I really, really like Aldi’s also ! It is further away from us, but it is located right next to my favorite thrift store; and the thrift store has senior discount on everything each Tuesday; so when I go to the thrift store, then I also go to Aldi. Ours has eggs for about 27 cents a dozen, are yours that cheap ?
Wow that's quite a price for eggs ! No I have not seen them that low in years! Stock up .. they do last a while .. just be sure to check the use by date. I found the best candy bars at Aldi and apparently that is the only place you can get them. The salsa is delicious and in fact we like it better than the name brands we have been buying. Hubby found a giant frozen pizza he said was the best frozen he has ever eaten. The bread prices are unbeatable. The only thing I wasn't impressed with was the meat prices .. they are the same as Giant Eagle but everything else has been great. I've not tried the paper products yet so that will be yet to come.
The eggs are always that price, maybe for the last whole year; so it must be a leader that they do to get customers in. Milk is usually under $1 a gallon, and the fresh fruit and veggies are always really fresh, and competitively priced. Since we have been shopping there, we have deviled eggs and egg salad sandwiches a lot more often that we usually did, for sure ! We tried their TP the last trip (the large pack) and it is as good as what we were getting from Amazon or Sam’s Club. I haven’t tried the frozen pizza, but they usually have fresh pizza for about $6, and it is a huge one, with everything on it. Again, comparable to Sam’s. We also get their whey protein powder and sometimes the protein bars , and they are delicious, too. The whey is cheaper than name brands, and comparable to Muscle Tech or Body Fortress whey.
We use several. In our little town we have a "Big M" an independently owned store. Wal-Mart 20 miles away was kicking their but so they began to promote their meat. Very good stuff. Most everything else is too expensive. We also go to Wegmans quite a bit. Wow what a store that is!. Can be expensive if you don't buy store brand,but they have a vast array of stand alone departments that no other store can match. Deli, bakery, cheese shop,floral shop, ethnic foods. Amazing store. Finally we use Wal Mart for prepared foods and such. Produce in our area sucks in general with Wal Mart having the worst. There is a Mennonite store called Sauders that has the bst in season produce and packaged all the way from single piece to canning quantities. We love Pennsylvania Freestone Peaches. They are only available for a couple of weeks. I bought a peck and we canned a bunch of them.
While we were in Virginia, we noticed that the Food Lion near Massanutten was set up exactly the same as the Hannaford stores that we have in Maine. Although it has its own store brands, the Food Lion store brands are very similar to the Hannaford store brands. Hannaford is a chain based in Scarborough, Maine, with stores in New England and New York. However, it is now owned by Ahold Delhaize, a company based in the Netherlands, which owns grocery and convenience store chains in Europe, Asia, and North America. In the United States, it owns Hannaford, Food Lion, Stop & Shop, Giant Martin's, Giant Foods, Peapod, and Fresh. It doesn't own anything in England or Australia, however.
When I lived in Texas, I mostly shopped at HEB. They had a policy where, if you found anything with an expired sell-by date, they would give you that item for free, but with a good date. Except when I was a health inspector, I didn't spend a lot of time looking at expiration dates but I know some people who would go through practically every can and box in the store. I guess it was cheaper than hiring someone to do that and preferable to letting the health inspector find it.
I lived in the same town outside of DC from '63 through '10. There was a chain of 6 stores called Magruders that were my go-to stores...two in Virginia, one in DC, and three in Maryland. The aisles were barely wide enough to get a single cart through. The produce section was even more cramped. I often wondered why the Fire Marshall never shut them down. But their prices were great, and you could get the weird fruits & veggies that were not available anywhere else. The first store shut down in 2012, with the others rapidly following. I mostly bought produce and meat there. Since my brother hosted Christmas at his house, I would sometimes buy a whole filet mignon at rock-bottom prices and take it over for him to cook. The only thing that was "iffy" was their shrimp and other seafood. They did not have strict adherence to refrigeration practices, and the few times I bought shrimp it was inedible...but those prices!!! Since Marguders was so hard to navigate, I never bought canned foods there. I'd drive up the road to Giant Food for the bulky stuff. Here in the country we have Walmart and Food Lion, both of which are severely lacking. The produce quality is marginal and there are frequent stock outs. The local Food Lion rips people off due to lack of competition. So I drive up the road 25 miles to the new·ish ALDI and then across the street to Kroger for my weekly produce. I save enough at ALDI to pay for the gas, and while I'm in the big city I have lunch at the Chinese buffet. Walmart and Food Lion get my "gotta have it now" purchases.
