[bowsamic]

I like Aldi Süd (the one you Americans have and also the one in the UK) but here in Hamburg and also in France it is Aldi Nord and it's really quite awful (more like Netto and Penny, both of which I hate). Thankfully we also have Lidl which is closer to Aldi Süd but honestly I'm a bit soured on Discounters in general recently. I still use them for some things but often they're more expensive than my local greengrocers for veg and often of very questionable quality, especially the fruit and veg, but also the Vollkorn bread and even the cheese are very hit and miss.

Here in Germany the situation is different to the US though, we often don't just go to one shop, we usually mix and match between 2 or 3 different shops even in one shopping trip. Though I guess if you had a Kaufland nearby you could probably just manage with one shop

[denvrede]

I live almost exactly on the "Aldi Äquator" (Aldi equator - this is a real thing), near to where the Albrecht brothers lived. People here go purposefully to Aldi South instead of Aldi North even if they happen to live just north of the equator. The whole shopping experience is much worse.

[kuschku]

Honestly, I prefer going to Aldi Nord. It's a cleaner, more focused shopping experience, while Aldi Süd and Lidl tends to have too much distracting fluff.

[denvrede]

Fair enough. I "go" shopping because of all the interesting and distracting stuff. If I want a clean / focused shopping experience I order from home, even if it's a little bit more expensive.

[PaulRobinson]

In the UK I prefer Lidl to Aldi for reasons I can't quite fathom, and the pricing is within pennies of each other. Interestingly many of the middle-of-the-road supermarkets like Asda, Sainsbury's, Morrison's and Tesco now price match a ton of their own brand essentials to Aldi as loss leaders to try and get people in store. It's not quite enough to make it the default shop though.

What's kind of interesting is that in some sectors (wine, whisky, bakery), Lidl has started to win quality/tasting awards against premium retailers like Waitrose and M&S Food. But the prices are still down on the floor in comparison.

The only downside is the range can be limiting. Want to buy some fresh tarragon? Maybe some pods for your coffee machine? You're going to have to head elsewhere.

[willyt]

I used to use tesco delivery for my big food shop in London. They were hopeless though always late, leaving other peoples shopping and they did mad substituting like tinned spaghetti instead of spaghetti where pasta shells would make more sense. I would buy £150 of stuff at a time and once I put the same order into Ocado which was the online shop for Waitrose, the poshest British supermarket chain. It was about £2 more on a £150 order and the delivery was cheaper. They turned up on time, there were no substitutions. I noticed that although there was a much larger selection of luxury items in waitrose, basic ingredients (pasta, flour, carrots, potatoes, tinned tomatoes, meat, fish) cost pretty much the same in all uk supermarkets, apart from Lidl/Aldi who are sometimes slightly cheaper. Waitrose makes money by tempting us to upgrade on basic items. Lidl makes money by selling us weird stuff in the middle of the store that we don’t need and by being more efficient with the number of staff in stores.

[yourusername]

>In the UK I prefer Lidl to Aldi for reasons I can't quite fathom

Maybe it is how the stores look? In NL Lidl looks like a normal supermarket that just happens to be cheap. Aldi is like someone went out of their way to make a supermarket as ugly and uncomfortable a shopping experience as possible.

[phatfish]

Maybe you have the "other" Aldi (Nord) in NL? In the UK the Aldi stores are quite nice. Far less pallets dropped on the shop floor and most of it on shelves. They are generally smaller shops and VERY busy though, which is all that is stopping me from using them regularly.

I think they reached the point in the UK that everyone willing to put up with chaos in store was already shopping there, so they had to start competing with the traditional supermarkets like Tesco and Sainsburys.

[notahacker]

In the UK there's barely any difference in presentation: both are relatively basic in layout and choice compared with the majority supermarket chains and even the logos and "middle aisle" full of assorted discounted toys and electronics concept are very similar to each other. Lidl is generally a little bit bigger and the clear winner if you consider freshly baked bread a hallmark of supermarket quality though...

[bowsamic]

Yeah it’s very different here. There is no concept of price matching and the better supermarkets have quality that scales reliably with price

[LargoLasskhyfv]

Penny and Netto are the Resterampe (Bargain Basement) of Rewe and Edeka. That aside, if you like Lidl, why not go to Kaufland, which is the Luxus-Lidl of the Schwarz-Gruppe?

Oh, and depending where in Hamburg, there is also https://www.globus.de/hamburg-lurup/index.php# which reminded me of my childhood, shortly after they've opened at the remodeled site of a former real,-, which is second only to https://www.edeka.de/eh/nord/edeka-center-st.-pauli-neuer-ka...

[bowsamic]

I mentioned Kaufland, as I said, if I were near Kaufland I would go, but there are not many Kaufland in Hamburg. On my way back from work there is a Budni, a Lidl, an Aldi (that I never go to), a Rewe, and a Denn's Biomarkt, so they are the convenient options. Also, Globus isn't really near us, but I visited it and it sucks! I hate it. Way too big aisles super spaced out for no reason. I much prefered the Real that was there. I have to admit that EDEKA at St. Pauli is amazing though. Sometimes I go out of my way just to go there.

I'm an immigrant from the UK though, this is all new to me. As others pointed out, most supermarkets are basically comparable in the UK. In Germany the variety between different supermarkets is crazy. Even between different Bio markts the quality difference can be extreme.

[LargoLasskhyfv]

Huh. If only you knew the difference in the western slope of the Colorado Rockies, and Pasadena right next to LA :-) It's insane! Because of the involved distances in Colorado, and the variety of quality. In case of metropolitan LA it's just the scale, like in the movie Idiocracy :-)

I haven't been to that Globus in a while, have just been there shortly after it openend in the summer, and 2 times after that. It really reminded me of my childhood, because then there was another Globus elsewhere, where I went, and it was always fun because there was stuff to sample. Like there was in this new one. Instant flashback! While the sortiment isn't that overwhelming, it tops Kauflands and probably most Rewe easily, Edeka not so sure. What they do have though, is freshly pressed pomegrenade juice. Where else do you get that? Oh, not to forget, also a large (real) bakery IN STORE where you can look into, which is always busy, and gives the outside air a really nice smell at 4AM in the morning. Which is very rare nowadays.

Whatever. Enjoy the ride ;-)

[mlrtime]

>Here in Germany the situation is different to the US though, we often don't just go to one shop

What would give you the indication that the situation is different in the US? In any given week I shop at Aldi (Favorite), Trader Joes, HEB, Whole Foods, Costco and Wal-Mart.

I'm consistently shocked by which stores have the best prices AND best quality produce.

[bowsamic]

Apologies, I had assumed from my visits to the US that it was like the UK and France where it's common to only go to one single shop. When I lived in the UK most people I know bought literally everything from one giant supermarket and never felt the need to go anywhere else. For example, every Sunday we would do one giant shop at Sainsbury's and that was our week's shopping done. Can't really do that in Germany because all of the shops are shut on Sunday, so you have to shop on Saturday, but more likely here you are just doing multiple little shops throughout the week

[jrmg]

The USA is a _big_ country. You’ll find both these style of shopping, each more common in some areas than others.

[bowsamic]

Of course but there are still general trends, such as the one I stated about the UK and France. For example, in London and Paris people probably don't shop like I said, but generally they do. I expected Americans, being primarily car oriented and shops being spread far apart, would stick to giant hypermarkets. That said, I have learnt that making any kind of generalisation about America is sure to bring a response that America is actually infinitely varied, so I completely retract any comment I ever made about the US