Aldi?

[scard192]

there is one opening about 5 minutes from you house in the fall. Don't know much about this chain. For those who shop there, pros/cons?
TIA

 

[firefly_ris]

I shop there regularly. Where ours is located is next door to a WalMart and across the street from a Wegmans. So typically I will start at Aldi and get as much as I can on my list from there, then whatever's left or if I have specialty items to get like olive bar type stuff then I finish up at Wegmans (or Walmart if needed).

I save a ton of money doing this as opposed to getting all my groceries from Wegmans. Yesterday I bought almond milk, cool whip, ice cream sandwiches, 1/2 gal ice cream, 2 things of mints and a bag of pita chips for $10. Not everything is a huge savings but a lot of things are. After you go for a while you get into the groove of what you normally like to but there and what you save for your big grocery store.

Some weeks the produce looks awesome and then other times not as great, so again I play that by ear and finish up produce at Wegmans if I need it.

My regular type purchases there are produce, snacks, cheese, salmon, canned goods, ice cream, cookies, almond milk, coffee creamer. Their brands are "Benton's" and "Sundae Shoppe" -- which are their store brands basically. Sometimes they have name brand stuff but it is random. Their Benton's girl scout cookie copies taste exactly like regular girl scout cookies.

In the summer they also have a lot of random, limited items like hanging flowers, one year I got a little Japanese maple tree, outdoor stuff... They have this sort of rotating products year round, you can check their flyer on the website by date to see what they're getting in.

Just remember your resuseable bags and a quarter for your shopping cart.

Also remember Aldi seems to vary across the country, we have some good ones here (including the one I frequent) and one kind of crappy one. So YMMV.

 

[Eureka]

I like it for a lot of things that are more expensive in other stores: "skinny" bread (Fit & Active brand, 1 WW point per slice), other sandwich breads and naan for making pizzas, organic rice and quinoa, multigrain tortilla chips (love them, not too salty), lots of salty and sweet snacks, dried fruit (except the dried figs that were SO hard), baking goods (brown sugar, flour, spices), hot cocoa and coffee k cups, their brand Crystal Light, their brand Triscuits, great European-style cheese at great prices. I have bought turkey kielbasa and cheddarwurst there but I have not ventured into the fresh meats. The produce at my stores never looks very good, so all I buy in that realm is salad mixes, ginger root and garlic. It took me awhile to figure out what we liked. When I first went, I bought one box/container/etc. of whatever we wanted to try and took it from there.

There are few things I would NOT recommend. We did not like the alfredo sauce (but did like the pesto), their brand Rice a Roni, the garlic breadsticks and fresh deli case pizzas, the fresh tortellini (never got soft), the bananas never seem to ripen, and I also didn't like the frozen pierogies.

 

[fly girl]

Aldi is great, but I find it is never my only grocery store. I am not a routine shopper there as it is further away than I'd like, but I will always stop if I am in the area.

PROS: Produce is really good and at phenomenal prices. Fish, we really like their salmon.

CONS: It likely won't be your only grocery store, they don't have all the essentials for me. YMMV. Always have 25cents in your car for the shopping carts. I have to keep one in the console at all time because it is easy to forget.

 

[belle032]

I LOVE Aldi. The stores near us were just remodeled and they are very nice. I do the vast majority of my grocery shopping there and am comfortable purchasing pretty much all of their products. We've gotten meat, seafood, produce, dairy, frozen food, breads, etc. without any problems. The only product I found I don't like is their coffee creamer so I do get that from another store.

Check their weekly flyers for specials and the "Aldi finds" which include lots of fun and useful house/kitchen/outdoor stuff.

There is a huge group on the other social media site that is super friendly and helpful that has tons of recipes and tips and advice and reviews on Aldi purchases. It's a group of "Aldi Nerds!"

I know stores do vary so once you go a few times you'll start to figure out what you like and don't like. Just take your reusable bags and the shopping carts cost a quarter!

 

[SandyinMonterey]

I'm not a fan. I know many who swear by it. My local Aldi's is small and I heard they plan on making improvements and making it bigger so maybe it will get better.

 

[caroline5177]

I have many friends that LOVE Aldi. I’m not a fan though will occasionally stop in for seasonal items. I don’t mind the quarter or bagging my own groceries (I actually prefer that), but I just can’t get on board with shopping there. I think the fact that our store is in a spot that is so hard to get in and out of also deters me.

 

[QueenIsabella]

Another person who loves Aldi's! We have a new one--I've heard older, un-remodeled ones can be kind of gross, but the newer ones are very nice.

I find I can do ~90% of my shopping there. I encourage you to try their house brands of things, and decide for yourself if you like them. There are very few that we don't like--store-brand Cheerios, pizza, spaghetti sauce, and their pasta come to mind--and the savings can be good. I've heard good things about their wine, they have a large cheese selection, and their produce is limited, but generally fresh (this wasn't always the case, but they've improved substantially in recent years).

They have a fair amount of organic and all-natural products, if that interests you.

They rotate their inventory--always check for this week and next week's specials. For example, they do German stuff in late Sept. for Oktoberfest--when it sells out, it's gone, until Dec. when a slightly different mix of German Christmas specialties hits the shelves. A lot of things are like this (Italian specialties, Asian, etc.) So you'll see things come, go, and then come back a few months later.

Minor cons: You can't buy individuals of some fruits and vegetables--it's a 3-pack of green peppers, or none. Ditto for lemons or potatoes. Their selection of produce and fresh meats is smaller than you'll find at a regular grocery store. There are very few name brands, but their store brands are pretty good. You won't find more unusual stuff, like weird spices or dark brown sugar or chocolate lactose-free milk. Most things come in one size (like peanut butter or jelly).

