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"Aldi and Lidl are blasting through other super market chains with their low cost, high quality goods" Yes, and no. In the UK, I'm glad that Aldi and Lidl are
by open-source-ux 10y ago
"Aldi and Lidl are blasting through other super market chains with their low cost, high quality goods"
Yes, and no. In the UK, I'm glad that Aldi and Lidl are challenging the larger supermarkets, but I would hate to see a situation where a race to the bottom on price means consumers have less choice across the entire supermarket sector. By choice I don't mean 20 brands of ketchup, I mean - to give just one example - a wide variety of herbs and spices for instance. (In my local Aldi and Lidl, they rarely have more than ten.)
Plus, UK supermarkets are a bit more flexible in catering to local shoppers. You'll often find South Asian/African/Chinese/Carribean/Polish goods stocked in the supermarket to reflect the local population.
Also, the discount supermarkets don't always treat suppliers any better than their larger counterparts. Last year, milk farmers in the UK protested against supermarkets that were paying them less than the cost of producing milk. Lidl and Aldi were among the supermarkets implicated. (To their credit, both Lidl and Aldi and other supermarkets agreed to raise the price they paid for milk as a result of the farmer's protest). Irish farmers also protested against Lidl and Aldi's low milk prices last year too.
In Germany, where Aldi and Lidl dominate the supermarket sector, there is far less product choice in the supermarket sector because of course the key to their low prices and profitability is fewer stock lines. I hope the supermarket landscape in the UK doesn't turn into something similar.
- germanier 10y agoThe race to the bottom in Germany has created a market where food is of good quality but not great. Larger supermarkets do have quite a bit of selection but it's not as good as the stuff you can get in a French or British store. You can get a fair selection of spices in stores other than Aldi or Lidl but sometimes I have the suspicion that it's only the third-class that is left after the stores in neighboring countries have bought their supply. In Germany Aldi is known as the hardest negotiator and the price setter for basic food. When they lowered the milk price by one fourth to 46 cents recently (which is way too low to cover production cost) all other chains responded within a few hours for their store-brands.
- wirrbel 10y agoI hear this quite often, but on the other hand I live about 20km away from the french border, and overall food quality does not go up much if you go there (with the obvious exceptions: Cheese, Baguette, Wine). Typically you can buy most items available in an Aldi store for the same price in other supermarkets (value brands).
- nickpsecurity 10y ago"When they lowered the milk price by one fourth to 46 cents recently (which is way too low to cover production cost) all other chains responded within a few hours for their store-brands." They tried this in my area maybe last year. Aldi dropped the price of milk and some other stuff to ridiculous prices. It went from around $2 to $0.60-0.70 at Aldi with Walmart, Kroger, etc following by dropping to $0.99. Aldi ships milk on racks with little else in their dairy selling that fast. Competitors, that I'm aware, all hand stock milk with tons of other products selling fast. Employees were exhausted from wave after wave hitting the milk section and so much milk stored that they couldnt get to other products. Convenience store owners were also posing as regular customers to buy basket loads of it over course of a day despite policy of 2 per customer. Results were so devastating to big players they backed off and didn't price war Aldi again in my area. So far. Milk went back up. I thought it was hilarious they'd even try given they're "as much overhead as possible" organizations going against an essentially "zero overhead" organization. What did they think would happen? Lol...
- dandermotj 10y agoFrom Ireland, so I know what you're talking about. I suppose my point was really that Lidl and Aldi have swept into an market over the last 10 years, where customers are hard fought for, seemingly with ease. The Tescos of the world definitely can't compete at with own brand quality or price. I don't know about the UK, but in Ireland Aldi and Lidl are proliferating across the country. The growth is so extreme, they're hiring grads at €60k plus an Audi in order to train them up as shop managers. I mentioned case study because they've taken a fundamentally different approach and it's working. Their low cost structures across supply chain, product base, building construction and shop design are how they're carrying out this coup.
- eru 10y agoShouldn't the milk farmers who can't meet cost of production leave the sector instead of guilting people into supporting their lifestyle?