West Aldi to open 45 stores in Southern California

Their house brand Benton chewy chocolate chip cookies are vegan. IMO, they are better than any store bought cookies I've had. They actually have quite a bit of "accidentally" vegan food. We do the bulk of our grocery shopping there.
 
With that, they have been quite successful, the brothers Karl and Theo Albrecht (owners of Aldi-North and Aldi-South) are #2 and #4 on the list of the 10 most wealthiest Germans.

One of them owns Trader Joe's also, right?
 
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Why does California need 45 stores and New York gets none.
 
It's been so difficult to win over the Southern California market, I think food retailers see it as some sort of test or game or challenge. Tesco failed with Fresh & Easy. Haggen failed. Aldi wants to try next. I wish those bastards luck. :p

If you really want an Aldi near you, you should write them about it.
 
Aldi permeates one or more geographic areas at a time, rather than just putting a couple of stores in a bunch of places. It makes sense, since they are all about keeping their costs low - it's cheaper to stock, have local management, etc., if you're dealing with ten stores in each of five geographic areas (numbers just for purposes of example), than if you had the same fifty store spread out over forty states.
 
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Aldi permeates one or more geographic areas at a time, rather than just putting a couple of stores in a bunch of places. It makes sense, since they are all about keeping their costs low - it's cheaper to stock, have local management, etc., if you're dealing with ten stores in each of five geographic areas (numbers just for purposes of example), than if you had the same fifty store spread out over forty states.

Exactly that is what I was also thinking.
 
Aldi takes getting used to- they have a lot of products for vegetarians as well as vegans. I do most of my shopping there.
They have great sales on produce, and have a lot of organic/fair trade produce, coffee, chocolate (not always available - but most dark is vegan, as well as dark chocolate mint, orange almond, and chili)
Mine has tasty Chipotle black bean burgers in the frozen section all the time at $2.99
Simply organic croutons ARE VEGAN! New, I like croutons!
Organic pasta sauces are good, regular marinara and pizza sauce are too
Lots of pastas. wheat is good, and a lot of gluten free that wins reviews (haven't tried)
Jasime and brown rice are great
They have a dressing like Annies tahini goddess (?) good on veggies or pasta. Ginger, balsamic
shelf stabel mori-nut tofu
Simply organic peanut butter - peanuts, sea salt. Almond butter, cashew butter
I get the Benton regular chocolate chip cookies- same ingrediants as the chewy ones
There are message boards that say their Lacure facial care is vegan and cruelty free.I use the cleansing lotion
They have coconut butter, lots of nuts, dried fruit, trail mixes, oatmeal is super cheap, farina,
Soy and almond milk $2.29- both sweet and and unsweet
Hummus varieties. Avocados have been super cheap at .39-49 cents a piece
All kinds of good frozen veggies and fruit, including organic
They have weekly buys on all sorts of goods. Anything. I just bought a steam mop for $30
Got a nutrition extractor thats the same as the upgrade of the nutribullet for $30. at Xmas.Literally the same!
A standing fan. An infrared heater. A car battery jumper. Blu tooth headphones for $14

I like Aldi
 
Aldi takes getting used to- they have a lot of products for vegetarians as well as vegans. I do most of my shopping there.
They have great sales on produce, and have a lot of organic/fair trade produce, coffee, chocolate (not always available - but most dark is vegan, as well as dark chocolate mint, orange almond, and chili)
Mine has tasty Chipotle black bean burgers in the frozen section all the time at $2.99
Simply organic croutons ARE VEGAN! New, I like croutons!
Organic pasta sauces are good, regular marinara and pizza sauce are too
Lots of pastas. wheat is good, and a lot of gluten free that wins reviews (haven't tried)
Jasime and brown rice are great
They have a dressing like Annies tahini goddess (?) good on veggies or pasta. Ginger, balsamic
shelf stabel mori-nut tofu
Simply organic peanut butter - peanuts, sea salt. Almond butter, cashew butter
I get the Benton regular chocolate chip cookies- same ingrediants as the chewy ones
There are message boards that say their Lacure facial care is vegan and cruelty free.I use the cleansing lotion
They have coconut butter, lots of nuts, dried fruit, trail mixes, oatmeal is super cheap, farina,
Soy and almond milk $2.29- both sweet and and unsweet
Hummus varieties. Avocados have been super cheap at .39-49 cents a piece
All kinds of good frozen veggies and fruit, including organic
They have weekly buys on all sorts of goods. Anything. I just bought a steam mop for $30
Got a nutrition extractor thats the same as the upgrade of the nutribullet for $30. at Xmas.Literally the same!
A standing fan. An infrared heater. A car battery jumper. Blu tooth headphones for $14

I like Aldi
Thanks for this! I'm going to go there for the first time this weekend (it's maybe 20 minutes driving). :)
 
The only thing that sucks at Aldi is the vegetarian chili - it's awful. Their fat-free refried beans (vegan) are good though. Their almond and soy milks are the cheapest around.
 
