shop at Aldi and TJ's regularly. The grocery stores in my area charge literally double for many of the same items. Considering the grocery stores probably pay lower wholesale prices than either Aldi or TJ's it yet another example of the highest corporate profits in 70 years.

TJs as in Trader Joe's? Maybe avoid them for a while
- My dumb ass went straight to TJ Maxx 😂
- Avoiding a company because of they are attempting to avoid unionization is a double-edged sword. It costs the company business and, in turn, costs the very people trying to unionize their jobs. I've made a choice to keep going to TJ's for the time being.
Aldi or TJ

So Aldi North and Aldi South...

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.

Aldi is da bomb

We could just stop paying cosplay farmers to not grow.

Farmers and the amount of food they grow isn’t the issue. It’s corporate greed.
- Yes scarcity has nothing to do with creating scarcity
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.
- I wasn't aware paying people not to grow was the same as paying them to grow too much.
This is the edgy, low information shit which makes Lemmy so obnoxious. Every. Fucking. Thread.
- Ask for a refund

And finally German conquered the USA..

Are they one-stop in the US, though?

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.

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
As a Kaufland guy myself I'm deeply disappointed you didn't mention them.
- 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.
Aldi is barely a 1st stop. It only reliably has the barest essentials.
because you can’t enter a 2nd one with a bag full of goods from the 1st one.

That's not an issue I literally do it all the time. Backpack, though.
Aldi for the essentials. Then Too Good To Go for fruit and vegetables and bread/ pastries.

It could be one stop, but their produce and baked goods are bare minimum.

The meats are the most affordable around me.
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.
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.

Friggen love aldi. I'm kinda disappointed every time I have to go somewhere else now. Just wish they had longer hours cause my sleep disorder means it's hard to make it there before they close sometimes

Please please can you open up a few locations in Vancouver, please? Yale town is ripe for the taking

can you open up a few locations in Vancouver,

Or anywhere in Canada...

I love Aldi but it's where you need to grocery shop first since they're likely to not have everything you need. I wish it was more one-stop.

If they tried to be one stop, they would have to raise prices to cover a larger store with way more items. That is part of how it works.
- Thanks! I just figured their cost cutting measures would scale a bit more

Love Aldi, they’re two blocks from my house.

They used to have a produce problem, but now they are top notch.

There are a couple of misses every now and then but most things there are pretty good.

In The Netherlands Aldi is one of the more expensive stores with subpar quality products.

I've been waiting for them to finish the Aldi's near me for over a year now.

Ironic, because the last time I went to an Aldi here in America is was a total rip-off.

Care to elaborate? Was everything more expensive than competitors in you area or just certain things?
- A high enough percentage of the stuff there was significantly more expensive than nearby grocery stores (idk about Walmart, I don't shop there) that it was clear that even if some items were the same or cheaper price, to be thrifty I'd have to shop at a second store and I hate doing that unless I have to.
  
  I like Aldi overseas. When I lived in Australia and Europe, it was my favorite grocery store, and it was cheap af, so I didn't go in with a negative attitude or bad expectations, just to be clear. I was really disappointed though.
- For me, the prices were comparable to Walmart but everything was lower quality, especially the produce.
  
  They also just, don't have as much stuff as Walmart lol. With Walmart+ same-day delivery, I haven't gone grocery shopping in months.
Yeah the Aldi in my little town sucks. The produce is always in awful shape, their bread tastes awful, and if canned goods are cheaper, it's usually because they are in a smaller size. It's essentially just a dressed up Dollar General.
- What kind of bread? The ones near me have over a dozen different kinds, including the sprouted 7 grain with organic ingredients and no enriched flours and that's only like 3-4 a loaf. In my experience, their products were worse when they first came over decades ago, but now they are cheaper and have higher quality items - especially things like bread and chocolate. Their vegetables are like 25% of the cost of other grocery stores here and they're great.
- It’s essentially just a dressed up Dollar General.
  
  That makes a lot of sense, dude.
  
  And Dollar General sucks (unless it's the only store you have.)
Yeah, I agree.

Really had to figure it out for myself, because the useful idiots weren't telling me.

I haven't heard of half the us supermarkets mentioned in this article lmao

We have an amazing and diverse country. I highly recommends stretching out and seeing more of it!
- Diverse is when different stores and soda names🙃
For chain grocery stores, there’s only a handful of companies but you likely are familiar with the names they might use locally.
Most of them are owned by Kroger.

I compared Aldi and Walmart in my area. They came out about the same. I wonder why that is?

