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Location: The place where the road & the sky collide
23,814 posts, read 34,688,469 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by campion
Until Acme started tanking, I could do one-stop shopping regularly. I'd say that was four or five years ago that they started getting worse. What kinds of products are "exclusive" to stores other than, say, deli brands and store brands?
Twice in the last 2 years a Campbells soup variety seemed to disappear from the regular supermarket where I bought them. Walmart now is the only place where I can get them. There've been other things, but making a stop at Walmart 3 or 4 times a year is my limit. I'm not going to chase after every product that vanishes.
The new Lidl is opening right next to my regular Acme. I am so disappointed in what I've read about it. I'm not necessarily looking for lower prices - I'm looking for variety and the ability to do my entire week's grocery shopping in one place (not three).
I read their description.
I'm not looking for "curated selections." I want reliably available variety every time I go into your store. I like multiple pasta options, tomato options, rice options, and so on. My precious time would be better served by the store providing a wide variety of food products and brands and skipping out on the "delightful" (read: unnecessary) home decor and gardening supplies. /end rant.
With Acme going downhill rapidly and Shoprite not being a very acceptable alternative, I'm looking at a significant drive to get to a decent one-stop grocery store. The price of living in Delco, I guess.
You are aware that the Lidl/Aldi model and the Acme/ShopRite model represent two rival supermarket operating philosophies, right?
Given their market share, it seems to me that there are a sizable number of Americans who now willingly trade a wide variety of products and many choices within product categories for a limited selection of products, most of them produced expressly for the store, at much lower prices.
I don't mind going to multiple stores when shopping for food, and I'm alternately price-conscious and desirous of certain products I can't get at the no-frills, limited-selection, deep-discount stores. For products in the latter category, I will go to a shop that specializes in them, one of the big public/farmers' markets (9th Street, Reading Terminal), or my local ShopRite-family supermarket. For the others, I gladly shop Aldi, though not as often as I might were one on my usual paths between home and work (which the FreshGrocer of La Salle is). I also make multiple small- to medium-size trips on different days of the week instead of one big trip once a week or month. I think this makes me a statistical outlier among American food shoppers, but there are enough of us to keep non-supermarket or small-supermarket food stores in business.
But since I've been a ShopRite/Fresh Grocer shopper ever since moving close to one in 2011, I'm curious: what about stores in that co-op make them "not...a very acceptable alternative"? ShopRite's private label is hit or miss, but the stores themselves seem to have the same sort of product variety and choices within categories that other chains offer (Wegmans, on steroids).
Getting a BJ's membership was the smartest decision I ever made, grocery-wise. I can buy everything in bulk for cheap, especially meats. I used to shop at the Acme at 11th & Reed, and talk about underwhelming and overpriced. I only have to make a grocery trip every 3 weeks now, which is a godsend for someone who hates grocery shopping. The only food I don't buy from BJ's is fruits, which I always get from the guys with the stand right next to my subway stop.
You are aware that the Lidl/Aldi model and the Acme/ShopRite model represent two rival supermarket operating philosophies, right?
But since I've been a ShopRite/Fresh Grocer shopper ever since moving close to one in 2011, I'm curious: what about stores in that co-op make them "not...a very acceptable alternative"? ShopRite's private label is hit or miss, but the stores themselves seem to have the same sort of product variety and choices within categories that other chains offer (Wegmans, on steroids).
A) Yes, I am just sad to see the Acme model waning. The glory of a fully-stocked grocery store is a sight to behold.
B) It could just be my ShopRite is bad. It is in Eddystone, after all. Hence, it has a very interesting, Latino-based produce selection and an amazing seafood counter, but the meat selection is terrible (as far as cuts go), the cheese selection sucks and consists of lower-tier brands, and there isn't an Asian food section to speak of (the week I tried giving up on Acme I was looking for a jar of green curry paste - not exactly exotic nowadays).
Location: The place where the road & the sky collide
23,814 posts, read 34,688,469 times
Reputation: 10256
Quote:
Originally Posted by campion
A) Yes, I am just sad to see the Acme model waning. The glory of a fully-stocked grocery store is a sight to behold.