OTOH, my local one currently has eggs at $0.47 a dozen. Milk is $1.84 a gallon. Boneless, skinless chicken breasts are consistently $1.99/lb, sometimes dropping to $1.69 on sale. YMMV

 

[Gr8t Fan]

We love shopping at ALDI and, like others, we start there getting as much as we can and finish up at a neighborhood grocery store. One thing no one has mentioned so far is their twice as nice guarantee on food items. If there is something you buy that you don't like, they will refund the purchase price and give you another of the same item in the event that the quality of this first product you purchased was not 100%.

 

[ajwolfe]

Not really a fan. Our store is old, kind of dirty and so crowded! I hate being herded down the aisles and not being able to really look. I will say there are some good values to be had but you really have to watch - a lot of times I can find a better deal at our local Gerbe's with sale items than there. I will say I love their cheap wine - Winking Owl though - good to use when making homemade Sangria and such.

I have been in newer stores in other towns and they are definitely easier to navigate..If ours was like that I may give it more of a go on a normal basis.

 

[chaboyd]

They have great prices. I love almost all of their branded stuff. The biggest reason I don't go there more is there are a few things I cannot get there. Right now I'm so busy with work, making two different stops is hard for me.

 

[Hikergirl]

Our Aldi's which was just a few years old recently got renovated, it's a little bigger and much brighter.
I am definitely a fan, I save a ton of money on snacks and things that my teens eat.
Their GS cookie knockoffs are way better than the real things. They have these coconut crisp cookies that are sooooooo good. THings like pretzels, chips, nuts and dried fruit are some of my go to's.
I love their selection of cheeses, dips, hummus and fresh salsa.
I shop there once a week and depending on what I have at home, I can get all my shopping done there. The produce is ht or miss, and I do find that some stuff you have to use within a few days. Not all of it though, some of the packaged stuff like peppers and tomatoes are the same ones at the grocery store.
When I first started shopping there I was a meat snob and wouldn't even look at it, but one day I was lazy and didn't want to run to another store so I bought some boneless chicken breasts. I was hooked, they are now my favorite, they always tender, even if I overcook them.
I have gotten other meats there too without any issues. The one thing I have never tried is their seafood, but I always see people saying they like their salmon so I might try it.
I love Aldi's definitely give it a try!

 

[amcnj]

Go and see if they have things you normally purchase. Many items are packaged to look just like name brands, and in general you’ll have to try their products and see if you like them. I have only bought some items here and there so far, and don’t know that I could ever do the bulk of my shopping there.

 

[missnic]

I LOVE Aldi. My family shopped there all the time when I was a kid (30odd years ago in the midwest) and I was SO happy when they finally opened here in Florida a few years ago.
I do get some people's hangups though. My DH doesn't really like it because it does have sort of an odd 'off brand' vibe to it. But even he is amazed at their 'junk' aisle where you can buy a tire iron, socks, mulch, and hand lotion on the same shelf.

I make my grocery list around what I can get at Aldi, and then fill in the odd bits at Publix. Like someone said, it's more of a basic store, you're not going to find super specialized grocery items. Not every day anyway.

Oh, and sometimes they have off brand Trader Joe's items. Same thing, different packaging. For example, TJs has these amazing multigrain veggie tortilla chips that I've recently found at Aldi.

 

[DisLiss]

Pros are that it can save you a lot of money. Also, that they are adding more specialty items, organic items, vegan items all the time, which is pretty cool for such a scaled back store. Their procedures of using a quarter to access a cart keeps their parking lot incredibly clear of carts (at least at my store), which is really nice, too.
Cons: as was already posted---I do go to more than just Aldi. however in my case, There's an Aldi, a Target, a Walmart, and another larger regional grocery store all within 5 minutes of one another, so I don't find it to be a problem to hit 2 stores per week, or 3 if I'm running into target for something. (And since you can do order pick-up at Target, that makes my little loop all the more convenient.)

 

[wishuponastar1984]

Aldi is similar to Trader Joe's in that they have LOTS of house brand items. Most of them I have found very comparable to the name brand counterpart at a significant savings. As someone else mentioned, they have a Girl Scout cookie that is delicious and is less than a $1 a bag! They do carry some name brand items and they are not really any cheaper than your typical Walmart, so if you are a very name brand shopper you wont save much. I like the model where they scan your stuff quickly then you go to the side counters and bag your items yourself a nice perk. I sometimes hit Aldi when out and about and like that I can sort and store my items appropriately so that I can store my perishables in cooler bags and make sure that my loaf of bread isn't under a bag of potatoes!

 

[loves to dive]

I'm one of those who isn't a fan. The two times I've tried it at our local store, there wasn't really much of what we eat and what I bought I then compared to the prices at our local Kroger and Kroger was less with a better selection. I think you just have to try the one near you and decide for yourself. I will say, I also rarely find anything at Trader Joe's that we eat. As others have said, rarely can it be your complete one stop grocery shopping store and frankly, I don't like having to go across the street to Kroger after going there when I can just go to Kroger and get it all.

 

[Searc]

I am a self-professed grocery store snob. I only shop at Festival Foods, which is a chain in WI. I can't stand Aldi because it feels like a junk store to me. Everything about it feels cheap...the shelving, the floor, the tacky presentation of product, haphazard placement, the ever-changing merchandise, the check outs, the cheap linoleum shelf across the front,etc.

Conversely, I love Trader Joe's and wish it was closer than 2 hours away!

 

[TwoMisfits]

Aldi is my "get my husband to pick up basics" shop.
Hmart is my produce shop.
Safeway is my "get my allergy stuff" shop.

 

[Gr8t Fan]

Trader Joe’s is the parent company of Aldi.

@TwoMisfits - Love, Love, Love H Mart! They just opened one near my office and I can spend all day in there wandering the aisles.