The majority of checkouts at my local Aldi are self-service; I think Walmart might have started that trend.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

Farmers and the amount of food they grow isn’t the issue. It’s corporate greed.

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.

This is the edgy, low information shit which makes Lemmy so obnoxious. Every. Fucking. Thread.

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.

TJs as in Trader Joe's? Maybe avoid them for a while

Care to elaborate? Was everything more expensive than competitors in you area or just certain things?

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.