So... Who can tell me about Aldi's supermarkets

[Ohio Joe]

Now that I'm pretty much homeless (going place to place, living with friends) and dirt poor, I'm doing everything I can to make it from day to day. One of the things I'm doing is shopping at Aldi's supermarkets. Wicked cheap food prices by cutting out a lot of things people expect in a supermarket (no baggers, charge for bags, rent a cart system, ect) and selling their brand of knockoffs for almost everything.

What I'm looking for here is if anyone knows anything about the company. I've done some poking about on the internet but not really found what I'm looking for. Are they a blue company? Treat their employees ok?? or are they dirt bags like a walmart? or somewhere in between?

I may have lost pretty much everything but f-it, I'm not going to give away my standards. So, any info would be appreciated. Thanks!

[Oceansaway]

1. i shop at Aldi's & i like them....

don't know if they are 'blue' or not but a friend has worked for them

for 7-8 yrs. and likes the job....



I DON'T SHOP AT ANY WALMART....EVER....

[Crazy Dave]

2. Shop where you can afford it

Too many self-righteous assholes who post what others should do and where they should shop hardly ever practice what they preach.

[Ohio Joe]

6. My shopping efforts have nothing to do with anyone else's opinion

I also will not ever say anything bad about where anyone does their shopping. I've lost everything in the last 7 months, my job, my home and everything I owned (fire). Right now, I have control over very little in my life and I refuse to give up the things I do still have control over. It is really my own choice to do this.

[Crazy Dave]

9. Before we got booted out of our club house...

The small group of democratic friends that I'm a member of had a "Wall of Shame" that almost had to expand to two walls. It was pictures taken by members of cars and monster SUVs with Kerry/Edwards '04 or any type of Obama bumpers stickers at places like Wal-mart, Home Depot, etc.

The club house...we're all broke right now and can't afford the rent anymore. No plans have been made yet for a Feb. or March meetup yet.

[JVS]

3. Aldi really isn't a Supermarket, it kind of turns back the clock to the era or regular markets

Generally costs are kept low by having a very small staff. If you are at the end of a very long line at Aldi, be prepared to wait. Perhaps they'll open a second line, but usually they prefer to have only one worker running the register at a time. They get worked hard.

The prices are pretty low. Good prices on staples like milk, eggs, hotdogs, hamburger meat, bread. Produce is a step into the past. Generally not different from supermarkets in prices, which isn't surprising. Produce is expensive to stock and they'd probably prefer not to have it. In fact, meat and dairy aisle is relatively spartan too. Aldi prefers things that can sit at room temp. There are plenty of prepackaged snack foods and such with store brand counterparts. A lot of it is HFCS laden junk. Even their bread uses the corn syrup.

[hippywife]

22. Many of their things have no HFCS

like their fruit preserves(I read labels religiously)but some of them do. You just got to look but you find fewer items that do in an Aldi's.

I also find that their produce is tons cheaper than a regular grocery here in our area. Yours may be different.

I like to go there for staples only since we don't eat store bought meat and their seafood tends to be from China. But you can't beat them for stuff like canola oil, brown sugar, regular sugar, olives, butter, cream cheese. That kinda stuff is really all I buy there.

[AngryAmish]

4. Owned by secretive Germans

One of the owners was taken hostage by Red Army Faction (I think. I have a hard time keeping various communist terrorist groups straight).

<http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/industry_sectors/retailing/article5438532.ece>

Anyway, nobody knows much about them. They also own Trader Joe's.

[JVS]

5. Secretive Germans, like some kind of Willy Wonka shit.

[HopeHoops]

7. I was wondering about those short green guys who were stocking the shelves.

[NewJeffCT]

8. Aldi's is why Wal-Mart couldn't make a dent in the German market

and was forced to withdraw. Consumer guru Clark Howard loves them.

Other than that, I don't know, as there are none near where I live.

[GoddessOfGuinness]

10. Buyblue.org is temporarily down...

That's where I usually get info on various businesses.

What I found in poking around, is that Aldi is anti-union, and highly secretive. Here's an article that may shed some light on things: http://www.greenleft.org.au/2004/584/32414

Aldi is owned by T.A.C.T. Holding Inc, the same company that owns Trader Joes. Trader Joes' employees are also non-union.

That said, I'm not really sure how this compares to other grocers in our country. I can remember when the folks who worked in the Safeway around the corner from me received a decent salary with a pension and benefits. They didn't have to work elsewhere to make ends meet. That's not the case anymore, at least not for entry-level grocers...and the employee turnover rate seems huge. The unions don't seem to have much effect on the employees plight.

It's possible that Aldis isn't much if any worse than the other grocery stores available.

I'd say, given your current monetary situation, keep shopping where you can afford to shop. I hope you're soon able to afford a place of your own. :hug:

[tigereye]

15. isn't that odd that the same company owns both

fwiw, people I know who work for Trader Joe's really like working there. Maybe not as cool as working for Whole Foods (I have a very good friend who has worked for them happily for several years), but pretty good.

