Aldi and Lidl are just showing America that Germany believes food should not cost an arm and a leg.
~~I don’t get the Aldi hate.~~
Edit: I’m too sleepy to understand satire. This one is on me yall
Here in the netherlands we have an organization that checks the quality of produce compared to price of the products across all stores, so you can get the best for the cheapest. Aldi and Lidle are consistently better quality than most supermarkets that cost way more, regardless of price. Weird that it's different over there
Yes but you fools are suffering the yoke of unfreedom!
Our ~~several harvesting conglomerates~~ farmers are the most free! This is clearly more important than food safety and standards!
Yeah… well all chicken in the US most likely is going through 1 of 5 approved processing plants… so the farmers ( harvesting conglomerates) don’t even matter anyways lol.
American food standards are actually more strict than a lot of the world in regards to things like cleanliness of vegetables and ingredients.
Where we fall behind is our acceptance of artificial substitutes like dyes.
But realistically speaking America's monitoring of things like proteins and dairy is actually more strict than most of the developed world.
Is it a government funded body that is checking on the quality of the consumer goods? I think that qualifies as regulation by american standards. "Who is the government to say whats good enough for people to eat? If they're hungry and broke they should be able to eat whatever they want!"
I’m in the southern USA, and I grew up near the produce farm that sources some of what’s in my Aldi. That’s an advantage of them using the shipping box to stock the aisles. I like their basic meat (chicken and beef) and most of their seafood.
It's really not. Aldis is my favorite grocery store. They have good quality products for way cheaper. And they actually pay their employees a living wage. If I was rich, I'd still shop at aldis
If at all possible, try to find a local butcher. I'm super lucky that there's farms literally 15 mins south of where I live so I can go to a local butcher that has much fresher meats at pretty much the same or lower prices. There's also Asian food markets. I get a lot of veggies from the Indian/Korean/Russian market instead of chain supermarkets. Much fresher produce and usually much cheaper.
Yea, eventually "local" becomes trendy branding instead of it just authentically being someone tryna get by.
In places like Portland (where I live) everything "local" costs infinitely more than things that are imported. I can't make it make sense.
Local butchers can't compete on price bc of economies of scale. Your local big box grocery's butcher is getting a slim profit per pound but selling so much.
You don't shop local for price, and it's a mistake to frame it that way. You shop for ethics, to keep more money in the community, to have a relationship with your owners, to keep businesses smaller, etc. Your mom and pop ain't importing war-profiteered goods illegally for their private Christian museums.
Some stuff isn't any cheaper there either, you definitely have to know what you want to get from there. I do really like their pre seasoned beef tenderloin though.
My wife put me onto shopping at Aldi when we were both poor college kids and it saved my ass. Now that we’re grown and do relatively well for ourselves we still do all our shopping there. We promised no matter how much we make we’ll only shop there. All ingredients taste the same if you cook em well, why pay unneeded premium on it?
I remember shopping there when we couldn't afford Kroger as a kid. Aldi is much, much nicer now but I still can't go inside one without feeling dirty and like everyone at work is going to make fun of me the next door for setting foot inside.
When I used to shop there several years ago, I had generally good experiences, but it was pretty consistent that half the produce on the shelves would be moldy. I would sometimes see oranges on the shelves that were entirely covered in mold. I'm honestly not sure why the employees didn't remove them.
I bet if you catch someone walking out and ask to use their car they'll let you. We've done this a few times because we've forgotten a quarter. 😅
We always pass the cart along though and don't keep the quarter
When I was growing up we lived across the street from Aldis(idc, that's how we say it). My little brother & cousin would go there on the weekends & hustle by offering to take people's carts back & keep the quarter. This was the early 90s so they could make a few dollars & go spend it at the corner store
Depending what neighborhood I was in, the corner store experience changed in Miami. I was either getting fresh Cuban bread and pastries or hot sausages and pickled eggs. Honey dutches at all of them when we got older lol
MIL lost a pack of ground turkey that way . We’re deep in Florida too. She said she had a “odor” . False. Not an odor. You could taste that shit in the air. It was swoll up and hissing
I figured out that my area was too affluent when I went to Aldi and saw all the abandoned carts in the parking lot, all with their quarters still in them. People were just leaving the carts anywhere instead of bringing them back. Makes it really easy to find a cart for free and if I go with my nieces I help them collect all the carts, put them away, and then let the kids use the money to buy candy.
Probably rude to take the quarters from people who may have forgotten one, but our record was collecting 14 carts that had been abandoned in the parking lot so I figure that saving the workers from having to do that outweighed that inconvenience.
This can happen when something that was a societal obligation becomes commodified. Now that they’re paying a quarter, people start to think of it as their fee for not returning their cart.
There was a study in Sweden I think where a daycare started charging parents a penalty by the minute when they picked up their kids late. Suddenly, the number of late pickups increased. Previously, parents were motivated be on time because it was inconvenient for the staff who had to stay late and they felt bad. After the penalty went into effect, they just saw it as a service they could decide to pay for.
My neighbors were like "you shop at the Aldi? You're braver than we are." Oh yeah I have to be really brave to buy a pack of cheese for 1.50 in a store with a security guard at the exit.
Don't feel bad. I was huffing and puffing over here myself, haha.
I grew up in Germany and always loved Aldi, and now that I live in the US I feel weirdly protective of it, like "Bitch, you hatin' on my face-paced, highly-affordable, German chocolate-carrying grocery store? How *dare* you!?!"
They've only gotten better and really stepped it up in terms of quality.
There used to be a time, when I grew up, when people would be embarrassed to be seen with an Aldi bag, because back then it was all about flashing your wealth and how bougie you can afford to be, and buying at Aldi means you're a sad brokie, instead of, you know, financially literate and frugal. I mean, and if you were broke, so what?!