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Okay, all the aldi shoppers check the Bentons chocolate chip cookies-regular and chewy. Appartently there are two kinds of regular ones--mine do NOT contain anything non vegan, but, I see online packages with dried egg, and people saying only the chewy are vegan. I just found out about the cookies. One thing about aldi is you always have to check. Like their cereals used to be vegan, now most have D3, and the pie crust used to have lard, now it has veg shortening. They have way too many non food items at the moment
 
Wow. We don't hardly any of the above products in Aldi's or Lidl's. I mainly buy fruit, vegetables, (especially frozen) nuts, and chocolate.
 
I wish I could have gone to the opening. They were giving away gift cards valued from $10-$100 to the first 100 people and there were only 20 in line when they opened.
 
Finally made it to Aldi's and I'm disappointed.

They do have some cheap produce and if I'm in the area, I will probably stop in and get some more, but I wouldn't go out of my way to go there just for that. I didn't find any vegan stuff there that I couldn't get at my regular, and much closer, supermarket, or the dollar store for close to the same price. Most of the stuff there was the typical processed omni junk under their label. I had gone to Trader Joes before going there, so maybe I was expecting more gourmet type stuff.

I don't know how well they're going to do in that location. There's a huge 99 cent store next to them with a bigger selection and no other supermarkets near by. Aldis has a very limited choice of items there, not enough to do regular shopping, and I don't know how many people will be willing to go there for some things and then to the supermarket for everything else. If there had been one in the same shopping center, I think it would help bring more people in. There weren't very many people there when I went.
 
The difference in people's reactions to Aldi is interesting. We do the bulk of our grocery shopping there, and go to another store about every other week or so to buy the things we can't get at Aldi. We've managed to cut our grocery bill by about a third by doing this.
 
I wonder how different aldis are? I get organic peanut butter thats just peanuts and sea salt,$2.99 a 15oz jar, fair trade ground coffee $3.99 a lb, vegan croutons, fair trade vegan dark chocolate, vegan mint dark chocolate, orange almond dark chocolate, silken tofu, all kinds of nuts, seeds, quinoa, jasmine rice, brown rice, mixed grains, $.39cent organic canned beans in non bpa cans, organic canned tomatoes, soy, almond, now cashew milks at $ 2.29 a half gallon, organic spring mix greens, kale or spinach, organic ketchup, many fair trade produce--all best prices.
And for those who like avocados-often as low as .39 cents in Cleveland.
 
Finally made it to Aldi's and I'm disappointed.

They do have some cheap produce and if I'm in the area, I will probably stop in and get some more, but I wouldn't go out of my way to go there just for that. I didn't find any vegan stuff there that I couldn't get at my regular, and much closer, supermarket, or the dollar store for close to the same price. Most of the stuff there was the typical processed omni junk under their label. I had gone to Trader Joes before going there, so maybe I was expecting more gourmet type stuff.

I don't know how well they're going to do in that location. There's a huge 99 cent store next to them with a bigger selection and no other supermarkets near by. Aldis has a very limited choice of items there, not enough to do regular shopping, and I don't know how many people will be willing to go there for some things and then to the supermarket for everything else. If there had been one in the same shopping center, I think it would help bring more people in. There weren't very many people there when I went.

I also think that the 99 ct store is going to be the biggest competitor for Aldis/Lidl's. We don't have them over here so these kind of discount store have the cheapest deals. We also have a very limited choice in our Aldis/Lidl's. I only buy a few items as they don't stock organic or soya products that I normally buy.

I wonder how different aldis are? I get organic peanut butter thats just peanuts and sea salt,$2.99 a 15oz jar, fair trade ground coffee $3.99 a lb, vegan croutons, fair trade vegan dark chocolate, vegan mint dark chocolate, orange almond dark chocolate, silken tofu, all kinds of nuts, seeds, quinoa, jasmine rice, brown rice, mixed grains, $.39cent organic canned beans in non bpa cans, organic canned tomatoes, soy, almond, now cashew milks at $ 2.29 a half gallon, organic spring mix greens, kale or spinach, organic ketchup, many fair trade produce--all best prices.
And for those who like avocados-often as low as .39 cents in Cleveland.

I can't find hardly any of the above items that you have stated except for chocolate, white beans and chickpeas. It seems that depending on the country, the selection of items is quite different. Our Lidl's/Aldis have a huge selection of meat and dairy items.
 
Another Aldi's is opening next week near me. It's approximately the same distance as the other one, except in the opposite direction. I'll be in the area for something else during their gran opening, so I may stop in and see if they have anything different than the other one.