They’ve just opened an ALDI by us.

Kevin, who’s fallen quite creepy-naturally into frugal housewife role, was the one who put the store on our radar.

I couldn’t remember if I had ever actually “been” in an Aldi before… but for some strange reason my memory said “Ghetto”. I guess that’s a textbook example of negative word-of-mouth branding.

The store was squeaky clean… and simple…. Think IKEA with food.

Most of the products are “house-brand” so you don’t get the variety you’ve grown accustom to at normal stores.

You get…
BBQ Sauce… One kind.. that’s it.
Chips… Sour Cream & Onion… or Plain…. that’s it.
etc.

Along with the in-house brand products – they’ve cut their overhead by streamlining labor and the other arguably wasteful extras. The entire store is manned by just 3 employees…

Cart boys? – nope… Shopping carts are interlocked with these little boxes that release when you insert a quarter… You want your quarter back? – you’re gonna have to take your cart back… voila… genius.

The quality of the food is in-line with your standard consumer-level stuff…. This includes the icky-factor of processed foods.. (snack crackers containing hydrogenated oils, etc.)… But for basic staples we’re all over it, and saving a lot: Baking mix, canned veggies, taco seasoning, tortilla chips, bananas, …. stuff we’d normally go to a Schnuck’s for.

For the shi-shi, organic earth-fuck selections – the second part of our hunter-gather cycle has become the new Trader Joe’s they just opened.

Which – after doing some research online…. come to find out – Trader Joes is owned by ALDI!

huh.. go figure.

I couldn’t possibly be blogging about something as mundane as grocery shopping…