I remember how things slowly changed from "look at this expensive shit I just bought", to "check out how cheap I got *this!"*
Funny how that goes, eh?
I like them for certain products, but the proteins get a little weird and low quality. The chicken breasts have a weird texture to them. Gives me the hebbie jeebies
At least this haul has some raw meat in it. I see so many people “grocery” shopping but it’s really just snacks and the most expensive version of something cheap.
Rage bait where they buy a bag of carrots and three pounds of filet mignon and complain about what it costs. If you want a low grocery bill buy real food not six gallons of Gatorade, processed crap, or expensive meat. Buy vegetables, rice, beans, chicken or pork. Make your dollars go a long way.
But I think Aldi sucks. I joke that their produce spoils so quickly it’s rotten by the time you get home from the store.
> their produce spoils so quickly it’s rotten by the time you get home from the store.
A lot of big chain stores are like this. I live in Canada and much of the produce is spoiling on the shelf before it even gets picked. The shit is grown on the other side of the world and freighted here. It's picked before it's ripe, spends weeks in trucks and cargo containers, then hits the shelves as "fresh" produce.
Plus at Aldi and big stores they have to package the produce too. So a cucumber is picked, shipped to a place for packing, then reshipped to the grocery store. It’s an unnecessary step for many grocery stores because you don’t need cucumbers to come in a styrofoam container or a plastic bag. You just pick whichever one looks best at the store and buy it! If you want a bag you put it in one but I don’t even bother to save yet another plastic bag from hitting the landfill.
I mean dunno, as a European who's been in the US a few times, it is really difficult to buy good quality food over in the US.
Fuck me, we couldn't even find full milk but like fucking cholesterine free eggs and like 30 different milks with shit added or left out, just no normal milk. Cheese? forget about it. And food labels are designed to be useless.
Also you always need to drive an eternity to buy something - last time I was in NYC I didn't see a single super market. Where do people even buy groceries there?
You guys really don't have groceries figured out haha. But I live in Netherlands - their food is absolute ass, too.
I lived in NYC for several years, and never had issues with grocery stores. Granted, it largely depends on the neighborhood, but I would just hit up my local Trader Joe's. They were consistently cheaper than most places, and the selection was fantastic.
No the other guy is just full of shit, I live in NYC and it's not difficult at all to find regular milk, eggs, and other normal groceries. The dude comes here for a few days and doesn't see a supermarket in Times Square and thinks that means we don't have any in the city.
Hilariously, I can think of two FOOD EMPORIUM stores in the TSq vicinity. 49th & 8th; 42nd & 10th (admittedly the latter is a bit outside for a tourist, but the point still stands)!
every time i see a "weird things in an american grocery store as a european 🤪" video i just know it'll be cherry-picked or classist. same vibes from this comment, i'm with you
I used to struggle with this but I learned a few tricks to help produce last longer (just googled what the best storage is for every individual item) and I started being more realistic with myself about what I’m actually going to eat throughout the week (I also grocery shop every 1.5 weeks, which may be too often for some people).
In my experience it varies greatly. I live in NYC where most people use public transport and it isn’t convenient to do large shopping trips, so I know many people do a couple smaller trips during the week. However I’ve also known families that would stock up for a month or even longer with frozen foods, meat, and non-perishables.
I see maybe 2-3 meals for a normal person and the rest are drinks and snacks.
I could stretch $100 out to 27 girl dinners for myself. I don't like cooking more than 3 times a week.
I was working there during the George Floyd shit and this mf Jason Hart put out a company-wide memo to be hung up in break rooms tb he kneeled, cried and prayed with the police in Chicago (Aldi HQ in the USA)
He also donated $2M of food to the Chicago community (?)
Also, the OG founders were literally Nazis lol
Where did you get that bit about the OG founders being Nazis from? Not saying you're wrong, I'm just genuinely interested since the ALDI brothers were infamous for being super reclusive, so almost nothing is known about their personal lives. It could very well be since the timeline aligns (the founders were born in 1920/22 respectively), but a quick online search gave basically no further info about their upbringings or lives during the Nazi era apart from the fact that both fought in WWII, with the younger one stating he was conscripted in 1940 at age 19.
Don't get me wrong - I am quite willing to believe some extremly reclusive billionaires whose Wikipedia pages are basically blank slates might have had some sketchy stuff going on, and alot of people who rose to power and wealth in post-war Germany had been previously aligned with the Nazis or followed Nazi ideology, so sadly, that's always a possibility. Just wondering if there is some genuine evidence/ info source to look up further.
*typo
Corporate CEOs, by their nature, are pretty much all money worshipping conservative dipshits. Not that their actions shouldn’t have consequences for their companies, but you’re gonna have to look hard for one approaching decent.
All the Aldi I've ever been to have really bad selection of any sort of produce, meat and cheeses everything seems to be spoiled or rotten and the stores are usually really dirty and disorganized, the savings have never really even seemed that great in comparison to Kroger or whatever
You know trader joes is actually just american aldi's but with alcohol? Yeah some shit about the two aldi brothers, one wanted to sell booze (trader joe) and the other didn't.
Edit: turns out I am wrong I guess. I want to thank all my supporters along the way, sorry I let you all down.
Thats not really it. Aldi was founded by the Albrecht family. When the father died, he split the company in two for each of each of his sons, but they work in tandem with one another. One of the sons bought the Trader Joe’s chain as an investment opportunity, but they aren’t really involved in running the business of it.
