Hilarious bit in Friday Dec. 17's Bleat, from James Lileks.
Went to Aldi’s just to see what it was like – it’s a new grocery store right next to the upscale Lunds, and it specializes in dirt-cheap off-brand stuff. It was like a parallel universe where all your familiar brands had been replaced by cheap and unconvincing names; as you scanned the shelf you had the horrible suspicion that none of these brand names had been focus-group tested. We’re through the looking glass here, people. I mean: Mr. Pudding? All the names had the same lame third-rate sound. Baker’s Pride. Orchard’s Glory. Miller’s Hubris. Grinder’s Choice. Smegmalia (for the upscale products.) Chef’s Exaggerated Sense of Self Esteem. I saw some coffee priced at $1.99 per 12 oz, and I thought: whoa, 12 oz of coffee for two bucks! And then I thought: here be grounds that fully exploit the maximum number of rat hairs per ounce allowed by law. I’m sure I was wrong, and was simply exhibiting price snobbery, but at some point low low prices make you suspicious.
On the other hand, the square boxes of facial tissue were priced waaay below the Target price, and even if they had the abrasive quality of fine-grit sandpaper, they were a bargain. I picked up three boxes, and looked for a basket to hold my purchases. There weren’t any baskets.
Gnat to the rescue. She marched up to the counter. “Excuse me,” she said. “Do you have any open carts?”
The clerk said no, honey, we could get a card outside, and they cost a quarter.
“A quarter?” I said.
“But you get it back when you return the cart.”
Oh great. Oh fine. Hello, poor people! Need a reminder that you’re POOR? Come to the store that RENTS THE CARTS.
They also had toys, strewn in careless heaps; Gnat found a Care Bear that she wanted, and since I’d been saying NO for the last week when it came to random toy purchases, I said sure. So I bought three square boxes of tissue and a Care Bear. Did I get a bag? Noooo. Oh, they have bags. But you have to buy them.
I can’t wait to shop there again. I’m penciling in the next trip in my iCal: the Threeteenth of Never at Nix o’Clock.
Here in Belgium Aldi has been around for quite some time now, and it is indeed legendary for its low-low prices and crappy store atmosphere. They don't have nice shelves or lighting, just stacks of stuff, often still on shipping pallets. This of course means they operate really on the cheap. That, and the 'knock-off' brands like 'Ole' waffles instead of the real 'Leo' waffles, for example.
Very often indeed the Aldi product is made by the same manufacturer as the 'real' one, but with (for example) 5 percent less cocoa butter and more flour.
As to 'renting' a shopping cart, it's not really renting if you get your quarter back, eh? That's called a collateral, or a safety deposit. Most supermarkets in Belgium operate ther carts in this way: it makes people more likely to return their empty shopping cart to the store entrance, instead of leaving them all over the parking lot.
And the plastic-bags-that-cost-money? Just another way to save money and be able to offer lower prices. In Belgian Aldi's, you can take (for free) empty cardboard boxes at the checkout. These are the same boxes Aldi received their products is, by the way. So you're in fact helping them to get rid of garbage packaging surplus. Which saves them money.
So all in all, pretty clever and efficient, although soulless and depressing. No surprise: Aldi is a German brand (with apologies to my German friends, who are nice and fun people, not soulless and depressing at all).
Heh, just discovered that Google seems to be increasing the accuracy of their satellite pictures of Belgium. At least the part where I live is now very detailed (though just south of me, at the end of the street, things get blurry again: check out 
