ALDI supermarket is now open in Bloomfield (244 Bloomfield Avenue), offering a unique shopping experience and discounted prices.
ALDI does things differently from your typical supermarket. The German grocery chain uses cost-cutting methods to offer discounted prices and sells mostly exclusive brands.
If you’re brand-loyal, you may be disappointed, although I did spot Honey Nut Cheerios and a couple of other well-known brands, among the ALDI exclusive brand.
You’ll need to bring a quarter to get a cart to shop and return it for your coin back. You’ll also need to bring your own reusable bags (or purchase some there) and pack your own groceries. The store is much smaller than other supermarkets with very few employees. With no need for baggers and cart returns, ALDI doesn’t need to hire like a typical supermarket.
Items in the aisles are stocked in cardboard boxes and there is a much smaller selection to choose from. The meat area was a third of what you’ll find at ShopRite or Kings.
For those who want organic or more natural products, ALDI offers brands such as SimplyNature, Never Any!, and Live G Free (a gluten free line) brands.
There is a nice selection of produce, both conventional and organic, and dairy with the same offerings.
Above all, ALDI is about price. ALDI’s SimplyNature organic ketchup at 24 oz is $1.49 compared to the Heinz Organic ketchup at 14 oz for $2.49 I buy at ShopRite. A gallon of ALDI’s Friendly Farms 1% milk goes for $2.15 compared to ShopRite brand at $3.29.
Have you shopped at ALDI yet? Share your thoughts on the experience, brand flavors, and more in comments.
I will have to check it out. I’ve lived in the area for almost 15 years and have yet to find good produce. I’ve shopped at various Shop Rites, Kings, Whole Foods, and it’s always hit or miss. Maybe Aldi is the answer; if not, I’ll take any suggestions.
I was very excited to visit Aldi so I made a trip there just the other day. I could not have been more disappointed. The selection was meager and the store did not inspire much confidence in the quality of the food. Very few options for each product, brands I have never heard of, very few organic options, and a generally strange quality to a lot of the stuff.
It really does seem like it was made to serve lower income residents, which is fine because poor people need to eat too, but the prices were not so incredibly low as to justify the apparent lack of quality and selection.
Trader Joe’s, which to my knowledge is owned by the same parent company as Aldi, and is the best supermarket I have ever been to in the US, is able to offer a wide variety of highly unique, creative, fun, and healthy foods for just about the same price as Aldi charges. Furthermore, Trader Joe’s has more staff who all appear to be happy with their lives/jobs, helpful, caring, and passionate.
Aldi very clearly cuts every corner that can be cut. Almost nobody works there, they are not helpful, the displays are nonexistent…just stuff in boxes. Nothing looks appetizing or appealing. You must bring your own bags, put a deposit on a cart, etc.
That’s all fine if the prices are insanely low, but like I said, Trader Joe’s offers their customers an amazing experience with much better products for right around the same price as Aldi.
Anyway, here’s to hoping that Trader Joe’s winds up in Lackawanna Plaza alongside a fresh fish and meat market, a cheese shop, a fresh produce shop, and a line of small international markets. We live in a very diverse town. Can you imagine if Lackawanna Plaza offered very small storefronts in a row so you could have a Mexican market, an Indian market, Caribbean, Japanese, Korean, Italian, etc.
Modern food shopping can be so much better than going to one massive store that carries too much of everything. Lackawanna Plaza is the perfect place to try out a new way for people in America to shop for food. Go to Trader Joe’s for juices, prepared foods, packaged goods, etc. or go to the meat market for a fresh cut of fish. Then you can buy Indian spices at the little Indian market next door, go home, and cook it up.
@mistermayor – “It really does seem like it was made to serve lower income residents, which is fine because poor people need to eat too”
I stopped reading there.
I yelled at my wife for thinking taking over the weekly Shoprite trip for me on Father’s Day was a nice gesture. “How can you think taking away one of the week’s joys is a nice gesture?” was my reply because: I LOVE food shopping.
And I will check out this store.
I was just in Fairway, and overheard someone comment on the lack of selection, “No wonder this place is always empty,” she said. I felt the same way. Love the store, but I can’t do my weekly shopping there. But I LOVE their beer selection.