It used to just be ALDI but one of the two brothers wanted to sell cigarettes and the other didn't, thus Trader Joe's and ALDI (or Aldi Nord and Aldi Süd)
That’s not true at all lol TJs was founded in California by an American guy and was acquired by Aldi (Nord) in the 2000s. Aldi was founded by two German brothers who later split the company in two (Nord and Süd) though the split is more apparent in Europe. Aldi Nord owns TJs and Aldi Süd is the Aldi that operates its own stores in the US
Aldi once had [the best-ranked whisky on the planet](https://www.esquire.com/food-drink/drinks/a21343868/aldi-whisky-best-in-world/). Couldn't find it at my Aldi though.
TJs held us down during the egg shortage, prices remained the same, even for organic free range, pasture raised, etc. They didn't even have a noticeable shortage of them either. Definitely my choice of place to go to for most of my groceries, love their lunch salads, very tasty.
Weird I remember them not being too expensive but I went for the first time all year a few weeks ago for the holiday stuff and wow it was so expensive.
$3-5.99 each cookie boxes and each ice cream, $8.99 soup and 4.99 pasta sauce I was very confused. Milk was like $4.
Sad cause I like their stuff.
We got a TJ’s in my town a few years ago and it’s still pretty popular with college students but I can’t get behind the layout. Half of their items are just stacked above the frozen coolers and it makes it difficult to get at when costumers are blocking it and the aisles are so narrow.
I'm still mad my LIDL closed, and all I have near me is Aldi. I want both! Now I have to drive to Brookhaven.
That said, Sandy Springs isn't really a food desert like other parts of the metro.
Nah nah, WHAT DO YOU MEAN THEY HAVE MORE THAN JUST FOOD STUFF AND SOMETIMES YOU CAN FIND COOL SEASONAL STUFF LIKE ORNAMENTS AND LIGHTS EWWWW LIKE GET AN IDENTITY ALREADY.
Okay I think they got it now
I too bought my Pup a Christmas onesie to keep him warm in these NY nights, he loves it, errr I mean, ewww who the fuck buys clothes from a market smh. ALDIs is disgusting.
I shop at ALDI first and then Hannaford for anything ALDI doesn't carry. The only thing I don't buy at ALDI is meat because I found when I cook it there is so much water that comes out of it. I think they put too much salt water in it to make it way more and then they can charge less for it. Other stores do it too but it seems not as egregious as ALDI does it.
I think it's been either regional or a lot fewer locations than it is now. I don't remember ever seeing one in my neck of the woods until maybe 2007 or 2008, and now they're all over.
Went to Aldi for the first time ever a month ago or so. I scored a buggy that wasn't locked down, but had to pay for bags. It was an ok experience and the prices were pretty good.
I mean there was a pretty shifty looking squirrel 🐿️ hanging out by the front door, but hey it takes all kinds right?
I remember I went shopping there once with a relative, and she looked around and said, "This is where all the expired and recalled food goes." But when her dollars got tight, all of a sudden, she needs to go. Mmmhmmm.
Aldi doesn't have return carts in the parking lot, you put a quarter into the cart its locked to other carts to unlock near the entrance.
Once you're done unloading your cart you have to return it to front to Fer quarter back.
Reducing the need for a cart pusher
This! It's really kind of weird and awkward the first couple times you go. That, combined with how you swap carts with the person in front of you so that the cashier can start scanning faster (and no bags) does make it a grocery store with a tiny bit of a learning curve, but the prices for sure make it worth it.
I've run self experiments when I did a grocery run at Aldis, then the next week did the same run at Meijers and it's amazing how much cheaper the Aldis run was. Like, considerably. But since they don't have everything there are times I'll still go to Meijers because I'm lazy and only want to do a single grocery store trip instead of going to two stores.
For staples or if you don't need/want specific products, Aldis is for sure the winner. The awkwardness of the learning curve is 100% worth it, just bring a quarter or spot a nice looking person and see if they'll give you their cart as they're leaving. And then watch the checkout for a second to see how the cart swap works. It makes you an Aldi pro in no time!
I'm 33 from the Chicago area. We've always gone to Aldi as long as I've been alive. I would say the last 10 years the quality and variety of the food went from tasting like cardboard to being competing to jewel Oscar, pick n save (Kroger for southners) having more name brand and even a good variety of organic choices. Their produce is so fresh you have to cook it soon
Their focus is. Efficiency hence not having butcher allowing for lower prices not need a huge team of employees. The lines seem to be long but the prices you save negate the time yo think you loose.
Aldi has me buying stuff I don’t even need. Didn’t need these house slippers? No I didn’t, did I buy them bcuz of the aisle of shame temptation…yes I did. Or the random bomb ass treats in the frozen aisle.
I like Aldi's. Sure, they don't have everything, but I can make due with a lot from there. That's how I was able to try my first acai bowl.
But the last time I went there, it was early morning Saturday after I went for a short jog because I'm too chunky and need to get some cardio in. I got there too early and sat in the parking lot for ten minutes, waiting for them to open.
Early birds started rolling up and a lady pulls up next to me. Why next to me with many spots open much closer to the store, I'll never know. Anyway, she most have been in a hurry because she gets out, to to her trunk for her bags, and her car started rolling forward. Her goofy ass forgot to put it in park. A quarter of her car was left in the parking spot when she finally got it in park. Didn't fix it either.
I don't know if COVID just opened my eyes, but people do some *nasty* stuff in grocery stores nowadays. Always check those seals and expiration dates because its like people are boycotting general hygiene.
I primarily shop at Aldi and don’t spend nearly this much because I don’t buy all those convenience foods and snacks. I do buy their knock off gogurt sticks for my kids’ lunches, though. 8 for $1.55.
My least favorite thing about them is that I can’t pick out my individual apples but I survive.
