Silent_Water
Tribune
I am back from my traditional weekly ALDI buy and I can understand why the US-customers may have a cultural shock after visiting ALDI for the first time.
Even I myself, being German, am sometimes not sure if I should be glad or also a bit afraid about this German "legendary success story".
The two brothers with the family name "Albrecht" who founded this supermarket chain after WW II by making it out of a small grocery store from her mother who wanted that they do not need to work in a mine like their father had to. These brothers were always extremely shy and very modest - so modest that in 1971 the kidnappers of one of them forced him to show them his passport because they were in doubt that a millionnaire could walk around in such poor clothes.
en.wikipedia.org
( "ALbrecht DIscount" -> "ALDI" )
On the other hand, just now in times of the coronavirus, this is THE German Supermarket at its highest level of efficiency in lowest prices, fastest buying and getting out again without having physical contact with another person.
The profits of the ALDI chain must be in astronomical spheres during the last weeks because these German supermarkets never had to close like other bigger stores (Karstadt, Kaufhof etc.) because they were excluded as "only food sellers" from the coronavirus restrictions and always tried as much as possible to separate the customers from the cashiers and newly hired guards were sometimes informing the customers when they were coming too close to each other in front of the cashiers.
Concerning missing "brands" in ALDI: I don't know how ALDI is organizing this in the USA, but in Germany they made something I really liked. They must have (had?) real "geniuses" in arithmetics and mathematics at their planning staff because they thought one day in the 1970's or 1980's that there are lots of wasted food in companies who offer only high quality brands and much of these food was thrown away, for example milk products. And now came the managers of ALDI, who tried to find out before a brand company even thought of it how much is produced too much in which times. There were reports from investigative journalists on German TV some decades ago, that ALDI managers did the following for sure: They offered the German brand company "Müller-Milch" millions of money, if they would sell them their overproduction in milk-products in hottest summer when fewer people would buy yoghurt etc. when they print on their products a new neutral name like "Desira" which then was sold for half the price at ALDI. So, ALDI had suddenly perfect milk products of a high qualitiy to offer, only their best-before date was up to five days shorter than in other stores and "Müller-Milch" did not have to throw away and waste good milk, what was not sold in other stores because of the much higher price or because of over-production. This was in principle the reason why ALDI made so incredible profits during the last 40 years:
They were looking like detectives for overproductions, buying them as fast as possible and selling them similar fast as "no-name-products" for half the price.
So, not so many people know until today that in the ALDI brands are often much more expensive brands from better known companies and I would really like to know if they do their business in the USA in the same way.
By the way, an ALDI manager was said 3 years ago to have been sitting in a plane on his business trip to or from the USA, one seat behind "Anastacia". This is what happened and was to sale some months later at ALDI in Germany:
www.tz.de
These ALDI managers must be like police dogs, sniffing around for the best business everywhere ...
Moreover, the ALDI managers sometimes seem to make "compensation trades" like the Soviet Union did in the 1970's with goods you would not expect to be traded as long as both sides make profit, for example (just a joke) "you buy our Sauerkraut and we buy your Computers or your submarines if you have them". So, around the year 2000 suddenly ALDI had incredible good computers to offer at very low prices which were produced in parts in Taiwan, assembled & put together in Turkey, sold in Germany and a German comedian made jokes about that, imitating a Turkish "ü"-dialect: "ALDI is selling today Chinese compüters with Üntel ünside!"
Another special sale of ALDI was even part of an investigation from the German border police but the items were sold so fast that the police came too late: Italian wine at a price so low that it was even impossible to buy wine at this price in Italy! The wine was controlled by German laboratories by order of the investigating attorney: It was really good wine, not of the highest quality but really good. No one ever found out where this wine was produced and how it came to Germany to be sold at such a low price. There were jokes that ALDI must have found a second Jesus who was able to turn water into Italian wine.
But this story shows about ALDI what makes me a bit afraid, being a German: How do they do such businesses as law-abiding Germans ?