I’ve found though, that one of the benefits of living around here (and having an income to support it) is that you can shop at different stores for different things. I get cookies, peanut butter, sugar, and sometimes sea food (usually a few other things) at Whole Foods. A&P had the best skirt steaks (I did a big taste test), not sure about Acme. But my weekly store is Shoprite.
Still, I happily go to a different store several times a week.
But that’s because I find joy at the Supermarket.
I too long for a varied international market at Lackawanna with diverse food vendors and little restaurant stalls. I’ve been to both La Boqueria in Barcelona and the V&A Waterfront Food Market in Capetown and would love to see something similar in Montclair – the structure at Lackawanna would be a perfect setting for such a market and would attract people from near and far.
As far as decent, inexpensive produce goes – I trek all the way to the Belleville Garden Farmers Market on Franklin Ave. Why pay $2 for a few teeny limes at the chain grocery stores when you can have 7 limes for a buck! Fresh and affordable produce for the most part and a good selection of breads, cheeses and pastas too.
I bet the carts get returned surprisingly often-it’s a nudge. Sometimes Germans get it.
My kingdom for a Wegmans.
An Aldi stored opened in the New England town we sometimes visit. I did not like it at all. If you like known brands, they rarely have any. If you like concrete and cardboard, this place will appeal to you.
UPDATE: I bought a little apple pie from the Fairway bakery….. It was moldy inside (despite the 6/26 Sell By Date). So much for fresh.
I NEVER had any issues with the Shoprite Bakery– they are the best around.
Because of this: I won’t be trekking off to Fairway again.
I enjoy Fairway, and find their fish to be top notch. Same thing for their butcher counter. The choice of beer, cheese, yogurts, coffee, etc is great, too. The people are universally friendly and helpful.
Items in the center of the store are insanely high priced. It’s not unusual to see cereal priced a buck over ShopRite. Vegetables are sometimes fine, sometimes not fine. If I want short dated cheese or vegetables, Corrado’s is the place.
Off topic but Fairway is filing bankruptcy. Too much competition and they are simply too expensive.
Aldi is quite small and will work well for the surrounding community and new apartments under construction adjacent to the store but doubtful anyone NW will drive/visit for anything. I would say no competition to STop & Shop just an alternative.
ShopRite continues to be top in the area despite additional crowds from Pathmark disappearing.
“I yelled at my wife”
—charming as always!
sometimes the jcunningham bot is very literal.
Lamely sarcastic as always
Aldi and Trader Joe are run by separate branches of the Albrecht family of Germany. I don’t believe there are any shared operations between the two.
Part of Aldi’s model calls for smaller footprint stores, with much lower real estate costs. And, few choices for the same type of product, similar to Costco. One type of oatmeal or laser printer at each price point.
I still like King’s the best.
@silverleaf, that was a bit reactionary/hyper-senstive. Did you run back to your safe space? Sometimes an accurate description is just that. For all you know, mistermayor spent a period during his childhood or lived a meager existence as an undergrad shopping in the local C-Town and knows first hand what it’s like to have to depend upon a food market where the sourcing is questionable, everything is GMO and cornsyrup, organic is unheard of and the temperatures are never monitored, nor are the expiration dates. One never knows, especially in the comments section of a blog post, what someone else’s life experience or point of reference is.
@stonebridge – “Did you run back to your safe space?”
No, I went about living my life, as I presume most people do after posting a comment.
That said, thanks for the lesson in “hyper-sensitive” blogging, but you’ve got it all wrong as usual.
My post was not a critique on people who cannot afford to shop at more upscale markets, but rather a reaction to mistermayor’s vacuous and contrived moral platitude that “poor people need to eat too.”
For the record, to presume that I would comment on someone else’s life experience or point of reference is something that I never do. Never!
You are equally vacuous not to have understood that.
Now if you will excuse me, I’ve got some shopping to do at ALDI.
Really disappointed to read the comments of individuals who believe this supermarket caters to the poor. I guess I should stop shopping at Costco, Shoprite, Aldi’s and Wegmans and exclusively shop at Whole Foods.
@formermontclair – You shop at a Wegmans? Around here? Where?! Don’t tease. Love Wegmans. Miss it so much from my former upstate NY days.
And Whole Foods is an overrated money pit of hipsterism. It’s been implicated in price gouging on more than one occasion. I refuse to shop at a place that at times wants nearly $10 for some “organic” strawberries.