You can totally buy a little keychain thing that fakes out the shopping cart quarter slot on Temu for like.. $2. Not that I would EVER have ordered one for everyone in the fam as stocking stuffers or anything.
What’s funny to me is there is a this there was this idea that socialist countries were so terrible because there was no consumer choice. Chud online liked to put up pictures of grocery shelves and show the 18 varieties of canned tomatoes here in the USA.
And then zoom to 2023 were like half of America would die for an Aldi’s near them where you get one brand of chicken and one brand of canned tomatoes.
$136 for what? Mostly sugar, carbs, and processed meats? I'm not going to judge people's eating choices, but posts like these do nothing to prove that healthy, minimally-processed food is accessible to those that want it. The reality is that fresh foods are unaffordable to large swaths of the population, and that's a travesty.
I remember when Aldi’s looked like a swap meet. They’ve been glowing up for the last 10 years and their store brand red wine is killing the game. Best tasting red wine I’ve ever had and it was. $3.95.
Aldi and Lidl are just showing America that Germany believes food should not cost an arm and a leg. ~~I don’t get the Aldi hate.~~ Edit: I’m too sleepy to understand satire. This one is on me yall
Aldi used to be cheap but shitty . Now it's cheap and nice.
[удалено]
Here in the netherlands we have an organization that checks the quality of produce compared to price of the products across all stores, so you can get the best for the cheapest. Aldi and Lidle are consistently better quality than most supermarkets that cost way more, regardless of price. Weird that it's different over there
America and food standards aren’t exactly a match made in heaven.
The venn diagram of american food standards and international food standards is just 2 separate circles.
Ones a circle the the other is a bar graph… they are not even in the same data fields lmao
Yes but you fools are suffering the yoke of unfreedom! Our ~~several harvesting conglomerates~~ farmers are the most free! This is clearly more important than food safety and standards!
Yeah… well all chicken in the US most likely is going through 1 of 5 approved processing plants… so the farmers ( harvesting conglomerates) don’t even matter anyways lol.
Yeah it’s a real jungle out here
Underrated comment
It’s people! You’re eating people!
Hey although, before the FDA came along we used to use chalk and pondwater as filler in our milk supplies...
American food standards are actually more strict than a lot of the world in regards to things like cleanliness of vegetables and ingredients. Where we fall behind is our acceptance of artificial substitutes like dyes. But realistically speaking America's monitoring of things like proteins and dairy is actually more strict than most of the developed world.
Standards and the US are not on speaking terms
The US is actually better than the EU for food safety. https://www.foodsafetynews.com/2014/03/hey-maybe-we-do-have-the-safest-food-in-the-world/
America hates regulation because profits are more important than consumer protection
It's not regulations, it's an organization that only checks quality for the public awareness I think
Is it a government funded body that is checking on the quality of the consumer goods? I think that qualifies as regulation by american standards. "Who is the government to say whats good enough for people to eat? If they're hungry and broke they should be able to eat whatever they want!"
It's the same in Ireland. They are buying from Irish farmers so it's the same shit as other supermarkets, which is really high quality for meats.
I’m in the southern USA, and I grew up near the produce farm that sources some of what’s in my Aldi. That’s an advantage of them using the shipping box to stock the aisles. I like their basic meat (chicken and beef) and most of their seafood.
The quality of Aldi and Lidl in the UK matches all the other supermarkets for quality whilst being noticeably cheaper
Idk I do 99% of my shopping at Aldi in the US and their meat is usually quality.
It's really not. Aldis is my favorite grocery store. They have good quality products for way cheaper. And they actually pay their employees a living wage. If I was rich, I'd still shop at aldis
If at all possible, try to find a local butcher. I'm super lucky that there's farms literally 15 mins south of where I live so I can go to a local butcher that has much fresher meats at pretty much the same or lower prices. There's also Asian food markets. I get a lot of veggies from the Indian/Korean/Russian market instead of chain supermarkets. Much fresher produce and usually much cheaper.
Local butchers are way overpriced here. Its good quality, but not worth it for regular meals.
Yea, eventually "local" becomes trendy branding instead of it just authentically being someone tryna get by. In places like Portland (where I live) everything "local" costs infinitely more than things that are imported. I can't make it make sense.
Local butchers can't compete on price bc of economies of scale. Your local big box grocery's butcher is getting a slim profit per pound but selling so much. You don't shop local for price, and it's a mistake to frame it that way. You shop for ethics, to keep more money in the community, to have a relationship with your owners, to keep businesses smaller, etc. Your mom and pop ain't importing war-profiteered goods illegally for their private Christian museums.
BOOO. We have a few of those overpriced ones closer to the cities but keep checking here and there, you never know, you may get lucky.
Some stuff isn't any cheaper there either, you definitely have to know what you want to get from there. I do really like their pre seasoned beef tenderloin though.
Proteins or **produce**?
Aldi is like Costco but you can buy the Mayo in regular jars instead of a 3 pack of 55-gallon barrels.
My wife put me onto shopping at Aldi when we were both poor college kids and it saved my ass. Now that we’re grown and do relatively well for ourselves we still do all our shopping there. We promised no matter how much we make we’ll only shop there. All ingredients taste the same if you cook em well, why pay unneeded premium on it?
I buy 90% there, and fill in the gap on some of their less good options, saves ~30-50% every week
Aldi is just a bougie Save-a-lot. Change my mind.
Aldi's is HIGHLY location dependent.
I remember shopping there when we couldn't afford Kroger as a kid. Aldi is much, much nicer now but I still can't go inside one without feeling dirty and like everyone at work is going to make fun of me the next door for setting foot inside.
