What is Aldi like really?

[Bookworm75]

There's a rumour of an Aldi store opening in our town (obvs not for a while now I imagine with everything that's going on at the moment), and I'm wondering what Aldi stores are like to shop in. Are they really much cheaper than say Morrisons? And are they like 'normal' supermarkets inside or are they more like Costco?

I agree about Aldi being good for people who cook from scratch, yes Aldi don't stock all the branded goods, but I don't buy a lot of branded food anyway.
The only thing I can''t get in Aldi is a decent range of spices., or things like Harissa. But then I Tesco usually don't sell that either.
I stock up separatley for spices at an Asian store.
Otherwise their range is awesome.
They had just announced a new store in my town, I hope that will still be going ahaead after this crisis.

@borntobequiet Well that's annoying, I wanted 4 cuckoo clocks 😬

I remember when I was little (I’m 58 now), shopping with my mum on a Saturday. We go up one side of the highstreet (butchers/grocers/cheese shop (which also did bacon and ham). There was a supermarket that she wouldn’t go in. “Cheap” she’d say (she was a snob 🙄). That little shop was Tesco.

I think people feel the same often about Aldi. And Lidl. And yet, they are excellent for fresh fruit and veg. And of course, lots of other things too. I think, I they can maintain their USP, they’ll be huge and everywhere, in future. I detest Sainsbury’s. I only go in when I absolutely have to. My son, who has high functioning autism is at college. He when asked what he wants to aim for he said “I’d like to work at Costa Coffee or Sainsbury’s”. We’ve tried to arrange a two hour slot with them where he can do some work experience each week. They ignored my contact with them so, I let college handle it. They’ve totally ignored each phone call/email College have made too. The irony is, my son’s diet comprises specific types of food which .... he insists I get from Sainsbury’s 😐

It's great I'd you mainly cook for scratch, ready or bung in the oven options are limited. And obviously not good if you're a label snob (like my Mum who almost had a heart attack when I took her there!). Sometimes I find you cant get certain spices, but really that's about it for me. I saved about £40/50 per week on my tesco shop for family of 6.

It's not just being a label snob though. The cereals, ketchup, crisps really aren't as nice as Kellogg's, Heinz, Walkers. I agree that it's fine for most cook from scratch stuff apart from specialist ingredients that you generally don't buy often such as spices, but we buy cereal every week too and prefer branded ones.

@ExpletiveDelighted... it is trial and error. Some cereals are just as good as branded. Some not. Wheetabix (theirs) was opened and binned, same day. Muesli... excellent. I’m not keen on the bread. And there’s ONLY one baked bean, right? 😊

That's the thing though, after wasting money on various horrible cereals it put me off trying others. Once you factor in the restricted ranges, horrendous car park (in ours) and queues its not going to be my first choice. I do go once a month or so and stock up on washing powder, cheese, flour etc though.

Horrible.
You’ll hate it.

( I lie I just don’t like too many people to know how good it is !)

@ExpletiveDelighted for us, it was a “needs must” thing. Now, it’s my choice. We as a family, go through a lot of fruit/veg. I was tired of paying such a lot at Sainsbury’s/Morrisons. Plus, we have a really tatty Morrisons. Our Aldi is a new one and more like Waitrose in terms of display/wide aisles.

The only thing I don’t like is the packing. You have to pack your stuff at a shelf area. I’ve stopped doing it now and just pack as quickly as poss at the til.

I think they do vary a lot, there is a brand new one near a friend and I went in there while visiting a couple of months ago, it was not recognisable as an Aldi to me, it had the wide aisles, open displays etc. Whereas ours has narrow aisles, stuff jammed into shelves that are too small, pallets of stuff on the shop floor (I'm talking pre lockdown, I haven't been in it the last few weeks). I do think you can save money, but I have found not as much as I would have thought because packs are smaller, more waste due to fresh stuff going off, loo roll being so flimsy you use twice as much etc.