[GoddessOfGuinness]

18. I came across an article that said TJ's sells imported shrimp

from a company that uses young children as part of their work force.

On the one hand, I find that appalling; but on the other, I remember that historically, U.S. children have had an important role in helping their families survive. In certain instances kids still take jobs to help their low-income families.

I'd love to see a world where all children could focus on school and play until they were in their teens. But how can this be achieved when so many adults do not earn a living wage?

[tigereye]

21. I think that we are privileged in westernized cultures to see childhood in a

very different way than many other cultures, where children do not have the luxury of such a prolonged childhood and protections. OTOH lots of young kids here help their families with their restaurants and other businesses, but that is not required as much for survival.


I just saw Slumdog Millionaire and it really put how lucky we are to be able to care for most of our children in such a protected way, in perspective.

[GoddessOfGuinness]

23. If my parents had been poor,

it's possible that the money I earned delivering newspapers and babysitting would have been needed to make ends meet. That doesn't seem like such a big deal to me.

But when you take a look at what is expected of poor children in other countries...from having to dip little hands into scalding vats of dye to create vibrant-colored silk fabric to ingesting pesticides while harvesting cocoa beans all day, top it off with being denied an education so there is hope for their future, and it's unconscionable.

[tigereye]

26. it's crazy when you think that children gained protections from such things

here because animals got those protections first, or so I recall from a class in grad school...


Children used to be seen as possessions and basically expendable and that's how it seems in some other parts of the world... :(

[GoddessOfGuinness]

27. You're right! I'd forgotten that tidbit.

And being children, they've never been able to organize for their rights.

It angers me that kids are taxed on their income when they don't have the right to vote.

[dembotoz]

11. Shop there weekly

I shop for my mom there consistently.
It has allowed breathing room for her on her social security budget.
Don't want to be over dramatic, but Aldi's has saved her butt.

Quality Gerneally ok.

I have noticed the same employees over time--so they may not be totally awful.
They seem to work pretty hard, but they also are supposed to get fairly good benneys for the industry.

and i will not shop wally world

[Bunny]

12. I don't shop there, but if there are Amish in your area, find out when

they get a ride to Aldi's, and make sure you go the day before they do. I understand that they pick the place pretty clean when they go.

[Lars39]

13. The Mennonites in the area I live also like Aldi's.

I always figure I'm shopping at the right place if they frequent the same store. :D

[Bunny]

14. yeah, I would guess that the Amish know a good deal when they see it.

[kwassa]

16. Aldi's also owns Trader Joes, which they bought up in the late '70s

kept the concept intact and took it nationwide

I go to TJs constantly.

[WCIL]

17. The people at our Aldi have worked there forever

The last time I saw a classified ad for them (several years ago) they were offering cashiers $10.50/hr- far more than the minimum wage offered at any of the other local groceries. That is the sum total of my knowledge of their business practices.

[davsand]

19. My biggest beef with them is they don't take checks.

I don't carry cash very often so a trip to Aldi's means a trip to the bank first.



Laura

[RebelOne]

20. But Aldi's does take debit cards, which is all I ever use for shopping.

Here's from their Web site:
What ALDI does accept are cash, food stamps/EBT cards, and PIN-based debit cards—the lowest-cost forms of payment for us—and the fastest ones for you.

[bif]

24. Here's what I heard

A lot of their food is spoiled. Watch out. Check the labels for expiration dates. A friend had some various snacks from there and they tasted stale. She said their meat wasn't good. Not rotten, but stuff that just didn't taste right. If I shopped there, I'd stick to canned goods with dates on it.

[AwakeAtLast]

25. I would like it if they would staff people to man the 7 empty lanes

while ONE person checks everyone out. I have never seen more than one lane open at ours. Standing in line for 45 minutes is not my cup of tea.

[JVS]

29. That's one of the big reasons I don't go there often.

I don't shop for that many things there, and I don't feel like waiting for 45 minutes in line to get 2 packs of hotdogs, a couple bags of nacho chips, milk, and eggs, when several of the people in the line have apparently decided to buy enough to feed their extended families for a month.

[MrScorpio]

28. I used to shop at the Aldi's in Germany

I know nothing about them in the States

[FunkyLeprechaun]

30. Despite me now having a job

With two incomes coming in for this household (my temp job and my husband's permanent job) we still shop at Aldis because we're cheap like that. I think Aldi originally came from Germany but in the UK lots of the products like the shampoo and shaving things come from Ireland. When we want to spoil ourselves once in a while it's usually Sainsbury's or Waitrose but our general shopping is done at Aldi (or Morrison's if we can't find an ingredient at Aldi).

The downside to Aldi is the fact that it doesn't have every ingredient. But the ingredients we do buy is good, not great though but good. I had a lovely roast beef from Sainsbury's once and I could tell the differences between the cuts from Aldi and Sainsbury's. Imagine my surprise when I saw an Aldi in my hometown in MN!

[WinkyDink]

31. NON-Union.