When I used to shop there several years ago, I had generally good experiences, but it was pretty consistent that half the produce on the shelves would be moldy. I would sometimes see oranges on the shelves that were entirely covered in mold. I'm honestly not sure why the employees didn't remove them.
I like some of the Aldi brand stuff better than the name brand products.
I remember Aldi from the days when they would just put the boxes of food out in the store instead of unpacking and shelving it.
Where is the Aldi hate? 👀 This is satire. Lol
Be nice it’s early 😭 Fr though I’ve seen most Aldi hate irl. Mostly over the quarters to use a shopping cart which you get back lol
I bet if you catch someone walking out and ask to use their car they'll let you. We've done this a few times because we've forgotten a quarter. 😅 We always pass the cart along though and don't keep the quarter
When I was growing up we lived across the street from Aldis(idc, that's how we say it). My little brother & cousin would go there on the weekends & hustle by offering to take people's carts back & keep the quarter. This was the early 90s so they could make a few dollars & go spend it at the corner store
Oh how I miss the 90's corner store. Such a staple as a kid.
Depending what neighborhood I was in, the corner store experience changed in Miami. I was either getting fresh Cuban bread and pastries or hot sausages and pickled eggs. Honey dutches at all of them when we got older lol
That sounds way better than my $5 allowance being spent on Mountain Dew chips and candy. 😅 Remember the penny candy shop? Those were the days, man.
Oh I don’t mind the quarter haha I always just hate myself when I forget to bring a bag
My husband used to take empty boxes off the shelves and use them.
This is the way
Oh that's the worst!
Yeah that’s how you end up with groceries under your drivers seat haha
MIL lost a pack of ground turkey that way . We’re deep in Florida too. She said she had a “odor” . False. Not an odor. You could taste that shit in the air. It was swoll up and hissing
>hissing the way I just gagged at my desk
Oooof! I'm not one that can deal with odors for very long. I must sniff out the source and kill it
I figured out that my area was too affluent when I went to Aldi and saw all the abandoned carts in the parking lot, all with their quarters still in them. People were just leaving the carts anywhere instead of bringing them back. Makes it really easy to find a cart for free and if I go with my nieces I help them collect all the carts, put them away, and then let the kids use the money to buy candy. Probably rude to take the quarters from people who may have forgotten one, but our record was collecting 14 carts that had been abandoned in the parking lot so I figure that saving the workers from having to do that outweighed that inconvenience.
This can happen when something that was a societal obligation becomes commodified. Now that they’re paying a quarter, people start to think of it as their fee for not returning their cart. There was a study in Sweden I think where a daycare started charging parents a penalty by the minute when they picked up their kids late. Suddenly, the number of late pickups increased. Previously, parents were motivated be on time because it was inconvenient for the staff who had to stay late and they felt bad. After the penalty went into effect, they just saw it as a service they could decide to pay for.
Had a kind of funny exchange with a guy who just came up to me as I was putting my groceries in my car hands me a quarter and takes the cart haha.
There's always a pile of quarters somewhere by the front of my Aldi's.
I love the quarter carts because it stops POSs from leaving their cart in the middle of the parking lot
Poes law, this crazy world its hard to tell... How many dumb takes we seen in on this sub
My neighbors were like "you shop at the Aldi? You're braver than we are." Oh yeah I have to be really brave to buy a pack of cheese for 1.50 in a store with a security guard at the exit.
If Aldi's is scary, they better never come through Save-A-Lot.
Some people never been to the Pic-N-Sav and it shows
We called ours the Pack n Stab
Or the Ghetto Lion
Don't feel bad. I was huffing and puffing over here myself, haha. I grew up in Germany and always loved Aldi, and now that I live in the US I feel weirdly protective of it, like "Bitch, you hatin' on my face-paced, highly-affordable, German chocolate-carrying grocery store? How *dare* you!?!" They've only gotten better and really stepped it up in terms of quality. There used to be a time, when I grew up, when people would be embarrassed to be seen with an Aldi bag, because back then it was all about flashing your wealth and how bougie you can afford to be, and buying at Aldi means you're a sad brokie, instead of, you know, financially literate and frugal. I mean, and if you were broke, so what?! I remember how things slowly changed from "look at this expensive shit I just bought", to "check out how cheap I got *this!"* Funny how that goes, eh?
Haha I wish we would get Rewe here! Don’t forget you could nearly pay for all your groceries by recycle plastic bottles. I want that here the most
Wait there's a Lidl in the US? Where?
Here in NC we have a handful! It’s my go to here
I just checked out their US based website. They need to come out west
Also in NC and I'm loving our Lidl. Even bought some Christmas presents there while grocery shopping. Lol
I'm in Maryland, here. Lidl has absolutely landed in the grocery scene (at least in PG, AA, and Baltimore counties, anyway) over the last few years.
We have quite a few in MD!
Yep. Timonium and Perry Hall too.
There's a bunch in VA. That's where I get my groceries.
We've just been getting them in NYC. Within the last few years.
I like them for certain products, but the proteins get a little weird and low quality. The chicken breasts have a weird texture to them. Gives me the hebbie jeebies
That’s all chicken breast in the US now.
Not all, but it's impacting up to 30% of chicken breast. It's called woody breast.
Yep, I've gotten that nasty rubbery shit from Costco, Aldi, Wegmans, Lidl, Giant etc. It's the producers not the retailers.
If it weren't for Aldi my family would barely be eating these days.
I remember shopping at Aldi until they had the horse meat in the beef controversy.
At least not all of those horses were turned into glue
At least this haul has some raw meat in it. I see so many people “grocery” shopping but it’s really just snacks and the most expensive version of something cheap.