There’s a Wegman’s in Woodbridge. Sure, it’s about 30 minutes away, but soooo worth it, even if you’re only going for the Ultimate White Cake with Frosting (trust me on this). Montclairdad, you need to take a drive down the Parkway!
(I just checked their website, and there are two NJ locations opening in 2017L Montvale and Hanover Township. Something to look forward to!)
@montclairdad – Wegmans is opening up in Hanover in 2017!!! I completely agree with you in regards to Whole Foods. I saw a sign that said 7.99/lb for red peppers? Is the farmers market on Walnut too low class for some of us? Seriously. I guess I’ll go to Aldi since I’m poor @mistermayor.
Business Insider had an article on Aldi last year, comparing it to Wal-Mart on pricing and selection. The list of items and prices in Columbus OH suggests that Aldi will have lower prices in most cases than Wal-Mart. But, fewer choices in the same category, like cereals. You may have only a house brand selection in some or many categories.
https://www.businessinsider.com/this-grocery-store-has-the-lowest-prices-2015-1
The farmers market is way overrated. There are several good vendors, but too many profiteers make it a 15 minute experience, at best.
That Wegmans news just made my morning. Thanks justonce and formermontclair!
The Walnut Street Farmer’s Market is very expensive compared to others, such as the Trenton Farmer’s Market. Although I love to support our local farmers, the prices are really high.
Yea- the local farmer’s market is too expensive. I’d rather buy my fruits & veggies from an industrial farm thousands of miles away that hires migrant workers for low pay….
You want cheap? Then don’t complain about the American worker.
You want $15/hour minimum wage? Then don’t complain about prices.
I (hope) that most of the farmers at the market are trying to make a living, and IF paying more for my food allows that, I’ll pay. Because the alternative is cheap stuff, made by folks who work cheap. And those are not usually American workers.
silverleaf, your comment did not inspire confidence in your ability to participate in a lively, substantial discussion. I wish you had continued to read on.
The point of my post was that Aldi appears to be meant for lower-income residents, but the prices are not really lower than Trader Joe’s, which is owned by the same parent company and seems to be meant for patrons of more means.
Stick with me for a moment, because if you drop out again, you will have little more than the comfort of your opinion without the discomfort of reading another few short paragraphs.
Aldi and Trader Joes have very similar prices, except that Trader Joe’s obviously has a lower profit margin. Trader Joe’s has more employees, each of whom is far friendlier and more helpful, and my guess is that they are paid more as well. Trader Joe’s has far more selection and their products appear to be of better quality and using healthier ingredients. Trader Joe’s also clearly puts a lot of effort into stocking new and exciting items on their shelves quite frequently. They carry items that I would have never guessed existed. Healthy snacks that satisfy my cravings without depleting my bank account or slowly poisoning me.
The point of my post was that it seems a bit unfair. The poor people can indeed afford to shop at Trader Joe’s. It would allow them to have a much larger selection of healthier options at the same prices they are paying at Aldi.
It almost seems to me that Aldi is subsidizing Trader Joe’s. Get the poor people to pay more money for lower quality goods so that the richer people can continue to enjoy higher quality goods at prices equivalent to what the lower income residents are paying for lower quality goods.
If my point still didn’t come across, I’m advocating for the poor’s ability to indulge in large selections of healthy goods at reasonable prices. Trader Joe’s is a one-stop-shop that appeals to the rich, the poor, and the in-between.
If Trader Joe’s can afford to fill their stores with happy and well-compensated employees, if they can afford to hire a local artist to paint their signage, and an employee to hand out free samples, and a guy to gather carts in the lot, and a team of people to seek out new healthy and fun food options for their customers, why does Aldi seem so desolate? Why does Aldi seem like nobody works there? That they don’t put any care into their displays, their products, etc? Why were there so few organic options?
If the prices are the same, why is the quality of the Aldi shopping experience so much worse than that of Trader Joe’s, even though they’re owned by the same company?
I am an enormous supporter of Trader Joe’s. I hope we get one in Lackawanna Plaza. It’s the perfect store. It’s not douchey and overly expensive like Wholefoods. It’s an honest and good company and I trust the brand more than I trust most others. It just seems a bit creepy if selling higher-margin goods to lower-income residents is what’s allowing me to buy organic macaroni and cheese for half the price of what I would pay at Wholefoods.
montclairdad, my wife almost killed me a while back when she sent me to Wholefoods for some broccoli and a red pepper and I came back and told her it cost me $15. She hasn’t forgotten it, and neither will I.
