Aldi's Grand Opening
From:
John Wilson
Date:
Jan 23 17:09 UTC
Short link
I often shop at Aldi because I live on the edge financially and often can't
afford to shop anywhere else, even though when I do have the money, I shop at
Cub, Rainbow, Target, and even occasionally Trader Joe's. Considering the sheer
amount of poverty on the North Side, I think the new Aldi there is a good thing
from the customer's point of view. As to the high percentage of processed foods
sold there, that probably has a lot to do with keeping costs down. Spoilage of
fresh foods is a major money drain for a grocery store, unfortunately. At least
the selection is probably healthier than that at a SuperAmerica or one of those
rip-off mini-markets.
I do feel bad about the anti-union attitude of Aldi, but as I understand
it, staff are well-paid even though they're required to work harder and faster
than most grocery workers (understaffing is part of how they keep prices down,
so is their limited schedule of store hours). However, being "politically
correct" about one's shopping choices often requires having the discretionary
income to do so. Poor people know damn well Wal*Mart is oppressive, for
example, but going without warm clothing in winter (as one example) is just too
high a price to pay to be "moral". I support unions but not at the price of
going without basic needs. If my income was $25K instead of $12K that would be
different....
As to paying for bags and using opened shipping boxes to take food home,
Cub and Country Store (which later became Kowalski's and still later went
upscale) had the same policies when they first started in the late 1970s. They
charged 3 cents for a paper bag, and would rubber stamp it with their logo when
you paid for it so you could return and reuse it to save that 3 cents next
time. If you didn't want to buy bags, you were free to use the old shipping
boxes that would have been tossed anyway. The only thing really new about Aldi
is the mostly generic selection and the 25 cent deposit on carts.