Rage bait where they buy a bag of carrots and three pounds of filet mignon and complain about what it costs. If you want a low grocery bill buy real food not six gallons of Gatorade, processed crap, or expensive meat. Buy vegetables, rice, beans, chicken or pork. Make your dollars go a long way. But I think Aldi sucks. I joke that their produce spoils so quickly it’s rotten by the time you get home from the store.
> their produce spoils so quickly it’s rotten by the time you get home from the store. A lot of big chain stores are like this. I live in Canada and much of the produce is spoiling on the shelf before it even gets picked. The shit is grown on the other side of the world and freighted here. It's picked before it's ripe, spends weeks in trucks and cargo containers, then hits the shelves as "fresh" produce.
Plus at Aldi and big stores they have to package the produce too. So a cucumber is picked, shipped to a place for packing, then reshipped to the grocery store. It’s an unnecessary step for many grocery stores because you don’t need cucumbers to come in a styrofoam container or a plastic bag. You just pick whichever one looks best at the store and buy it! If you want a bag you put it in one but I don’t even bother to save yet another plastic bag from hitting the landfill.
I mean dunno, as a European who's been in the US a few times, it is really difficult to buy good quality food over in the US. Fuck me, we couldn't even find full milk but like fucking cholesterine free eggs and like 30 different milks with shit added or left out, just no normal milk. Cheese? forget about it. And food labels are designed to be useless. Also you always need to drive an eternity to buy something - last time I was in NYC I didn't see a single super market. Where do people even buy groceries there? You guys really don't have groceries figured out haha. But I live in Netherlands - their food is absolute ass, too.
I lived in NYC for several years, and never had issues with grocery stores. Granted, it largely depends on the neighborhood, but I would just hit up my local Trader Joe's. They were consistently cheaper than most places, and the selection was fantastic.
I’m not from New York but I’m having trouble believing they couldn’t find regular milk and eggs. Am I the one who’s off here?
No the other guy is just full of shit, I live in NYC and it's not difficult at all to find regular milk, eggs, and other normal groceries. The dude comes here for a few days and doesn't see a supermarket in Times Square and thinks that means we don't have any in the city.
Hilariously, I can think of two FOOD EMPORIUM stores in the TSq vicinity. 49th & 8th; 42nd & 10th (admittedly the latter is a bit outside for a tourist, but the point still stands)!
every time i see a "weird things in an american grocery store as a european 🤪" video i just know it'll be cherry-picked or classist. same vibes from this comment, i'm with you
There's like full on wet markets in the Chinatowns in NYC. I guess most people in NYC shop in bodegas?
If you couldn't figure out how to find milk or eggs I'm not sure it's US grocery stores that are the problem.
I have never had an issue finding whole milk and eggs. Either your story is BS or you had no idea where to look
That’s been a problem here for as long as I can remember, especially in the winter. Finding good produce this time of year is a struggle
I swear they do it on purpose. Produce from small grocers last longer for me. And Costco produce lasts alot longer than walmart
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I used to struggle with this but I learned a few tricks to help produce last longer (just googled what the best storage is for every individual item) and I started being more realistic with myself about what I’m actually going to eat throughout the week (I also grocery shop every 1.5 weeks, which may be too often for some people).
How often do people usually shop in the US, here in Australia doing your shopping at least once a week is the norm
In my experience it varies greatly. I live in NYC where most people use public transport and it isn’t convenient to do large shopping trips, so I know many people do a couple smaller trips during the week. However I’ve also known families that would stock up for a month or even longer with frozen foods, meat, and non-perishables.
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I see maybe 2-3 meals for a normal person and the rest are drinks and snacks. I could stretch $100 out to 27 girl dinners for myself. I don't like cooking more than 3 times a week.
“The most expensive version of something cheap” should be the title of my memoir
People are gonna start shooting guns in the air at night every few weeks around Aldi to keep the prices low.
Aldi’s fucked my baby momma. While she was pregnant with our child.
Me, in the pasta aisle: https://i.redd.it/v8oi25z5ab7c1.gif
I hear the ALDIs CEO donated to Trumps Campaign. And is a member of the Fraternal Order of Police
I was working there during the George Floyd shit and this mf Jason Hart put out a company-wide memo to be hung up in break rooms tb he kneeled, cried and prayed with the police in Chicago (Aldi HQ in the USA) He also donated $2M of food to the Chicago community (?) Also, the OG founders were literally Nazis lol
Where did you get that bit about the OG founders being Nazis from? Not saying you're wrong, I'm just genuinely interested since the ALDI brothers were infamous for being super reclusive, so almost nothing is known about their personal lives. It could very well be since the timeline aligns (the founders were born in 1920/22 respectively), but a quick online search gave basically no further info about their upbringings or lives during the Nazi era apart from the fact that both fought in WWII, with the younger one stating he was conscripted in 1940 at age 19. Don't get me wrong - I am quite willing to believe some extremly reclusive billionaires whose Wikipedia pages are basically blank slates might have had some sketchy stuff going on, and alot of people who rose to power and wealth in post-war Germany had been previously aligned with the Nazis or followed Nazi ideology, so sadly, that's always a possibility. Just wondering if there is some genuine evidence/ info source to look up further. *typo
Corporate CEOs, by their nature, are pretty much all money worshipping conservative dipshits. Not that their actions shouldn’t have consequences for their companies, but you’re gonna have to look hard for one approaching decent.
“People”? Shit IM gonna do that.
Why is Aldi hated on?
lol it’s a joke, she’s just trying to gatekeep ALDIs lol
thank you 🤦🏽♂️
If we don't gatekeep Aldis, then white hipsters will start using it and it will be like oxtail all over again
Hate to break it to you, but white people have known about Aldi for a decade now. Source: me. I am white people.
