Grocery Stores

Grocery Store Thread

Tell me about Aldi, Veeky Forums? Is the quality worth it? Are the prices worth it?

The other grocery stores around are Publix, Winn-Dixie, Bravo, and Save-a-lot, as well as a couple health food stores but they are pricey.

I usually do my shopping at Publix because it's just a better experience in general, always clean and the people are friendly. The produce and bakery goods are always good quality. I was thinking of going to Aldi to check out their dry goods though. Does anyone know if they generally carry nuts, dried fruit, and things like chia/flax/hemp seed?

What grocery store do you usually shop at?

Aldi is cheaper while having good quality. However, you can see why it is cheaper when you walk inside.

I usually shop at pic related because it's closest and the hot rotisserie chickens are dirt cheap. I used to shop at Ralph's right next door but they closed it down and replaced it with a Marshall's for some reason.

Albertsons and Stater Brothers I don't like because employees seem not to give a shit about anything but gossiping about each other, can't get a cut of beef without hearing about who fucked who

Food 4 Less is good but far

Believe it or not, one of their biggest money-saving measures is to not have any music playing in store. Royalties and licensing are very, very expensive, but chains have to pay them in order to play music because they're not exempt under § 110 (5) under the Copyright Act of 1976 (IE they exceed the square footage allowed for playing radio broadcast as background music and therefore have to pay to play any music in store).

This gives the store a dead feeling to me. Other stores just seem livelier because of the background music, but Aldi doesn't at all.

Another money-saving thing is that they don't carry a large variety. They have one brand of flour, one brand of eggs, one brand of frozen pizza etc etc etc. Greater variety means needing more space and space costs $$$.

A third is displays: there are none. Displays cost money.

Finally, they have fewer workers, even if the workers are paid more. Each store has only one manager and two or three AMs and six-to-seven underlings.

All this, combined with other little things they do here and there to save dosh, means that they extend their profit margins far beyond what you might have expected. They reported $7billion last year. That's only a billion less than Wegman's. Aldi is more profitable per square (insert your preferred unit of measurement here) than any other grocery store chain except Trader Joe's. Which is, as many of us know already, owned by Aldi, anyway.
>TJ's is more profitable because it sells the same shit as Aldi at a slightly higher price, just repackaged.

I agree with everything except that last bit.

The food they serve is indeed of "perceived" higher quality, meaning instead of selling food from the factory that also sells to walmart they sell from the whole foods factory.

Such food already has high margins but with the aldi philosophy you can sell it even higher.

Its good for buying junk food, but not much variety when it comes to meats. They run short-staffed, the cashiers usually stock items and clean the store.

I've not been inside a TJ's in about ten years, so I don't know if their offerings have changed.

Last I went, it was identical to Aldi in quality, which isn't bad to begin with. Aldi's paprika, for example, is way better than McCormick at a fraction of the price. It's not quite as good as super premium paprika, but it's pretty close and way, way cheaper.

Publix is good. Lucky's Market is great. The Fresh Market is great but can be very expensive. Winn Dixie is just ok. Those are the ones in my town.

Walmart is for when I'm almost out of money for the month.

aldi is cheap but the two closest to me have horrendous produce quality and selection. one of them regularly does not have a single carton of intact eggs.

I went in Save a Lot once. It was alright. Very low prices. I bought a box of pancake mix and it wasn't in a plastic bag, it was just loose in the box.

Bravo is nice, also very cheap prices. I don't go very often because it's on the other side of town but I would if I lived closer.