Lidl is the new Aldi

Brian and I used to be pretty big Aldi shoppers. It was our go-to store for staples like breakfast cereal, oats, cheese, butter, chocolate chips, orange juice, canned beans, peanuts, and dish soap. Their produce section was a bit hit-and-miss, but there were occasional great deals there, and it was also a fairly good place to pick up extras like organic, Fair Trade chocolate bars. I used to say that of all the strategies I used for saving money, shopping at Aldi was probably the most useful.

Yet over the past few years, we've found ourselves shopping at Aldi less and less. It started when we got our Costco membership in 2017 and gradually discovered that this store offered better deals than Aldi on many of our staple items, such as oats, chocolate chips, peanut butter, canola oil, and even (sometimes) cereal. The cheap raisin bran wasn't always available at Costco, so we still had a good reason to visit Aldi regularly — but then Aldi raised its cereal price too, and Brian switched to homemade granola for his everyday breakfast. And, around the same time, we started weaning ourselves off dairy products — first switching to almond milk and then discovering homemade vegan cheese and coconut whipped cream. Aldi does sell almond milk at a pretty good price, but I tried it and didn't like it, so this dietary sea-change eliminated another major incentive for us to visit the store. 

We still found it worth our while to stop by occasionally on our way down to Princeton to pick up a few items that were cheapest there, such as canned beans, dish soap, and (when available) canned pumpkin for the cats. But after the pandemic brought an end to our weekly Morris dance practices, it was no longer really worth making a special trip just for those few items. In the entire past year, we've been to Aldi only twice. Once Morris dance practice resumes (which may have to wait until fall, since our summer practice spot is still off-limits to visitors), we might go a bit more often, but it still won't be part of our regular round.

However, more or less by happenstance, we've discovered a new store that seems to offer many of the same benefits Aldi used to have. In fact, it undercuts several of our current go-to stores on staple items we buy regularly. It's a newcomer to our area: Lidl.

Lidl, like Aldi, is German chain that's making inroads in the U.S. Both are discount stores that focus heavily on their own store brands, though Lidl offers more name brands. And both are known for offering sustainable items (such as organic produce and Fair Trade coffee) at low prices. So when Brian learned that a Lidl had moved into the site of a former Acme in a nearby shopping center — one we needed to visit anyway to pick up some supplements from GNC that are no longer available at Rite Aid — we decided to make an expedition of it.

Based on what I knew of both stores, I was expecting Lidl to look a lot like Aldi: modestly sized, with a limited selection of products and a smattering of non-food items. What we saw when we walked in the door was rather different. It looked much more like a typical supermarket — and a pretty nice one, too. Right near the front was a substantial produce department and an on-site bakery, featuring fresh loaves of organic multi-grain bread for $3.99 and croissants at 85 cents each. Beyond that we could see what turned out to be a well-stocked seafood case, featuring clear and prominent labels for certified sustainable products.

Still farther along, we could catch glimpses of the meat department, in which we would discover a remarkable variety off both free-range and conventional meats. We couldn't find any free-range chicken drumsticks to compare against Trader Joe's price of $1.99 per pound, but there were whole organic chickens from Farmer Focus at $2.99 per pound. There was grass-fed beef, both steak ($6.49 for a 10-ounce ribeye) and ground. And there were even some non-meat selections, including Beyond Burger at $4.84 per pound (a better price than we'd found for it anywhere else) and the store's own plant-based ground on sale for a mere $3.61 per pound. (Sadly, it was in a non-recyclable plastic package, but pretty much all meats and pseudomeats are.)

