Hooray! White sauce for all!
California Aldi customer here…. I’ve come to really like shopping there. The stores are quiet and clean. They have great prices on healthy staples. And they have interesting items that are only there for a short time.
I know they’ve had dealings across the Pond for quite some time now, but reading the headline is like reading “Family Mart is coming to Karlskrona with plans of opening 10 stores in Blekinge” or “Kroger’s is coming to Sapporo.”
I’ve never shopped at an Aldi so I don’t know what to expect from them, but it will for sure be nice for Kroger to finally have some real competition here again.
It’s a little grocery store with good prices. Like, you won’t find an aisle with 50 different canned bean SKUs and they might not have something specific that you need for a recipe, but you can pick up most staples and find some favorites among the rotating items.
Oh you’re in for a treat. Their stuff is euro standard. So healthier than equivalent American product. Also it’s generally cheaper than the equivalent products. I don’t know how they do it but their produce is always better than other local stores. I’m specifically talking onions and tomatoes. Even this late in the year I can get onions and tomatoes as good as the other stores in peak season. Obviously not as good as fresh farmers markets, but still good.
One weird thing is they have German week and Italian week, once every 4 months. So that’s annoying but it’s good stuff. The other problem is that there are Aldi groupies. They have products like coolers, chairs, candies, air conditioners and stuff like that, that last for a month, and then switch to other items. These crazy people will buy like 4 or 5 large “portable” A/C’s. Which is batshit crazy. So you’ll get a run on products that people have reviewed positively. There are local and national Facebook groups of Aldi weirdos, so if a new product comes out Wednesday morning and some Aldi groupies tries it, and posts about it. It might be sold out by the time you get off work that afternoon.
However, all of their normal products that stay there all year are good too. So if you don’t feel like going out of your way to beat the… Strange people, you’re still coming out ahead. I don’t have a sweet tooth but they have this chocolate parfait thing… Omg. Those are incredible. Congrats on getting Aldi, you’ll appreciate it. Unfortunately you will still have to shop at Kroger for certain things as Aldi just doesn’t carry everything.
The way you describe it makes it sound like a European-themed Costco vibe. If the Aldi weirdos can out-weird the Costco weirdos, that will be something to behold.
Significantly smaller than Costco, which also has its merits. There are some similarities, but Aldi is much closer to a normal grocery store. Especially the proportions lol. They keep prices low by being super efficient.