Even I myself, being German, am sometimes not sure if I should be glad or also a bit afraid about this German "legendary success story".
The two brothers with the family name "Albrecht" who founded this supermarket chain after WW II by making it out of a small grocery store from her mother who wanted that they do not need to work in a mine like their father had to. These brothers were always extremely shy and very modest - so modest that in 1971 the kidnappers of one of them forced him to show them his passport because they were in doubt that a millionnaire could walk around in such poor clothes.
Theo Albrecht - Wikipedia
en.wikipedia.org
On the other hand, just now in times of the coronavirus, this is THE German Supermarket at its highest level of efficiency in lowest prices, fastest buying and getting out again without having physical contact with another person.
The profits of the ALDI chain must be in astronomical spheres during the last weeks because these German supermarkets never had to close like other bigger stores (Karstadt, Kaufhof etc.) because they were excluded as "only food sellers" from the coronavirus restrictions and always tried as much as possible to separate the customers from the cashiers and newly hired guards were sometimes informing the customers when they were coming too close to each other in front of the cashiers.
Concerning missing "brands" in ALDI: I don't know how ALDI is organizing this in the USA, but in Germany they made something I really liked. They must have (had?) real "geniuses" in arithmetics and mathematics at their planning staff because they thought one day in the 1970's or 1980's that there are lots of wasted food in companies who offer only high quality brands and much of these food was thrown away, for example milk products. And now came the managers of ALDI, who tried to find out before a brand company even thought of it how much is produced too much in which times. There were reports from investigative journalists on German TV some decades ago, that ALDI managers did the following for sure: They offered the German brand company "Müller-Milch" millions of money, if they would sell them their overproduction in milk-products in hottest summer when fewer people would buy yoghurt etc. when they print on their products a new neutral name like "Desira" which then was sold for half the price at ALDI. So, ALDI had suddenly perfect milk products of a high qualitiy to offer, only their best-before date was up to five days shorter than in other stores and "Müller-Milch" did not have to throw away and waste good milk, what was not sold in other stores because of the much higher price or because of over-production. This was in principle the reason why ALDI made so incredible profits during the last 40 years:
They were looking like detectives for overproductions, buying them as fast as possible and selling them similar fast as "no-name-products" for half the price.
So, not so many people know until today that in the ALDI brands are often much more expensive brands from better known companies and I would really like to know if they do their business in the USA in the same way.
By the way, an ALDI manager was said 3 years ago to have been sitting in a plane on his business trip to or from the USA, one seat behind "Anastacia". This is what happened and was to sale some months later at ALDI in Germany:
US-Sängerin Anastacia mit neuer Kollektion für Aldi
Nieten, Pailletten und Destroyed-Effekte mag US-Sängerin Anastacia an Kleidung. Kein Wunder also, dass diese in ihrer neuen Kollektion zu finden sind. Die Kleidung wird es am Mitte September bei Aldi geben.
www.tz.de
Moreover, the ALDI managers sometimes seem to make "compensation trades" like the Soviet Union did in the 1970's with goods you would not expect to be traded as long as both sides make profit, for example (just a joke) "you buy our Sauerkraut and we buy your Computers or your submarines if you have them". So, around the year 2000 suddenly ALDI had incredible good computers to offer at very low prices which were produced in parts in Taiwan, assembled & put together in Turkey, sold in Germany and a German comedian made jokes about that, imitating a Turkish "ü"-dialect: "ALDI is selling today Chinese compüters with Üntel ünside!"
Another special sale of ALDI was even part of an investigation from the German border police but the items were sold so fast that the police came too late: Italian wine at a price so low that it was even impossible to buy wine at this price in Italy! The wine was controlled by German laboratories by order of the investigating attorney: It was really good wine, not of the highest quality but really good. No one ever found out where this wine was produced and how it came to Germany to be sold at such a low price. There were jokes that ALDI must have found a second Jesus who was able to turn water into Italian wine.
But this story shows about ALDI what makes me a bit afraid, being a German: How do they do such businesses as law-abiding Germans ?
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