We initially walked in without a shopping cart, since we were only there to explore and weren't planning to buy anything specific. However, we quickly realized we would need one when we spotted strawberries (not organic, but beautifully ripe) at $2.28 per pound and bags of four avocados at $2 each within our first two minutes of exploration. And the more we walked around the store, the more things we found to load into that cart, including:

• A 40-ounce jar of honey for just $4.49, $4 off the regular price and significantly cheaper than Costco's. (This deal required me to sign up for the store's loyalty program, but it was easy to do with my phone). 
• A half-gallon carton of store-brand almond milk for $1.79, 20 cents less than we normally pay at ShopRite. (We only got one just in case it proved as off-putting as Aldi's, but I tried it today and it's fine. A trifle on the sweet side, maybe, but otherwise unremarkable.)
• A five-pound bag of whole-wheat flour for $2.29, 70 cents less than the usual price at Shop Rite. 
• A 95-cent bar of Fair Trade chocolate, which is about a third the price we normally pay (though it wasn't organic, so that could account for the difference).
• 
  Two gallons of distilled water (used for medical purposes) for 80 cents each, about half the price we've seen at drugstores.
• A couple of cans of beans at 50 cents each.
• A pint of dairy-free ice cream for $3.49. This was not an outrageously good price (though still lower than most), but it was mint chocolate chip, a flavor I haven't found in any other dairy-free brand. I tried this last night and can confirm that it leaves nothing to be desired in taste or texture.
• A pair of reusable face masks for $1.99 that I grabbed because they looked like they might be more breathable than the cotton ones we have now. These "one size" masks turned out to be too big for me, but they were okay for Brian.
  

We also discovered good deals on several things that we didn't buy just because we didn't happen to need them at the moment. Chocolate chips were $1.72 per pound, less than the big bags at Costco (though those are made with sustainable cocoa, while these were Fair Trade but not organic). Pasta was 75 cents a pound, and unsalted peanuts were $1.85 per pound. We even found Brussels sprouts for $1.99 per pound, 50 cents less than we normally pay at Trader Joe's. (The one thing we didn't find any deals on was cereal. Although Lidl's website claims the store offers a raisin bran that actually meets our 10-cents-per-ounce standard — something Aldi hasn't managed in years — it wasn't immediately obvious where they were keeping it.)

However, some of Lidl's deals weren't as good as they appeared at first blush. For instance, large eggs labeled as Certified Humane on the shelf (though not on the package itself) were $2.25 per dozen, or slightly cheaper if you buy a package of 18. That's not the best price we've ever paid, but usually we have to wait for a sale to do better than $4 a dozen, so this price would be pretty remarkable if it was legit. But unfortunately, when I checked the website of the producer, Hillandale Farms, I could find no confirmation that it was. However, there was another brand on the same shelf that was $2.39 and did say Certified Humane on the package, so this is still the best non-sale price we're likely to find anywhere. It beats the pants off Trader Joe's, which charges $4 per dozen for eggs that are organic and "free range" (a term with no legal meaning) but don't meet the true gold standard.

This labeling glitch leads me to suspect that when shopping at Lidl in the future, we'll have to be careful about double-checking the packages, rather than trusting those convenient but possibly misleading labels on the shelves. But given that we have to check the packages in most stores anyway, that isn't really an extra effort.

And with these prices, you can bet we will indeed be shopping at Lidl in the future. In fact, it will probably become a regular addition to our grocery rounds, possibly even taking the place of Shop Rite. The main thing we buy there now is almond milk, and Lidl has that for less and isn't really any farther away. So Lidl will probably become our new go-to store for staples like almond milk, flour, and canned goods, with Shop Rite getting our business only when it happens to have a good sale. (Maybe not even then, since lately Shop Rite has been running out of sale items and refusing to issue rain checks on the grounds that, hey, there's a pandemic. Well, sure, the pandemic isn't over, but there are no major disruptions in the food supply at present, and other local stores aren't having any trouble honoring their promised prices.)

As for poor Aldi, well, we'll probably continue to stop by a couple times a year to stock up on seasonal items, like canned pumpkin in the fall and maraschino cherries (used for making cordial cherries) at Christmas time. But for our everyday needs, Lidl has gone over big.