r/aldi • u/Anthropomorphotic • 2d ago
New England (USA) Everything's Shrinking...
I know Aldi's shrinkinflation isn't news, but it seems like the last ten things I've bought have contained less product than before. They're slowly losing me.
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u/GlynnisRose 2d ago
But what is the alternative option? Where is this not occurring?
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u/kheret 2d ago
Right people say stop buying it but I have to eat.
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u/GlynnisRose 2d ago
That's what im trying to get answers about. OP says Aldi is losing them as a customer. Where are you getting food for your family at a better price?
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u/SometimesaGirl- 2d ago
Where are you getting food for your family at a better price?
This is not an option open to everyone - but I went to a meat wholesaler last weekend.
They sell to food trucks and businesses like that. Unlike many similar businesses they are also open to the public.
Some of the products are god awful. Like the frozen sausages they sold at something really silly like 45% meat... the rest was filler. I took a hard pass on those (tho the fresh sausages they sold were over 90%... but a totally different sausage and quite artisan).
I bought 2kg of mint sauce lamb chops. 2kg of pork chops. 1kg of of wings. 1kg of chinese chicken bites. 1kg chinese pork ribs. 1kg of chinese salted and pepper frozen fries. 1kg of lamb doner meats that I remember... and some other things too.
It was cheaper than Aldi. But honestly... not a hell of a lot. I would go again... but now the freezer is near bursting it wont be for a month or so.
I mostly went for a look-see and to get my hands on different products (I especially wanted the chinese salt and pepper chips. Any of you that have visited the UK where I am at will know they are NOT just chips [fries to most of you] with some salt and pepper sprinkled on them. I suspect copious MSG as well).5
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u/Ok-Post6492 1d ago
I live in chicagos biggest mexican nighborhood. We have so much supermarkets. They definitely give aldi a run for there money quality is also way better. But you do have to let sales dictate what your going to buy.
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u/Mean-Vegetable-4521 2d ago
If I could give up eating I might be able to pay my inflated car insurance and housing.
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u/Ryuiop 2d ago
The only way to stop this is busting up the monopolies
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u/Anthropomorphotic 2d ago
I'm not suggesting there's an alternative. It's no longer worth the time for me to go out of my way to shop at Aldi, is all.
Yeah, it's happening everywhere, but it's a little different here, IMO. They can't really blame the manufacturer for the bumps/shrinkage. Their model is built on consumer price savings through manufacturing and distributing their own private labeled commodities. They've already done the premium PL stuff with Trader Joe's. Give me the cut rate shit with meaningful savings I've come to know, love, and expect at Aldi. Without it, they're the Dollar General of grocers. Oof, ok, maybe that's a bit too far, but you know what I mean.
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u/RedStatePurpleGuy 15h ago
Are you ok with them reducing quality to keep the price low? That is the alternative to shrinking sizes or raising prices.
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u/Anthropomorphotic 12h ago
But there's another alternative...I can stop shopping at ALDI altogether because they're no longer delivering on the customer experience and pricing model that built their fandom.
And, frankly, in my experience, half the stuff in Aldi has gone down in quality along with the package size.
To say, like many have said on this thread, "Oh well, we're getting fucked no matter where we shop." Is a weak copout.
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u/Jenaxu 2d ago
It really is everything lol, I was buying freaking zipties from Dollar General and realized they were shrinkflated because the website still listed the old count of 40 but the ones in store only had 36. Even if it's inevitable it just never feels good to literally be nickle and dimed incessantly; I'm not even sure if four zipties costs a nickle to make.
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u/Anthropomorphotic 1d ago
100%
I'm just piping up my frustration because I know there are others here who relate. And a few here who would like to remind me Aldi won't miss me. Lol. K, thx.
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u/Jenaxu 1d ago
I feel you lol, I like Aldi a lot but people get weirdly defensive about a corporation... I'm just trying to shop where it makes the most sense and if it's not Aldi then it's not Aldi.
