Thursday, August 18, 2016

New Aldi Store Under Construction


This is a new Aldi store under construction and will be the fifth Aldi store in Ocala and Ocala's surrounding area. I had been told that Aldi was a Swedish chain, but that is not true. It was founded by Germans in Germany and has expanded to over 10,000 stores around the world.

Aldi is a discount market, selling both name brands and its own brands. It is common practice for Aldi to charge customers for paper bags and ask customers to bag their own groceries.

I've shopped at Aldi's a couple of times and was not impressed. The stores here are smaller than our other supermarkets and thus Aldi has less to offer and I found some of their merchandise to be low-grade. Their "low" prices are not worth the aggravation of not finding my favorite brands, having to pay for bags and having to bag my own groceries.

16 comments:

William Kendall said...

They apparently haven't reached here... yet.

Judy said...

Hmmm...I've never heard of it but it doesn't sound like I'm missing anything.

Sallie (FullTime-Life) said...

We probably must admit to being spendthrifts and certainly must admit to being old and crabby, but we refuse to shop at a store where we have to bag our groceries!

Kay said...

Never heard of them and I doubt if they'll show up in our neck of the woods. Heck, we don't have either a Target or a Trader Joes.

Small City Scenes said...

Never heard of them here either. Hopefully never.

Actually those pics on my blog were probably taken 60 years ago---are we really that OLD. Well not me not not not!! I did keep in touch on and of for a few years so that was probably 40 years ago. We met in Port Angeles on our way home from Neah Bay. It was nice but way too short.
MB

magiceye said...

They don't sound customer friendly!

Linda said...

They haven't reached my area yet, Lowell. And I agree with your assessment about them based on all you have shared here.

Optimistic Existentialist said...

Aldi!! One of my students just have a presentation on Aldi, as he works there.

Halcyon said...

I love Aldi! The produce is always very fresh, but I agree, I don't buy everything there.

Their original strategy was that they sold "name brands" under the Aldi brand for less. For example, Aldi yogurt might actually be Danone just under a different name.

And you have to "buy" bags everywhere in Germany (even the larger supermarket chains), so it's not an unusual concept here.

Karl said...

A new store? Is that really needed?

Sharon said...

Aldi is big in rural Missouri. I've spotted a few stores when I've visited my sister near Springfield. I also know there is one in my old home town of Quincy in Illinois. I think I've only been inside one once or twice. I wasn't impressed either. I remember thinking that the place wasn't very tidy.

Small City Scenes said...

How weird and strange---not you of course----well maybe!
There are pics on my blog now. that old blogspot just funning with me. Dang!
MB

Bill said...

I love Aldi too. Like Halcyon, I don't buy everything there but the prices and food are good. There's lots of choices if you're not fussy, we're not :) As for name brands, that's not an issue at all for us.

Once a month we hop on the bus for a two hour ride (one hour each way)to go to Aldi. There's stuff that is much cheaper there than in the local grocery stores.

As for bagging your own groceries, we have backpacks so we don't use or need bags plus I don't want anyone loading my backpack except me :) Anyway, if you want a plastic bag here in Ireland, they cost .22 cents each and that should be an incentive to bring your own bags which lots of people do. So for us Aldi works, for others it doesn't. Anyway, I really do hate shopping for absolutely anything and I'm thankful for the two small grocery stores we have in town which we try to support. The longer we are here, the better we love small stores. I don't think I could even handle that Walmart store you posted awhile back, much to big :)

Marleen said...

Lots of Aldis here in the Netherlands. They are known for being cheap and sell good food and other things.

Aritha V. said...

Love it! We also have an Aldi here in Holland :-)

RedPat said...

You have to buy bags here too in an effort to get people to bring their own bags. We don't have this store here yet.

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