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Comment by setpatchaddress | Hacker News Reader

I’d love to also read about the post-“Joe” 1979-present period — how Aldi’s has done so well with it without compromising the original principles.

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Aldi's is probably good example of optimizing for a different set of constraints. I use Trader Joe's a lot when I can; there isn't one especially near me. But there's an Aldi's right down the road--which I popped my head in once but have never bought at.

IIRC fully separate companies tied into "Aldi Nord" and "Aldi Sud" from when the original company was split between sons.

Similar approaches of "all store brand products" but Aldi focuses more on price and value while TJs focuses on "romance the hell out of it."

Edit: https://www.aldireviewer.com/aldi-trader-joes-related/

I knew they were related.

Yeah. TJs optimizes for things that are of far more interest to me than what Aldi does. (Not that TJs is anything like a one stop shop for me.)

It's close to one-stop, but not quite there. Paper products are very sparse, as are soaps & cleaning products, and personal/health stuff (I really don't care for Tom's of Maine).

Aldi is shifting a bit. If you haven’t been in one for a few years you should visit again.

I’ve heard that TJs and Costco can both really put the squeeze on vendors similar to (but without the bad press) the way Walmart does.

Aldi seems more do to the “what can we buy cheap and where this week.”

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