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Comment by kzrdude | Hacker News Reader

Euro here, I don't think chasing the bottom of the barrel is worth celebrating. Also, Germany has the worst standard of grocery stores (I'd prefer grocery stores in general from neighboring France, Switzerland etc) due to their assortment and quality of products - and Aldi and Lidl are responsible for that.

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Cheap medium-quality food is not really just an Aldi/Lidl thing, it's culturally a German thing. Germans just don't care about food quality as much as e.g. French people, so competition values price over quality. I'm German and also this way, that's why I'm generally happy to shop in Aldi/Lidl.

That would explain why Aldi can be successful in the USA. Even after more than a decade living in more than one states, and I am still not used to the generally poor quality of fresh produce.

Seasonal gardening and local farmers help, but it's not cheap at all. I grew with up with seasonal farmer's market having higher quality at the same or even slightly lower price than the grocery store, but not in the US, higher quality but at fancy price, although they receive the same subsidies and it does cost them that much more.

It's also diet and food choices. For example I shop in Aldi here in Ireland and this week a standard problem happened. I went with a list of ingredients to make an Indian curry from scratch and only managed to get about 70 percent of what I needed there. The same thing has happened before when doing a Thai or Chinese meal. Comparatively a normal sizwd Tesco would nearly always have everything. In particular Aldi would have a lot less options for things like spices etc.

One thing I do find funny though is the Lidl (and Aldi) practice of selling loads of random items in one or two of there aisles. Many is the funny story I or friends have of going into the shop for milk and bread and coming out with a unicycle, power welder and night vision goggles instead :)

That's my experience as well as an Aldi customer in the USA. I just go to see what they have rather than with a specific list in mind because their selection is quite sparse and at least 20-25% of it changes regularly.

At least here in Houston my Aldi is in the middle of an economically depressed area, so despite the poor selection they're still better than the small convenience stores which have little to no fresh food of any kind. Everything is prepackaged.

I’ve heard They call it three tiered shopping here in Germany - 70% in Aldi, the rest in an upper level discounter (sic) and the delicious or rare stuff at a specialist store or a marketplace.

Germans who can afford it buy only basic stuff at discounters. Fresh vegetables are bought at traditional grocery stores or markets, bread is bought at a bakery, and meat at a butcher, etc. though these latter two professions are heavily in decline in the last 20 years. Comparisons with France and Italy are unfair; these are in a league of their own with respect to food quality (at a price, though).

Good point, actually

Living in Switzerland, I often choose to shop for groceries in Germany! Better prices and (much) better range in Hieber. (Although agree that France usually has both beaten.)

Assuming you mean the Hieber in Weil am Rhein, they really do offer a superb shopping experience, but it's vastly above the standard. I wish more supermarkets would adopt the self-scanning devices, it's perfect when buying single-digit items.

In Lithuania food is so expensive that there's a joke that it's cheaper to drive to Germany to shop. That's a bit of a hyperbole (German border is about 1000km away), but it's definitely cheaper to shop in Poland.

In Poland it's pretty common to do shopping in Germany, if you live close to the border.

It's pretty ridiculous how in that region, as you drive south the average wage increases, but the food prices decrease.

I don’t know about the quality it’s not particularly bad as they also have a brands but Lidl is certainly not all about efficiency. Not those here in Belgium regardless where you go to the Lidl.

I really dislike going there. They have 8 cash registers and open only on or two. The reason being that they are understaffed and employees have a gazillion of tasks: baking, unloading, stock, cash register,...

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