Plan B Forum

Karl Albrecht, the co-founder of German discount supermarket chain Aldi along with brother Theo, has died. But how has Aldi become a household name, asks Chris Stokel-Walker.

I get 90% of my weekly grocery shop at Aldi

1. Basic store layout
Walking into an Aldi is a totally different experience to walking into a gargantuan superstore such as Tesco or Asda. Bright, spacious rooms decorated with huge gaudy hoardings are replaced with small, dimly-lit shops with narrow aisles and sparse shelves. The chain sells a fraction of the items bigger supermarkets do, focusing on a single own-brand variant of any given product. As German newspaper Der Spiegel wrote in 2010, talking about Aldi's first forays into retail in Germany, "this nation of sensible shoppers got the grocery market it deserved: as cheap as possible, practical and with absolutely no frills."

I love Aldi's layout, I know where everything is every week - I can be in and out in 20 minutes, even with a quick browse around The Aisle of Shite

Talking of which...

2. Sell bursts of unusual items
The supermarket is famous for its flash sales. Ski poles, cycling equipment and tablet computers have all made fleeting visits to Aldi's shelves - but only in limited numbers. These higher-price items, available for a short time only, are "a great way of getting people to come back to the store," says retail analyst Graham Soult. "It's random stuff but it taps into the quirkiness of Aldi, that they sell items the other supermarkets don't."

I have lost count of the amount of things I've picked up in the bi-weekly special deals, last week among the power tools were cans of Cassoulet as good as any of the French ones and I'm right now wearing a pair of summer sandals I got from there a few weeks ago

3. General penny pinching
The financial fastidiousness of the Albrecht brothers as they led Aldi to success in their native Germany was well-known. Checkout staff had to hand type product codes into their tills in Germany until the early 2000s because the firm didn't want to pay for swish scanning systems that had been standard in other supermarkets for decades. Staff at its headquarters were said to have been chastised for using brand new pencils, rather than wearing out the lead on older ones. And the site where both brothers are buried in Essen was spruced up after complaints with new rhododendrons - bought, on offer, from Aldi's own store.

Why would anyone pay more than they have to? My regular items are things like tomato paste, extra virgin olive oil, loo rolls and laundry detergent for a fraction of the price charged by the Walmart owned Asda right next door.

4. Satisfying middle-class shoppers
Aldi's customer base has changed as savvy middle-class shoppers started using the store. Its proportion of shoppers in the UK classified in the AB social category has increased from around 13% in 2012 to 19% today. The supermarket has altered its stock to cater to them. Alongside continental cheeses and meats - already seen as exotic - it has branched out into more luxury items. Late last year it introduced cut-price fresh lobster tails and serrano ham in time for Christmas. Last month it began stocking trendy Wagyu beef steaks at a reduced price.

It used to be a bit of a guilty secret for us shopping at Aldi, but every week we're finding it busier and busier. Not once have we managed to get our hands on the Wagyu beef though it's sold out within 10 minutes and they limit it to two packs per customer

5. Be in the right place at the right time
Aldi's massive growth in the UK coincided with a time of tightened purse strings. Low price is still the key. "In the last few years everything seems to have aligned," says Soult. Reportedly the only public statement that co-founder Karl Albrecht said in the entire history of the company was made in 1953, but was as pertinent to British shoppers in the post-crash world of 2007 as it was to German shoppers in the wake of World War Two: "Our advertisement is the cheap price." It has also benefited from a change in what shoppers want supermarkets to be. "In the 1990s, supermarkets were getting bigger and bigger," explains Soult. "Now the trend has shifted, and smaller stores like Aldi are what people want.

To be honest it surprises me that it took so many people so long to pick up on it

TPFKA@W wrote:Aldis there must be different than Aldis here. I would not buy meat or produce there and find they sell stuff at very close to or past theexpiration date. I prefer fresher, variety, and butcher available.

oldr_n_wsr wrote:Kill your own game. Then you know it's fresh. Nothing like a freshly harvested deer heart.

oldr_n_wsr wrote:We have a deer problem here on LI. Some towns hired snipers to cull the herd. They (snipers) got to hunt at night and use night vision goggles.

Two shooters are set to begin a cull of 1606 kangaroos in eight nature reserves across Canberra on Monday night after an appeal against the cull was thrown out on Wednesday.

Read more: http://www.canberratimes.com.au/act-new ... z38QA1AOBF

bigskygal wrote:I'm sure the towns have chosen to hire professionals to cull the herd out of a concern for liability issues: should they just issue hunting licenses to whomever to hunt deer in populated areas that would otherwise be closed to hunting, and end up with residents being accidentally shot in the process?

(Present company excluded - I'm sure you'd be too careful for that - but a lot of hunters aren't very careful, given the rate of accidental shootings of humans during hunting season.)

Nevertheless, I hope they don't let the meat that is culled by the professional snipers go to waste.