dogs faceALDI continues to be the most underestimated grocery retailer in the U.S. market. In CPG circles, it is easy to understand why. ALDI is a control label retail operator, selling primarily, if not entirely, their own privately branded knockoffs of established American foods. CPG companies track retailers they can sell to, not those they can’t. 

ALDI’s retail strategy has combined a control label National Brand Equivalent (NBE) portfolio with an equally impressive deletion of conventional supermarket services: 

  • There are no counter service departments; everything is packaged and everything is self-service.ALDI threat to walmart?
  • No shelving means no stockboys to hire; product is wheeled in on pallets by forklift, unwrapped and quickly signed.
  • Carts must be paid for by deposit (25 cents) and returned by the shopper to eliminate staff needed to wrangle shopping carts.
  • There are no baskets to manage.
  • The only staff in an ALDI store are: forklift operators bringing in new pallets, a cashier (or two) and possibly a third-party loss-prevention agent. 

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