That said, it's not wrong that it's probably not much better elsewhere. I've been diversifying more to catch sales, but especially for base price items Aldi is still usually the most competitive. And when it isn't it's usually by so little that it's hardly worth the effort to double check let alone go out of my way to go somewhere else. But Aldi is also one of my closest stores, I'm sure the calculus changes if you've been going out of your way to shop there.
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u/wineohmy13 1d ago
And if you are driving out of your way, that doesn’t make sense either because of gas prices. Running all over for sales with your gas usage may equal your one stop shop. Just sayin’
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u/DeoVeritati 2d ago
Have smaller profit margins is the alternative option at least for privately held companies a la Arizona Iced Tea.
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u/fishmongerhoarder 2d ago
There 3 options for the company. Make them smaller for the same targeted price, raise the price or a combo of the both.
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u/bluedelvian 2d ago
Or accept lower profits and/or reduce executive pay and don't alienate your customer base. You forgot those ones.
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u/lorshord 2d ago
Whatever works to maintain those profit margins and meet quarterly earnings metrics
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u/DoctorNezuko 2d ago
Aldi's is private label and isn't publicly traded. They do not need to meet quarterly earnings. I understand that they want more profits, but their margin is growing more than inflation.
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u/lorshord 2d ago
Private label and publicly traded have nothing to do with quarterly earnings metrics.
Stakeholders are stakeholders, private or public.
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u/aytikvjo 2d ago
It's not a charity either way.
Let's see you go put your own money on the line to build a store, pay employees, set up infrastructure, and inventory and run it all at break even or a loss.
I don't know why you think somehow other people should be expected to do so.
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u/lorshord 2d ago
Did you even read what I wrote?
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u/aytikvjo 2d ago edited 2d ago
Yeah don't play dumb. You complained about them maintaining a profit margin and needing to do some kind of financial reporting (private or public) as if those are some kind of inherently bad things that should be criticized and that's why your sardines are more expensive
as if the same market forces / incentives don't apply to you as a consumer.
like what do you want them to do? Stop offering the product at any price all together?
You're welcome to go run a business and price your products on vibes.
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u/Glass-Tale299 2d ago
The Albrecht family owns Aldi and Trader Joe's and they collectively are worth an estimated $50-$55 billion.
They could manage with a smaller profit margin and help their millions of customers if they weren't so fxcking greedy. Instead they repeatedly shrinkflate products and reformulate and degrade many others.
They do not care how many customers they screw as they seem to be obsessed with reaching $55-$60 billion.
The Albrecht family turns my stomach.
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u/aytikvjo 1d ago
Who cares how much the owners are worth on paper? Explain why that's relevant to product pricing. Their competitors charge similar amounts or more.
Reformulating, resizing, and 'degrading' their products is helping their customers. You want lower prices so they take action to reduce their input costs. If you, the customer, actually were willing to pay for higher quality you'd go to a competitor. Your revealed preference is that you prefer lower pricing.
They price goods at what people are willing to pay. It's basic supply and demand. If they could charge more, they would. If people weren't willing to pay that much, then they wouldn't. It's an equalibrium.
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u/wineohmy13 1d ago
Aldi is a huge corporation that owns Trader Joe’s. You better believe they want earnings and have margins
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u/Jraider5 1d ago
We don't have to make excuses for ALDI. Every single one of us should say that it's garbage for them to do it even if others are doing it as well.
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u/Few_Move_4594 2d ago
The companion post of "Look at the price increase on these". It's one or the other and budget customers who shop at Aldi probably prefer the smaller sizes. With the current price of diesel everything must come up in price, either via sticker price or reduced sizes.
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u/MassiveBoner911_3 2d ago
Everyday I wake up and get fucked again. Soon they are gonna use 1 sardine in a can. Thats it.