The only thing I like Wholefoods for is their fish selection (even though most of it is pretty damn expensive) and their selection of cheese ends that allow me to eat expensive cheese for the price of cheaper cheese.
I also hope we get a Trader Joe’s in Lackawanna Plaza. If not there, then in the Southend biz district. It’s an exhausting mission having to venture across Route 3 and into Clifton with all the aggressive NJ drivers just to get our weekly Trader Joe’s shopping done.
I miss the friendliness of Pathmark but I’m really really happy with my local Shoprite…. (Mine is the 50s pagoda one in west Caldwell) The baked goods are excellent… The BEST store baked multigrain bread ever is only $3.99 and fresh strawberry rhubarb pie (still warm, red, gooey and runny) $3.50. The other fresh pies, $3.50/4.50/6.50 …up to 9.99, but they’re a HUGE savings and excellent. They are wonderfully friendly… Bloomfield Shoprite too.
Whole foods has great flowers and ACME tries hard to buy fruits and vegetables from NJ local producers.
@frankgg – Is that right about ACME and the local producers? I had no idea. Maybe I’ll give it another look for produce armed with that information.
The ACME that i go to is in Manasquan . Presently, they sell white NJ corn and some tomatoes from NJ producers, while the fancy nearby “farm” store gets them from Florida. My impression of the ACME in Montclair is that they are trying hard to be good.
profwilliams – If you read my post, I stated that I want to buy from local farmer’s markets and I go to farmer’s markets in other towns in NJ. Ours seems to have the highest prices and I’m just asking why? Is the cost of running a booth at our farmer’s market more? What is the reason that I can go to the Nutley Farmer’s market and the prices are lower?
@ mtcgma, sorry if I misunderstood your point about the Montclair Farmer’s Market vs. the others. Re-reading your post, you made it very clear. Sorry.
The answer, I’m reminded that a few years ago, I had a contractor recommend a house painter to me. But he told me to hide my Lexus sitting in the driveway, because his friend would charge accordingly. That stuck with me.
And considering how some online/catalog companies have different prices based on zip code, I applaud the capitalist farmers who know they can charge more at Montclair than other towns. I would.
Like our high property taxes, it’s yet another fee we pay to live in such a wonderful, diverse community!
mistermayor – My comment wasn’t intended to inspire confidence in anything. Had I continued reading, your point would have been moot. It is apparent that you had a need to return where you left off and continue your treatise on the comparative assets and liabilities of suburban supermarket shopping, in order to “clarify”, not having made your point on the first attempt.
Silverleaf, way to add to the discussion. In response, comparative confidence in continued reading does not justify the lack of one’s ability to treatise on assets (nor liabilities), with or without clarification. Supermarket or not, forever is not an option when commenting on points, whether first or last.
I can also add nothing to the discussion and I’m damn good at it.
Good talk.
“I can also add nothing to the discussion.”
Yes, and you are darn good at it.
At least we agree on something!
After reading most of these posts, quickly, I think I know about how people will react to Aldi’s, different from any other model. We need as many models as can possibly be devised to satisfy the very wide ranging opinions and desires of our population. Mainly, Aldi’s has fewer choices (therefore higher inventory tunover), lower prices due to lower overhead- labor, space, taxes, spoilage, and lower services – bags, carts, amenities (lottery machines), Some people find canned beans are a commidity and want to pay as little as possible. Others, don’t eat canned beans. Lat’s face it, 8 to 10 food market options within 5 miles is remarkble by itself.
I normally do the bulk of my shopping at Costco and Trader Joes, and I was surprised at how good the pricing was at Aldi. It’s definitely a different model from TJ’s, it’s all about efficiency, and it’s done very smartly.
Shelves are stocked in open cardboard boxes, so a worker can stock 20 units at once instead of piece by piece. Checkout is lightning fast, they bring an empty cart around, and immediately fill it with scanned items, rather than fuss with bagging at the register. Tip, don’t be like me and leave the watermelon to be the last item rung up! You pack your own bags at a long countertop behind the registers.
Downside, like TJ’s I don’t feel it’s a full replacement for a typical supermarket, the selection is more limited, even beyond the lack of brand names. However, it looks to be a low cost alternative for most of your food purchases, where you can pick up the few items they don’t carry at another store.