CNN ventures out beyond the beltway and the bouroughs and discovers....

[charby]

Everything is organic and natural. 

Nope, I find a lot of non organic or HFCS containing items at my local Aldi's. Even the veggies will have some label organic and others not labeled. Same with stuff made with soy oil.

[Andiron]

Late,  but similar thoughts to the rest.  Aldi our go to,  and it's conveniently across from a Giant Eagle.  We get all the easy stuff at Aldi,  and fill in the blanks at GE.  And by blanks,  I mean liquor,  since it has a state store    And fresh veggies and stuff....

[Perd Hapley]

A recent article. My apologies if this has been posted already.

https://www.cnn.com/interactive/2019/05/business/aldi-walmart-low-food-prices/index.html


And:
https://www.etsy.com/listing/597490789/3d-printed-aldi-quarter-keeper-for?ga_order=most_relevant&ga_search_type=all&ga_view_type=gallery&ga_search_query=Aldi+quarter+keeper&ref=sr_gallery-1-3&organic_search_click=1&frs=1&col=1

[TechMan]

We just had a Kroger Marketplace open up near us and it has a Bar in the store.

[Pb]

I love Aldi!  We just got one nearby.  They have improved.

[MechAg94]

We had an Aldi open up here a couple years ago.  I had no idea what it was.  HEB is the grocery store I usually use.  I guess it is a more local chain that is generally well run with decent prices.  I will have to visit Aldi at some point.

[zxcvbob]

Even when Aldi first came here and was a depressing place that smelled funny, only took cash and EBT cards, and was mostly shopped by first gen Somali immigrants (that's fine, Somalis gotta eat too) I recognized the quality of their weird private brands.  The fresh produce wan't much, but they had pretty a good freezer section.  And very good European chocolates :D  So I shopped there mostly for canned goods, cereal, and dairy, and bought fresh meat and produce elsewhere.  They have gotten *much* better in recent year; even before they remodeled the stores they started selling more and better produce and meats, and a lot more prepackaged bakery items besides just tortillas and sliced bread.

Now the place looks a lot like Trader Joe's but less fancy.

[Pb]

We had an Aldi open up here a couple years ago.  I had no idea what it was.  HEB is the grocery store I usually use.  I guess it is a more local chain that is generally well run with decent prices.  I will have to visit Aldi at some point.

Don't forget your quarter!

[MechAg94]

Don't forget your quarter!

The automated lottery ticket machine at HEB takes dollars. 

[Perd Hapley]

The automated lottery ticket machine at HEB takes dollars. 

Rather than employ a team of runners to retrieve carts from the parking lot all day, Aldi expects its customers to return carts to the store after each shopping trip. It forces that behavior by charging customers a quarter deposit that they get back when they return their carts.

This is not a novel idea. Several American grocers tried it in the 1980s and 1990s, but abandoned the practice after it annoyed customers who had come to expect more services at  their grocery stores. Aldi, which opened its first US store in Iowa in 1976, has stuck with the model, insisting the deposit system is key to its low-price strategy. The store’s most die-hard fans even celebrate it, heralding when Aldi offers “quarter keeper” keychains from time to time. Some fans even knit their own versions. A search on Etsy for “Aldi quarter keeper” turns up more than 500 results.