ALDI Grocery Store (Charlotte, Albemarle, Lincolnton: how much, house, refrigerator)

[Jimrob1]

ALDI stores are a German discount grocery store. ALDI means Albrecht Discount. The german chain has been expanding to some regions of the USA.

[lumbollo]

In some ways it is very much like the European discount grocer that came here in the 1970s called Three Guys. It was the first time that bag your own groceries in either your own bags or purchased bags, concept appeared in Charlotte. Another oddity is that you had to purchase meat in the meat department which was in the back of the store. The problem with that of course is once you did this, your meat belong to you and had to be watched for the rest of the shopping trip. They also had these unusual looking barrier things that I think was designed to keep shopping carts in the lot. Made my Corolla feel like a SUV on rocks crossing one.

In the end, the changes where just too much for Charlotte of the day even though the prices were good, selection nice and unique and stores modern looking and clean. The chain, did not last and went out of business. Their buildings remain, though I can only remember where two of them were but have long since been converted to other uses along with those insane barriors being removed.

For a comparison point, their competition at the time was Kroger, Winn Dixie, Food Town (now Food Lion) A&P, Harris Teeter, Colonial, BiLo (old style), and Park & Shop.

[vindaloo]

Originally Posted by Jimrob1

ALDI stores are a German discount grocery store. ALDI means Albrecht Discount. The german chain has been expanding to some regions of the USA.

Sorry, but your information is way off. ALDI started in Iowa in 1978 as a small store carrying just a few discount items. Today it is found in 29 states and countries in Europe.

[southbound_295]

Originally Posted by vindaloo

Sorry, but your information is way off. ALDI started in Iowa in the 1940s as a small store carrying just a few discount items. Today it is found in many states and countries in Europe.

No, Aldi is headquartered in Germany & sells in many counties including the US.

[CharlotteGal]

Here's the history, from our friend Wikipedia

It did start in Germany; the first US store was in Iowa in 1976.

[vindaloo]

Southbound and CharlotteGal, I owe both of you a drink. I looked up ALDI and they said that they started in Iowa. There was no mention of Germany. Thanks for your citing CharloteGal. It was Germany. We gave them Safeway so I suppose they owe us ALDI.

[PT 3000]

Even though Aldi's sells generic brand items, many of them are made by the same brand name companies that make the products that you love to pay an arm and a leg for.

[Jimrob1]

Originally Posted by vindaloo

Sorry, but your information is way off. ALDI started in Iowa in 1978 as a small store carrying just a few discount items. Today it is found in 29 states and countries in Europe.

I don't know then. All I know is they were in Germany when I lived there during the 70's. Albrecht Discount ALDI

[southbound_295]

Originally Posted by vindaloo

Southbound and CharlotteGal, I owe both of you a drink. I looked up ALDI and they said that they started in Iowa. There was no mention of Germany. Thanks for your citing CharloteGal. It was Germany. We gave them Safeway so I suppose they owe us ALDI.

vindaloo, I saw where you got that on the Aldi website. I'm certain that they don't mention Germany for a reason. Although most of my ancestors were in this country by the mid 1700s, my paternal grandfather was an immigrant. The name is Germanic & I have had horrible statements slung at me for that. They just used selective amnesia to skip mentioning Germany.

[no kudzu]

I shopped at ALDI in my previous GA home and fed my family of 5 for about $100 per week. Here in Chapel Hill I spend at least $160 at Harris Teeter. I almost dropped my teeth the first time I went to HT. So now I take the cooler with ice and drive to Cary to my Aldi fix and only buy pet food and bar soap and a few other things like that I can't find at Aldi. The one major disappointment I had there was a teriyaki marinated pork loin which was way too salty for my family. Besides that I don't have anything to complain about. Wish one was closer to my CH home.