Aldi (or ALDI) is a German discount supermarket chain that features quality specialty-food/private-label products. They have over 11,000 stores in Australia, Austria, Belgium, China, Denmark, France, Great Britain, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Slovenia, Spain, Switzerland, and the United States. There are over 80 Aldi stores in California, but none of them are in Northern California, where I live!
On a recent trip to Southern California, I got to go to one of two Aldi stores located in Bakersfield, California (about 111 miles/ 179 km) north of Los Angeles. It reminded me so much of Lidl, another German discount supermarket chain that I went to with my friend who lives in Berlin.
My husband hasn’t been able to make his delicious arepas, or Venezuelan/Colombian corn cakes, since it’s been hard to find a particular brand of pre-cooked white corn meal flour in the Bay Area. So, when we spotted it at Aldi, we couldn’t pass up the opportunity to buy some!
Tell me in the comments: Is there an Aldi near you?
Bonjour: A Francophile Blog 
Yes, there are two Aldi stores (and one Lidl) within a mile of my house here in Frankfurt, but I never shop there, since they use their huge market share to depress prices and rip off the farmers and other producers. Fortunately there are also several REWE stores nearby, within easy cycling distance, so that’s where I do my shopping.
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Well, that’s not good if Aldi is ripping off farmers and producers! Thanks for the insight and also for letting me know about REWE. Here I was thinking that Aldi is able to keep their prices low because they save time, labor, and money by using less packaging, making customers bag their own groceries, and having customers return their own carts!
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As we live in a village in the UK we don’t have a Lidl or Aldi. However, in France we do have a Lidl which we use, although having read Nemorino’s comments, I’ll think twice now…
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I like Aldi’s straight-forward, simple, and minimalist style. But Don sure gave some food for thought, didn’t he! At Lidl, I remember their pretzels and croissants were good! There are Lidl stores in the U.S. but sadly, none in California (so far)!
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