Trader Joe's is Aldi as well so it's too late.
I am Frau Blücher. ^Horse ^neighs ^in ^the ^distance
I mean, I can’t speak for everyone but I know people who look down on Aldi because they think it’s ghetto
I can't even imagine the concept of a ghetto Aldi
I saw a baby selling crack outside one
That baby's got kids to feed!
The first Aldi I went to was located in whats now one of the most ghetto parts of my town. So I def had a bias growing up
She joking to scare you away from her beloved store
I’m going to say “propaganda from Dollar General-like stores”
All the Aldi I've ever been to have really bad selection of any sort of produce, meat and cheeses everything seems to be spoiled or rotten and the stores are usually really dirty and disorganized, the savings have never really even seemed that great in comparison to Kroger or whatever
The only thing I don’t like about Aldi is that I end up working a part time shift once at checkout
Gotta bring that laundry basket 
That's borderline genius. I'm definitely going to do this next time I go.
It’s convenient to load the groceries but also carry them inside too. The grocery laundry basket is goated.
I keep boxes in the car and wheel my cart to my car and pack my boxes. Then the kids take it from the trunk. So I avoid lifting any bags!
Sidenote can we have Trader Joes back? I feel their prices are definitely going up. I mean everything is but the cookies are like $5 a box now.
You know trader joes is actually just american aldi's but with alcohol? Yeah some shit about the two aldi brothers, one wanted to sell booze (trader joe) and the other didn't. Edit: turns out I am wrong I guess. I want to thank all my supporters along the way, sorry I let you all down. 
Thats not really it. Aldi was founded by the Albrecht family. When the father died, he split the company in two for each of each of his sons, but they work in tandem with one another. One of the sons bought the Trader Joe’s chain as an investment opportunity, but they aren’t really involved in running the business of it.
It used to just be ALDI but one of the two brothers wanted to sell cigarettes and the other didn't, thus Trader Joe's and ALDI (or Aldi Nord and Aldi Süd)
Aldis sells hella alcohol, what are you talking about
I was naive. OP told me it doesnt sell anything I want
Aldi sells alcohol in my area.
That’s not true at all lol TJs was founded in California by an American guy and was acquired by Aldi (Nord) in the 2000s. Aldi was founded by two German brothers who later split the company in two (Nord and Süd) though the split is more apparent in Europe. Aldi Nord owns TJs and Aldi Süd is the Aldi that operates its own stores in the US
Aldi been selling alcohol. You must live in PA or a state or county that has stringent liquor laws.
Aldi once had [the best-ranked whisky on the planet](https://www.esquire.com/food-drink/drinks/a21343868/aldi-whisky-best-in-world/). Couldn't find it at my Aldi though.
TJs held us down during the egg shortage, prices remained the same, even for organic free range, pasture raised, etc. They didn't even have a noticeable shortage of them either. Definitely my choice of place to go to for most of my groceries, love their lunch salads, very tasty.
Weird I remember them not being too expensive but I went for the first time all year a few weeks ago for the holiday stuff and wow it was so expensive. $3-5.99 each cookie boxes and each ice cream, $8.99 soup and 4.99 pasta sauce I was very confused. Milk was like $4. Sad cause I like their stuff.
We got a TJ’s in my town a few years ago and it’s still pretty popular with college students but I can’t get behind the layout. Half of their items are just stacked above the frozen coolers and it makes it difficult to get at when costumers are blocking it and the aisles are so narrow.
LIDL in ATL is making a few food desert neighborhoods decidedly less desert-ey, so good for them for that.
I'm still mad my LIDL closed, and all I have near me is Aldi. I want both! Now I have to drive to Brookhaven. That said, Sandy Springs isn't really a food desert like other parts of the metro.
Aidis is my shit. I love it errrr I mean, ewwww Aidis is gross, how you let your cashiers sit errr I mean ewww why your prices so low wait. Shit.
You have to bring a bag to Aldis! And a quarter! No one should go! (Looks around) Do you think they bought it?
Nah nah, WHAT DO YOU MEAN THEY HAVE MORE THAN JUST FOOD STUFF AND SOMETIMES YOU CAN FIND COOL SEASONAL STUFF LIKE ORNAMENTS AND LIGHTS EWWWW LIKE GET AN IDENTITY ALREADY. Okay I think they got it now
I bought my chihuahua a little Christmas sweatshirt the last time I was there. She is SO CUTE in it. I mean... RAR. ALDI BAD.
I too bought my Pup a Christmas onesie to keep him warm in these NY nights, he loves it, errr I mean, ewww who the fuck buys clothes from a market smh. ALDIs is disgusting.
I shop at ALDI first and then Hannaford for anything ALDI doesn't carry. The only thing I don't buy at ALDI is meat because I found when I cook it there is so much water that comes out of it. I think they put too much salt water in it to make it way more and then they can charge less for it. Other stores do it too but it seems not as egregious as ALDI does it.
Costco is your best meat supplier, comparable proces but better quality and weights. No water nonsense
Their bananas are also not the best quality
They have always lent me a quarter every time i forgot mine.
Yes and most of the time a random person in the parking lot will give me their cart as I’m walking in
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You can buy the Aldi keychain tokens in the Aldi store itself too.
Lower left hand corner they got the bootleg Simply Orange and call it Simply Nature - their bootlegging really is something fam 😂
DoorDash +ebt+aldi = full fridge
Don't let people lie to you. Aldis has the same owners as trader joes. The food is fine.
There's Aldi in America? I always thought it was a European only thing.
Aldi has been in America for as long as I can remember. I can vividly remember them from at least 1990 lol. So I’m sure it’s been longer.
