Melba's Jammin' wrote:
> What do you know about them?

Aldi's is a German discount grocery chain founded just after the Second
World War (1946 I think) and flourished. Expanded to the U.S. in 1976.
Has a very good reputation, both for quality of product and
significant discounts. The "word" is that on the whole a shopper can
save about 40% on a typical shopping car full of groceries (whatever
"typical" is). Bought Trader Joe's a few years ago.
>

> First thing I noticed was that peple were getting their shopping
carts
> from outside the building, not inside.

You don't have the outside storage lot for carts in Minnisota? Here in
the Bay Area most of the supermarkets store carts outside, have done
for a number of years. All that extra room inside in which to pile
goodies for you to spend your money on, ya know.



> Oddly, it's the chili that interests me most because Rob loves
> it for lunch. Hormel has now taken to packaging their chili in boxes

> for $1/box on sale -- same quanitity. Thought I'd have My True Love
try
> this stuff and see how he likes it.

Campbell's has been marketing a chili and I tried some a while ago.
Pretty good, better than the canned chili I'd been buying (let's
see....Staggs, Hormel, Dennison)
>
>
> Then there was the strange little section that looked like it could
have
> been Sam's Club -- there was a lounge chair (in a box) for sale,
along
> with some other non-food stuff. Seemed very out of place.

This might be a trend by some stores to imitate Wal-Mart or Sam's. The
Albertson's around here devote a lot of space to non-food
items.....small appliances, videos and DVDs, televisions.
>

> When I checked out and paid, I asked the cashier if I could assume
that
> since the packaging on so many things was so similar to the national
> brands, that they were in fact made by the same folks. She said I
can
> assume that.

Well, I'm not so sure about that. I guess you could assume all you want
but that wouldn't make your assumption accurate. :-) It could very
well be that the contents are made by a brand name but I'd be very
surprised if the brand name would allow their product to be packaged
look-alike.

Mac