[rmason]

Back in the nineties a very popular East Lansing supermarket announced they were closing. A campaign was raised to get Trader Joes to locate in the space. A major campaign was raised and they gathered a pretty amazing 20-25,000 signatures online.

The organizers got a nice letter back from Trader Joes who said they really appreciated their enthusiasm but the East Lansing area was too small a municipal area for a Trader Joes but if that criteria changed they'd keep us in mind. A number of the group years later kept the campaign going and maintained an active Facebook page.

A couple of months ago Trader Joes announced an East Lansing store in that very strip mall they'd turned down decades earlier. Different store but the exact same development.

[quickthrower2]

I get the sentiment: I was very excited to have an Aldi store being built near me. Great value for money and an almost “grab what you need and you wont get a shock at the till” unlike other stores that do stuff like 2 slightly different tomato varieties one double the price of the other. Another example the coke is always a good price. Other supermarkets keep rotating the 24 and 30 packs prices to pretend there is a discount at any given time.

[noduerme]

>>stuff like 2 slightly different tomato varieties

I'm such an idiot shopper. I was on a date with a girl and going to cook her dinner but I was missing a few vegetables. Went to Fred Myer (local Kroger chain). I was picking up some potatoes and the girl found a stack for half the price that looked just as good, hidden on the other side of the produce aisle. She was like, "you don't look for good deals, do you?" Ugh. Shamed. I wish I'd had an excuse like "I wanted organic" but the truth was I'd never known there was a whole separate stack. Damn you Fred Myer!

[quickthrower2]

Oh yeah thats another trick, out the cheaper ones somewhere illogical! They just are doing price discrimination based on how much time you have to hunt for the best deal.

[sampo]

The Norwegian groceries delivery company Oda, in their app you can sort each category (e.g. hard cheeses) view for price per item, or price per kg.

[quickthrower2]

Yeah ordering online is sweet in this regard

[noduerme]

To me the downside of online ordering is I always feel the need to tip extravagantly to make sure the delivery person doesn't get me rotten tomatoes. It ends up being a lot more expensive than just putting on a mask and trundling down to the market. If I'm in the middle of work I can justify it.

I used to enjoy going to the market. (Well, and a lot of other things that aren't fun anymore).

[pempem]

in CA the pricing is simply different online for delivery vs online for pickup vs shopping in the store.

so are the coupons.

[rootusrootus]

Eh, that's not been my experience at Fred Meyer. The produce section is open, with aisles, and while the organic and non-organic versions of a particular item are not usually next to each other (I could guess why), they're not hidden nor difficult to find. Sometimes the organic is farther back, sometimes up front, you just have to use your eyes -- it's all in plain view.

[test6554]

My one and only experience with shopping at Aldi was nearly rotten fruit, off-brand cardboard-tasting cereal and stale chips. The price is hard to beat, but I feel too much like a raccoon digging in a dumpster.

[lp0_on_fire]

My experience as well. Both at Aldi and Lidl. There's also zero consistency week to week. They stock their shelves with whatever the truck happens to bring in. Granted, they're both "discount" grocery stores so I'm not expecting gourmet fare but I'll gladly spend the extra few dollars to shop at our local family owned grocery store that always has great produce, meats, and a wide variety of options.

[AtlasBarfed]

I'm a big fan of Walmart's generic soda. 70-90 cents for a 2-liter from what I've seen. I particular Diet Dr Thunder, generic dr pepper is a litmus test for me in generic soda brands.

Their diet stuff flies off the shelves, so that HN story about diet soda "spoiling" (was it methlyation?) isn't a problem. I doubt it lasts even a day on the shelf.

Their kettle salt+vinegar potato chips, orange "yogurt" (comparable to yoplait orange cream "yogurt"), generic life cereal is all pretty good. You can tell, because those are often not in stock, I think their production is limited by agreements with the name brands I would speculate.

