I'm inspired to visit Aldi's again. It's been years. I remember them as being a rather depressing very low budget ambiance, dimly lit by a few flourescent tubes with an awful color spectrum, and populated by a sad bunch of customers who looked like their next option was the local community kitchen. Kind of like the typical older Kmart that's about to go out of business.
I started shopping at Aldi because I have four children and our grocery bill was becoming unwieldy unless I spent a lot of time preparing for the visit. The local grocery stores play a game where they mark down a bunch of things "with card", but their regular prices are well over the average price at places like Walmart/Meijer. Aldi is consistently cheap and has resulted in me no longer wasting my time couponing or checking ads to make sure I'm not paying $5.00 for salad dressing that's normally $2.50 and often on sale for $1.50.
I was bugged by having to bag my own groceries, put a quarter in the cart (nearly unheard of outside of Aldi where I live) and having to pay cash (they take credit cards now). But a few things happened: about 80% of what I purchased as "store brands" were superior or dead on par with the name brand (a few were misses, a few were dramatically better). The total spend on produce and meat was significantly lower than I typically paid and I noticed when I was purchasing the produce that the quality was very consistent. My green grapes, the kids favorites, were much smaller than I typically bought but it turned out that makes them sweeter and there were fewer brown buggers in the bag.
As to the bagging, I am beginning to prefer it. They always have empty cardboard boxes and a large counter to organize things and because we intentionally grocery shop no more than once per month, I end up with a huge amount of things (we do joke, however, that it's impossible to get a combination of things at Aldi that fills the cart and results in a bill greater than $220 -- my current record highest). Organizing it in boxes according to what fridge/freezer/cupboard it will end up in makes that part of the process a lot easier (easy enough for the kids to do it without our help).
And for the quarters, this tiny little deposit results in the carts being put back in the bay. It saves them money, sure, but it has two other benefits. The bay always has carts -- I don't have to surf the parking lot during the holiday season because all are in use or scattered through the lot. And unlike every other store where more than half of the carts have problems, Aldi's are always in perfect working condition. No stuck or crooked wheel forcing me to push the thing sideways to make it go straight and I'd imagine that has cut down on damage to parked cars, too.
I remember about 8 years ago when Aldi first appeared in my hometown and my parents would occasionally shop there. I hated their self branded foods. Now my wife and I shop there all the time and their own branded stuff is actually pretty good. Lots of people agree it's become much better. Occasionally produce is under-ripe and their selection is definitely smaller than other stores, but it's great for a lot of things.
We have one in my hometown, and that's exactly what I remember. But on my most recent visit home, my wife needed something and the nearest place was Aldi. They definitely changed. It wasn't anything like I remember.
There are 2 Aldi's near me here in the UK. One in a wealthier area and one in a poorer area. They do seem to alter the store somewhat to match what they sell. The Aldi in the wealthier area has a larger area for fresh foods and a large stock of those foods. I think the poorer one has more biscuits and soft drinks.