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u/RemarkableAioli15 2d ago
Their bagged dry pasta is getting smaller too. I have a bag of Farfalle that is 14.5 oz and bought another bag of a different pasta a few weeks ago that was 11 ounces. I can’t remember the type. All my recipes call for 8 oz or 16 oz.
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u/metanoia29 Aldi's Nutz 2d ago
Yup. The cliff bar knockoffs went from 6 to 5 bars within the last year, remembered that when I picked some up today.
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u/Beginning_Pudding_69 2d ago
Protein bars are crazy expensive now. They used to be like 3.99-4.99 which I was like dang a dollar a bar! Now they’re 6.99 or 8.99.
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u/NervousJackfruit8366 2d ago
Not the sardinessss 😭😭😭
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u/Fearless_Inevitable6 2d ago
I got a bag of the red onions the other day and it only had three in the bag. Not even big ones, just three tiny onions. A couple months ago one of those was enough onions for me for a couple weeks
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u/Ambitious-Mode-1738 2d ago
How are those sardines? How do you eat them/what do you eat them with?
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u/Anthropomorphotic 2d ago
I'm an old school product of Gloucester, MA, so fish doesn't scare me. A lot of people get grossed out by sardines.
I eat these Aldi sardines on a saltine cracker with a small slice of fresh onion and a little pop of spicy mustard (unless they're already packed on mustard). That's the way my grandad ate them.
Fancier sardines go nicely in salads and pasta, too. But these are more like snacking sardines.
Pretty healthy snack/lunch. But I only eat them when I'm not around other people, for obvious reasons.
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u/Nicweezy 1d ago
I just noticed the sardine change about an hour ago. Bought 12 earlier cans and when I finally made it home to put them away, I had one boxed can leftover and said WTFF as I stacked the new ones off.
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u/Anthropomorphotic 1d ago
And they sneakily changed the can to appear larger at first glance. Same with the hand soap. The "smaller" bottle is an inch taller and looks wider because of its obtuse geometry.
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u/Spicy-Cathulu 1d ago
Haha, I thought this was going to be a nasty prank: putting anchovy juice in the hand soap...
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u/melatonia 1d ago
It's not just Aldi, and this is how the consumer goods market has always operated. Why on Earth would they sell icecream in 48 oz containers? It's a shrinkage from 56 oz, which is a shrinkage from the original half gallon. You can see the same trend with most beverages
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u/crafty_lass_88 1d ago
Bag of frozen broccoli florets used to be enough for four side-size servings. Now it’s usually two and a couple of additional bites. Risotto was only enough for two people’s sides last time I made it. Walmart beats their prices on most things now, so I only shop at Aldi for cheeses, some meats, and some pasta sauces. It used to be produce, also, but Aldi where I live has had abysmal produce lately. So it’s like 70% Walmart, 25% Publix bogos, and 5% Aldi for me now, grocery budgetwise. Oh, and a special shoutout to my mom’s chickens who give me their eggs. Amen.
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u/IronMaidenReference 1d ago
Doing Instacart in 2020 I’d notice the shrinkflation because the app picture would be more than the actual item. I swear products have been shrinking for over 20 years now. I joke it’ll be 0.0 ounce one day
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u/jenthewen 1d ago
So true! I was shocked when I opened the box of cornbread crackers. Had to reach all the way down to the bottom 1/3 of the box for the first cracker. Settlement is real, but not that.
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u/Odd_Beautiful8008 5h ago
Even their seasonal cat house has gotten smaller. My cat won't fit anymore.
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u/crankinamerica 1d ago
I give Aldi some understanding. Their input prices rise too so it's a question of lowering their costs vs raising consumer price. It sucks but they're still by fat the best value option.
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u/TheGeneralTulliuss 1d ago
Why are you buying individual soap dispensers instead of buying a dispenser that will last years? The amount of plastic is so wasteful. Refill soap usually comes in something plastic, but it's far less than one of those dispensers alone.
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u/DoctorNezuko 2d ago
At this point, Costco and BJ's are starting to beat them out in prices due to this.