B) It could just be my ShopRite is bad. It is in Eddystone, after all. Hence, it has a very interesting, Latino-based produce selection and an amazing seafood counter, but the meat selection is terrible (as far as cuts go), the cheese selection sucks and consists of lower-tier brands, and there isn't an Asian food section to speak of (the week I tried giving up on Acme I was looking for a jar of green curry paste - not exactly exotic nowadays).
I buy at least 90% of my cheese at Aldi & Lidl.
Aldi & Lidl cycle some products in. During the course of a year there is a much larger selection than you would think. These stores are multinational. Right now they have Christmas stuff coming in, mostly from Europe. They sell the imported stuff for a fraction of what other stores sell them for, if you can find them.
Last edited by southbound_295; 11-27-2018 at 12:12 PM..
With Acme going downhill rapidly and Shoprite not being a very acceptable alternative, I'm looking at a significant drive to get to a decent one-stop grocery store. The price of living in Delco, I guess.
May I ask what you find lacking about Shoprite? Just curious, because I'd pick Shoprite over Acme any day.
I don't know where you are in DelCo, but the SRs in Glenolden and Eddystone aren't bad. And the one in Brookhaven is great. And there's also Giant (in Aldan and Springfield). I'd say that's a one-stop grocer with lots of selection.
------
As a shopper I utterly refuse -- to on even just a biweekly basis -- make 3,4, or more stops to grocery shop.
I'm blessed that food costs aren't an issue for me. I don't need to shop to get the cheapest prices.
IF I lived near a Wegmans, IT would be my main store. Same with Trader Joes. But I don't live near either one. Nor a Whole Foods, which I'll go to a few times a year.
So my shopping habits are Shoprite as the main store, bi-weekly or monthly supplemented by Walmart (for water, scrapple). I also go to Trader Joe's about once a month. And Whole Foods and Wegmans if I happen to be near one.
I never go to Aldi's or Lidl. Neither one has enough draw for me to add them to my routine. What am I going to do: drop Shoprite for Lidl? No. Drop Trader Joes? Certainly not. But I'm sure there are enough price-conscious shoppers that Lidl could be successful in the Philly area/Delaware Valley.
Location: The place where the road & the sky collide
23,814 posts, read 34,688,469 times
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One comment, based on my experience. . .
It doesn't it hurt to have a sense of humor in Lidl. They do some knockoffs of American products. Then they have to name them. If it's a trademark name, the knockoff names can be interesting. For instance, a couple of weeks ago I finally tried Peanut Spread Cups. They're made in Germany. The German chocolate reminded me of how chocolate tasted years ago in this country. The filling was sort of a surprise. It was somewhat sweetened peanutbutter instead of the highly sweetened peanutbutter that's in Reeses. It was fine. I'd buy it occasionally. The price difference was amazing.
A) Yes, I am just sad to see the Acme model waning. The glory of a fully-stocked grocery store is a sight to behold.
B) It could just be my ShopRite is bad. It is in Eddystone, after all. Hence, it has a very interesting, Latino-based produce selection and an amazing seafood counter, but the meat selection is terrible (as far as cuts go), the cheese selection sucks and consists of lower-tier brands, and there isn't an Asian food section to speak of (the week I tried giving up on Acme I was looking for a jar of green curry paste - not exactly exotic nowadays).
I think I follow you and understand where you're coming from.
Even chain-owned supermarkets vary their product mixes in individual stores depending on where they're located and what their store managers learn about local buying preferences. ShopRite and FreshGrocer supermarkets aren't a "chain" in that sense. Instead, these two "chains" are collectives of independently owned supermarkets that banded together to jointly own a wholesaler (Wakefern Food Corporation, the wholesaler that owns the ShopRite and Fresh Grocer trademarks, is owned by the supermarkets it supplies and run on a "one owner, one vote" basis, regardless how many stores an individual owner may own).
Individual store owners have much greater leeway when it comes to deciding what products to carry and what lines to drop, and they're usually very well attuned to the desires and tastes of their local communities.