Idk. Our Aldi’s is mostly cheaper. On some things where they’re priced similarly, Aldi’s still has the better quality (at least produce). I’ve tried shopping at our Walmart for years but can’t cause the produce is horrendous. I’m not even looking for anything amazing- but can’t shop there cause the produce is either empty, half rotten, or other issues. Plus it’s just faster for me to get in and out of Aldi’s than Walmart and a better experience overall. I go to Meijer if I need to get anything non-grocery related or not at Aldi.
- I have the same experience. The Massachusetts Walmart are very expensive.
I compared Walmart, Target, the next big brand and the local supermarkets.

Walmart was always mid-level. The only thing that was cheaper were non-groceries.

My local supermarket (WinCo) was the cheapest while still selling quality brands.
Because Aldi is a scam perpetuated by the "never-walmart" crowd.

Funny how the "never-walmart" crowd always removed about not having enough money, too.

Useful idiots, I guess.

I wish they would open some (or more) in Canada. We don't have any in Alberta and I really miss shopping there.

Bring back my Kaiser buns!

Now do canada.... Lack of competition here is killing us

Is Aldi truly an affordable/low cost store? I've never seen one before.

More affordable than Walmart, or whatever your local hypermarket is. And with better quality stuff too
- Wow! Thanks!
- Both of your statements are false.
  
  I encourage people to see for themselves rather than let losers on the internet dictate their decisions.
It depends on the location. Like any other grocery chain, the prices vary from one store to the next. They have great chocolate bars though.
Yes. For the items they carry they are generally much cheaper. They minimize all unnecessary costs like marketing and packaging, encourage self checkout and using your own reusable bags. Their stores are spartan and they sell box/can goods right out of bulk/pallet packaging so that also saves some logistics cost.

I live in a HCOL area (for the Midwest anyway) and while you can't get everything at Aldi, you'd pay 1.5 - 2 times the price buying similar food at a regular regional supermarket. You'd probably pay 2 or 3 times the price if you did all your shopping at a Gucci place like Whole Foods or Sprouts.

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.

Best of luck to them. I can't say I was impressed with my single previous visit, but I'll give it another shot if one opens nearby.

I'm not gonna bring a quarter for the cart, though. Fuck that noise.

Just bring your Reusable bag and fill It up with everything your going to buy.
Yea the cart thing is why I avoid them, I don't carry cash so... Also they didn't have hand baskets in the store which kinda sucks. Last time I grabbed an empty cardboard box and just threw my shit in there since I had no other choice.

Their fruit was good though so maybe ill just buy what i can carry and get most of my shit somewhere else.
- This is the way.
- Do you have to pay for it or deposit it in the lock? In the UK it's common in all supermarkets that they need a refundable pound coin to unlock, so many people have a 'trolley token' keyring with a detachable part to use just for that

Is this the same brand that I sometimes see tool reviews from EU youtubers? The Ferrex stuff? I wonder if they'll be able to bring that stuff over.

Here Aldi is one of the more expensive grocers. But better quality stuff.

More green bacon for everyone

Next stop, government subsidized food banks. LesGo.

I'm convinced this "pinch" people are still feeling is the result of people forgetting that the government gave them money to go out and stimulate the economy during a pandemic where they had few places to spend money.

With a handful of exceptions in the grocery store, all signals are suggesting the American economy is as good as, if not better than, it was prior to 2020. The items mentioned in the linked article have increased in cost just as they always have when environmental variables have an impact on goods and services - it's not about the economy or inflation. If anything, we should be paying more attention to climate change in order to bring our grocery bill down.

If you're trying to save money at the food store, I would highly suggest finding a local produce market or farmers market. I shop at this little local market in my city where my total weekly bill is usually around $80 (actually down from over $100 in 2021). I shopped at an Aldi once, the limited produce was literally nearly garbage and the prices were not great compared to what I normally pay. We all buy different things though so YMMV.

Sorry, you think a couple of thousand dollars over four years ago is causing high grocery prices now?

How does that even work? Why didn't that happen sooner?

This sounds similar to Trump taking credit for the current stock market highs.
- They didn't say that the stimuli from years ago caused it. They said that we received the stimuli when we were already sitting around not spending money except as absolutely necessary. These two things combined made it FEEL LIKE the economy was a lot better then than it is now. If anything, to me this says we should have a UBI already.
- What??
  
  I really hope you’ll take a moment to read again what I wrote and realize I made no such suggestion.

see article from CNN

immediate downvote

Aldi is cool though.

Did CNN fuck your mom or something? Damn.
- They have been getting worse as time goes on, but that goes for most news organizations.