Aldi's generic soda was pretty bad. Meijers, most grocery generics, all pretty crappy.

[noduerme]

TJs is the bomb. But their choice of store placement is definitely cryptic. It always seems to be a little too far for a regular grocery trip; somewhere close to a hip strip, close to a blue collar neighborhood, but not quite walking distance from either. They have a very specific demographic and I'm sure they've been making shrewd property decisions as well. Here in Oregon they have to compete with New Seasons, which mainly sells locally sourced produce and kinda straddles the upper line with Whole Paycheck, which everyone hates; and with GrossOut (Grocery Outlet) which is just... a kind of amazing place to go if you've never been there (they basically sell all the day-old food from wholesalers alongside this month's new test products that failed to launch - if you aren't picky what you're going to cook, GrossOut is inspirational).

[hahajk]

If you’re interested in learning about how they choose locations, Freakinomics did a good episode where they cover just that. In short, they look for inexpensive locations that are rising in value, with demographics that have high education but relatively low income. (so, like, English majors.)

https://freakonomics.com/podcast/season-11-episode-9/

[noduerme]

This is awesome. Thank you.

[ecshafer]

I feel like the location for Trader Joes in all of the places I have lived has been essentially the same. It is in the wealthy neighborhoods, but usually in a strip mall or other location that's a bit cheaper than Whole Foods. At least in Philly I think if there is a Trader Joe's there is a Whole Foods < 1 Mile away.

[carabiner]

In SoCal, TJ's is everywhere. I had one near my house, one in between my house and my office, and one by my office. This was like a 20 minute commute. It's part of culture there, like In-n-out.

[maxerickson]

I have SNAP accepting stores loaded into a gis (JOSM really) so it was quick to check. ~1/5 of the Trader Joe's stores in the country are in southern California (just a couple fewer locations than all of the northeast). More than 1/3 are in California.

[rootsudo]

I've never had a great experience with GroceryOutlet and don't understand how they operate or even have a franchise model.

But my experiences are from the Seattle Area south to Oregon.

[noduerme]

In the more rural / exurb parts of Portland metro they do really well. But they just have bizarre things. You can go load up on random bags of chips from a startup that's already out of business, that'll never get made again. And then one day they'll be the only market in the state that has raddichio. You have to be willing to go with it, but it's so cheap you can afford to just buy a bunch of stuff and make it work.

[toast0]

The couple of times I was in one (San Jose), it seemed like most of the stock was liquidated by other stores, and the extremely low frills store vibe was in full effect, so I suspect it's just a simple minimize the costs and hope. There was a pretty decent crowd, so they've got a market of IMHO price sensitive, quality insensitive customers.

[JJMcJ]

TJ's is OK but it's no substitute for a full supermarket.

[browningstreet]

..like Kroger, or Whole Foods?

I would say Kroger isn't a real supermarket, it's a junk food market and pharmacopia.

[mmmpop]

>> I would say Kroger isn't a real supermarket, it's a junk food market and pharmacopia.

I cannot fathom how you've come to this conclusion. I've been to 100 Kroger stores in my life and not one fits your description.

[JJMcJ]

Haven't been to Kroger, or as we used to say, Krogers, for quite a while, but I assume what this means is that much of their floor space is taken up by low-quality prepared food and over-the-counter medicines. But that's true of every large grocery in the US.

[smm11]

What is a real supermarket?

[JJMcJ]

These days?

Meat counter, extensive selection of frozen food. Good amount of space for non-food items, like over the counter medicine, schools supplies, cleaning supplies, personal care items.

Maybe a pharmacy, maybe not, depending on the store.

In Northern California, it seems Safeway and Lucky are the top ones, and of course Costco. Also 99 Ranch, often called Ranch 99, which is aimed at Asian food customers. There are other smaller chains and individual stores.

Whole Foods, or TJ's. Can I buy a mop, a bottle of Tylenol, and two quarts of motor oil? Not a chance.