Originally Posted by emma69

It's really weird to me how Aldi is perceived in different places. In Germany it was a bog standard grocery store, nothing remarkable. In the UK it is seen as the place 'poor' people / social miscreants shop. In the US it is seen as almost edgy and trendy to shop at Aldi and I see it alongside Trader Joes for 'best own brand product' articles frequently. The only US stores I have been to didn't seem to have the 'strange stuff' aisle in the middle of the store like the UK ones have - where you can buy things like horse halters one month, tents the next month, or a ping pong set the third - never the same items, never predictable!

Personally, I have just never been able to do a full shop at one in any of the locations. There are always some products I prefer a brand name for, and items they don't carry either own or on label brands. So it doesn't make much sense to me as a primary grocery store (not that I have one where I live now). I do like some of the things they carry, especially seasonal products (picked up some nice European treats in Dec 2019 in NY). Things like vanilla extract, and other oddball items are great value in there because they bring the actual European products to a market that is skewed weirdly high priced for those sorts of things or that has a lot of substandard products (like vanilla essence instead).