Case in point: The Burns family launched the Fresh Grocer chain in a deal with the University of Pennsylvania that brought them to campus to run a supermarket in a new parking garage Penn was building at 40th and Walnut streets. (I was working in Penn's communications office as the plan that led to its opening was being carried out.)
The store's product mix was determined in part by surveys Penn conducted of residents in the adjacent Spruce Hill neighborhood, which Penn sought to stabilize by bringing a supermarket back to it as part of a larger stabilization strategy. Thus, it had a specialty cheese case, an in-store bakery, custom butcher and fish /seafood counters, and a huge array of prepared hot and cold foods for consumption on or off premises.
Every one of the three all-new Fresh Grocers the Burnses opened after the Penn store proved successful had a virtually identical mix of special counters and departments. The second was at 56th and Market, the third in a strip mall La Salle University built on the site of its former football stadium (this is the one I shop at), and the third replaced a long-closed supermarket in Progress Plaza, just south of the Temple campus..
About nine months ago, the specialty cheeses disappeared from the La Salle store, replaced by more prepackaged deli salads and party trays. If I want those (I'm a big cheesehead), I now have to travel to the Fresh Grocer that Jeff Brown owns and runs at Cedarbrook Plaza. The variety of prepared foods at these two stores differ too: you can get chitterlings and fried fish at La Salle but not Cedarbrook, and Cedarbrook offers fire-grilled chicken while La Salle doesn't. (Both stores are located near sizable African-American populations, so some of this may also boil down to owners' preferences.) And the in-store bakery at the La Salle store quit producing breads and rolls and now does cakes exclusively.
Customers at the La Salle store line up for the store's huge fresh-made hoagies after work. There's no hoagie counter at the Cedarbrook store.
I can count on finding great meaty spareribs at my local Fresh Grocer. I don't think I've ever seen strip steaks as thick as the ones I got at an Acme in Avalon in that store's custom butcher case.
And so on.
I am inclined to think that your dissatisfaction is due not to anything relating to ShopRite in general but to that particular ShopRite.
May I ask what you find lacking about Shoprite? Just curious, because I'd pick Shoprite over Acme any day.
I don't know where you are in DelCo, but the SRs in Glenolden and Eddystone aren't bad. And the one in Brookhaven is great. And there's also Giant (in Aldan and Springfield). I'd say that's a one-stop grocer with lots of selection.
------ As a shopper I utterly refuse -- to on even just a biweekly basis -- make 3,4, or more stops to grocery shop.
I'm blessed that food costs aren't an issue for me. I don't need to shop to get the cheapest prices.
IF I lived near a Wegmans, IT would be my main store. Same with Trader Joes. But I don't live near either one. Nor a Whole Foods, which I'll go to a few times a year.
I never go to Aldi's or Lidl. Neither one has enough draw for me to add them to my routine. What am I going to do: drop Shoprite for Lidl? No. Drop Trader Joes? Certainly not. But I'm sure there are enough price-conscious shoppers that Lidl could be successful in the Philly area/Delaware Valley.
The bolded part for me too, exactly. However, if you see an earlier comment above from me, you'll find my objections to the Eddystone ShopRite. On top of that, I just find it kind of a low-class, low-quality store. Always the cheap brands, etc.
I live in Ridley Park. Demographics-wise, I should probably live in Media or the Main Line or something like that, but RP is the best driving commute into Center City and is closer to my family in central Delaware. So every once in a while I feel the need to gripe about these things that probably suit the majority of my community, but annoy the hell out of me.
I'm actually thinking about starting to do more shopping via Walmart.com or Amazon Grocery/Pantry. Then my one trip a week to the grocery store will be only for fresh bread, fresh meat, frozen and fresh vegetables. Maybe then Lidl will work for me.
I think I follow you and understand where you're coming from.
I am inclined to think that your dissatisfaction is due not to anything relating to ShopRite in general but to that particular ShopRite.
I suspect you're at least in part correct. See my post just above about demographics.
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). I also go to Trader Joe's about once a month. And Whole Foods and Wegmans if I happen to be near one.