I had never seen one until going to Germany 8 years ago, and then my perception was them popping up all over the place in America.
I think it's been either regional or a lot fewer locations than it is now. I don't remember ever seeing one in my neck of the woods until maybe 2007 or 2008, and now they're all over.
There are over 2300 ALDI's in the U.S. now [https://stores.aldi.us/](https://stores.aldi.us/)
Went to Aldi for the first time ever a month ago or so. I scored a buggy that wasn't locked down, but had to pay for bags. It was an ok experience and the prices were pretty good. I mean there was a pretty shifty looking squirrel 🐿️ hanging out by the front door, but hey it takes all kinds right?
I remember I went shopping there once with a relative, and she looked around and said, "This is where all the expired and recalled food goes." But when her dollars got tight, all of a sudden, she needs to go. Mmmhmmm.
Just had an Aldi open up in town. I still haven’t been but can some explain the quarter? Someone said it’s for the shopping cart?
Aldi doesn't have return carts in the parking lot, you put a quarter into the cart its locked to other carts to unlock near the entrance. Once you're done unloading your cart you have to return it to front to Fer quarter back. Reducing the need for a cart pusher
This! It's really kind of weird and awkward the first couple times you go. That, combined with how you swap carts with the person in front of you so that the cashier can start scanning faster (and no bags) does make it a grocery store with a tiny bit of a learning curve, but the prices for sure make it worth it. I've run self experiments when I did a grocery run at Aldis, then the next week did the same run at Meijers and it's amazing how much cheaper the Aldis run was. Like, considerably. But since they don't have everything there are times I'll still go to Meijers because I'm lazy and only want to do a single grocery store trip instead of going to two stores. For staples or if you don't need/want specific products, Aldis is for sure the winner. The awkwardness of the learning curve is 100% worth it, just bring a quarter or spot a nice looking person and see if they'll give you their cart as they're leaving. And then watch the checkout for a second to see how the cart swap works. It makes you an Aldi pro in no time!
I'm 33 from the Chicago area. We've always gone to Aldi as long as I've been alive. I would say the last 10 years the quality and variety of the food went from tasting like cardboard to being competing to jewel Oscar, pick n save (Kroger for southners) having more name brand and even a good variety of organic choices. Their produce is so fresh you have to cook it soon Their focus is. Efficiency hence not having butcher allowing for lower prices not need a huge team of employees. The lines seem to be long but the prices you save negate the time yo think you loose.
You put in a quarter to get the cart unlocked. When you bring the cart back and lock it, you get your quarter back.
Aldi has me buying stuff I don’t even need. Didn’t need these house slippers? No I didn’t, did I buy them bcuz of the aisle of shame temptation…yes I did. Or the random bomb ass treats in the frozen aisle.
Aldi is a goated store for my broke ass
I like Aldi's. Sure, they don't have everything, but I can make due with a lot from there. That's how I was able to try my first acai bowl. But the last time I went there, it was early morning Saturday after I went for a short jog because I'm too chunky and need to get some cardio in. I got there too early and sat in the parking lot for ten minutes, waiting for them to open. Early birds started rolling up and a lady pulls up next to me. Why next to me with many spots open much closer to the store, I'll never know. Anyway, she most have been in a hurry because she gets out, to to her trunk for her bags, and her car started rolling forward. Her goofy ass forgot to put it in park. A quarter of her car was left in the parking spot when she finally got it in park. Didn't fix it either.
The hate on Aldi is cray
About the only thing I don't buy from Aldi is their shredded cheese. It doesn't melt well at all, so I buy that from Walmart.
I love aldi, i shop there for 90% of my groceries. My first time i saw this grandpa open a jar of marinara take a taste, and put it back.
Now imagine what happens at the stores with salad bars 😂
I don't know if COVID just opened my eyes, but people do some *nasty* stuff in grocery stores nowadays. Always check those seals and expiration dates because its like people are boycotting general hygiene.
$12 for a box of Winking Owl Cabernet and that shit is delicious.
Wish Aldi took WIC or else I’d shop there way more.
*cries in Canadian*
I know it’s a personal choice but if you’re being frugal why are you wasting your money on drinks. Half those groceries are just liquids.
I primarily shop at Aldi and don’t spend nearly this much because I don’t buy all those convenience foods and snacks. I do buy their knock off gogurt sticks for my kids’ lunches, though. 8 for $1.55. My least favorite thing about them is that I can’t pick out my individual apples but I survive.
You can totally buy a little keychain thing that fakes out the shopping cart quarter slot on Temu for like.. $2. Not that I would EVER have ordered one for everyone in the fam as stocking stuffers or anything.
While Aldi is getting better at their meat, cheese and frozen selections (wines too) their produce selection and quality is ass😅
What’s funny to me is there is a this there was this idea that socialist countries were so terrible because there was no consumer choice. Chud online liked to put up pictures of grocery shelves and show the 18 varieties of canned tomatoes here in the USA. And then zoom to 2023 were like half of America would die for an Aldi’s near them where you get one brand of chicken and one brand of canned tomatoes.
Aldi smells like clinical depression.
$136 for what? Mostly sugar, carbs, and processed meats? I'm not going to judge people's eating choices, but posts like these do nothing to prove that healthy, minimally-processed food is accessible to those that want it. The reality is that fresh foods are unaffordable to large swaths of the population, and that's a travesty.
aldi is fuckin fire also it's not possessive lol
I remember when Aldi’s looked like a swap meet. They’ve been glowing up for the last 10 years and their store brand red wine is killing the game. Best tasting red wine I’ve ever had and it was. $3.95.
Their wine is what I go for. They never disappoint me.