We have plenty of grocery stores in our area. I mostly shop at HEB, Kroger, and occasionally Walmart, but there's an Aldi and a Food Town within 5 miles. Also Whole Foods and Central Market, Costco and Sam's Club. We used to have an Albertson's that I really loved but it's closed now.
When I was in California, Alpha Beta and Albertson's were my favorite supermarkets, with a preference for the latter because they were always open.
Kroger and Wal-Mart, and a small mom and pops store. I really like the small store but they don’t always have the variety of items needed. But I sure do like the customer service and attitude of the owner and the employees that work there!
I like the ethnic markets (Asian, Latino, Indian.) The prices are crazy low, and they have all sorts of interesting stuff. There are only a few here in the central part of Virginia. There are lots of them (on the large supermarket scale) outside of DC. When I lived back north, I'd shop there every week.
We shop at Kroger twice a month, and fill in the holes with a locally-owned (Alaska-owned) store called Three Bears Alaska after the children's book of that name if you have ever read it. Three Bears is a Costco reseller as well as having their own brands so it gives us access to stuff and we don't have to travel to Anchorage for it--meat especially. Local on-site butcher...can't beat it. Sometimes visit Wal-Mart and occasionally Target.
Here in eastern Washington State, we shop at: - Costco - Eggers - Natural Grocers - Rosauers For foods (meats, etc.), this gives us a good selection of organic/natural, close by.
I'm getting soured on ALDI. I buy a 4 pak of "artisan" lettuce every week along with a head of romaine or green or red lettuce, I used to buy these at Walmart when I first moved here, but they stopped carrying them. Kroeger sells them but has limited inventory. So I was glad to find that ALDI carries them, and always had a couple of cases in the cooler. The clam shell is held closed by a piece of clear tape, which has the Expiry Date stamped on it. That is, the Expiry Date used to be stamped on it. The packages at Kroeger (when you can find them) are still dated, but the ones at ALDI no longer are. I picked up some on Tuesday and the daggone things are rotted. This is the first time that has happened, but I know the stuff is not always fresh. I also picked up a pack of blackberries and there was mold on some of them. There is a 50/50 chance this is gonna happen with any random container of blackberries. I'm beginning to wonder if it's worth the drive to roll the dice on this stuff. Maybe I could ask them when they get their produce in and plan my shopping day around that. I sent the lettuce company an email to see where else I can buy this stuff, and told that I was gonna contact the Charlottesville health department and see if they could push on ALDI to put dates on products when manufacturers provide them. edit to add: I just sent ALDI an email.
I rotate between stores and buy certain things in Safeway, King Soopers (Kroger), WalMart and Sprouts. There is another big consolidation coming up with Kroger buying out Safeway. It is on hold in the courts for now and I hope it fails. Safeway is my favorite, Sprouts has the best produce, Walmart has the lowest prices on pet supplies. King Soopers has a cute little delivery van. I like the idea of that rather than having groceries delivered in someone's trunk, If there is to be delivery at all. However, I've only had delivery one time when I wasn't getting around very well. I do order pickup more often. It's not really practical for me to order lettuce from the grocery for one person. I tend to order a big salad from a restaurant about once a week. It lasts a couple of days and then I have less waste. On the other days I like having a lot of fresh fruit around plus a few fresh veggies that keep longer than lettuce.