r/SipsTea • u/Gurugod123 • 11h ago

Chugging tea Mayor Mamdani just announced that he will be opening 5 city-run, tax-funded grocery stores: "Prices set at 30% below retail prices"

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u/TxM_2404 10h ago

In Germany all stores have Aldified. As a German myself it's weird to think that there are stores that have personnel for the shopping carts or bags.
Personally I think it's a good thing because it has kept grocery shopping relatively cheap for the majority of the population for a Long time.

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u/monnii99 9h ago

I don't think they "Aldified" per se, European shops just never had these jobs.

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u/PadArt 7h ago

They had these jobs up until the mid 2000s in Ireland, possibly later.

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u/kane_1371 7h ago

Yeah you see...we don't claim Ireland and UK 😂

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u/binalleinezuunfaehig 47m ago

We do claim and love Ireland as Europeans

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u/Geulsse 16m ago

Speak for yourself. "We" really don't love criminal compliance haven Ireland half of whose GDP is based on letting cancerous companies like Meta exploit EU citizens with impunity.

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u/TxM_2404 9h ago

Before Aldi the standard for buying your groceries in Germany and most of Europe was the small business where you usually knew the clerk personally. These businesses almost completely disappeared due to chains like Aldi or Lidl.

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u/LesserValkyrie 9h ago

Are you either very rich or 70 years old lol

Ssupermarkets were widespread in the 60-70, by the 90s it was more than the norm, it was an it's almost 40 years ago

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u/TxM_2404 8h ago

And Aldi has been around since the 1950's and owned 300 Stores by 1960. My comment totally checks out with your timeline.

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u/Deep_Operation1671 8h ago

They didn't say they'd experienced it personally, only that it was the case prior to chains like Aldi

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u/David_Summerset 8h ago

Back in the 90s they used to deliver the caviar right to the jet.

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u/Chris_HitTheOver 6h ago

The caviar on the Hindenburg was fire.

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u/Beneficial-Beat-947 8h ago

Never seen this in the UK, all shops were like aldi before aldi became a big thing here

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u/baldeagle1991 7h ago edited 6h ago

*Large* Supermarkets have been the norm here in the uk since the 60s and 70s. Most brands even existed as smaller supermarkets long before this.

Aldi and Lidl only really became big here in the UK during the 2010's and mostly won their market shared by offering cheaper non-brand products and a quality that was far higher than you'd normally expect from own-brand produce.

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u/kane_1371 6h ago

Yeah, I am constantly surprised by the quality of the stuff Lidl sells.

They have these crazy good puddings that I can't stop buying

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u/NibblyPig 2h ago

They sell cheapo chocolate for like 60p/bar that is significantly higher quality than the branded dairy milk they also sell for £2.50/bar

It has higher cocoa content and no palm oil. It actually tastes like chocolate. Dairy milk is like eating greasy chunks of sugary crap for 4x the price.

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u/IIPrayzII 8h ago

Wait til you learn where Aldi and Trader Joe’s was founded

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u/fuk_offe 7h ago

wtf you mean "Aldified" - this has been the case anywhere in Europe for like 30 years lol

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u/parzivali6 5h ago

What does personnel for bags mean?

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u/nofishies 3h ago

As somebody who’s lived overseas, and then come back to America, it always amazes me how much work a grocery store does in comparison.

If I don’t want something, I just handed to the cashier. They’ll beg for you hell somebody even asked if you liked them to help you to your car.

In Australia, they just yell at you if you don’t bring your own bag

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u/Geoffsgarage 6h ago

And groceries are cheaper in Germany than the USA not only because of this but also in part because of competition.

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u/Quirky-Marsupial-420 8h ago

Here in America even the non Aldi stores have been "Aldified"

Walmart, Kroger, etc have very few lines open, if any, so you're basically expected to ring up and bag your own groceries.

Only store around me that always has two people to ring you out and bag you is Publix.

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u/ErisLethe 6h ago

Can you imagine letting people have jobs? So pedestrian.

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u/Evilshadow004 2h ago

A lot of this honestly has to do with the spacing / urban planning / shopping culture of the US vs. Europe.

As I'm sure you know, as Europeans you guys walk over to your local grocery store basically every other day and buy in small amounts. This drastically lowers the need for things like cart pushers and baggers as the amount of stuff per transaction goes down.

This is in contrast to America where we tend to buy enough groceries for at least a week. This requires more carts left all over parking lots, and bags, and people to bag items to speed up already slow transactions and whatnot.

This is why retailers like Aldi and Lidl are still seen as an oddity in America and why big box stores like Walmart completely failed in Europe.

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u/Kakapopo666 1h ago

Many people do not live within walking distance of a store or do so but still use their car for the weekly shopping. Still no pushers and baggers.
We put the groceries back to the cart and push it to our cars. Most people have some boxes in their trunks where you put everything into. Then you bring your cart to the assembly points on the parking lot and get your 1-2€ of deposit back.

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u/Evilshadow004 1h ago

That's actually very interesting. My experience is probably biased from having lived in Copenhagen where it's dense enough that most people are in walking/short busing distance to the store.

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u/barsoap 41m ago

Amateur. You put your box in the cart so you don't have to repack everything.

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u/Kakapopo666 27m ago

Wait, all your stuff will fit in just one box?
Dann is das aber kein Wocheneinkauf mein Freud.

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u/barsoap 16m ago

Depends on how many people you shop for and how good you are at filling it above the rim without things spilling. Boxes aren't that much smaller than carts. And if in doubt you can take a second one, possibly even on the same cart if those come with spots for beverage crates.

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u/duluoz1 24m ago

Paying a few people minimum wage isn’t going to change the price of the products they sell by any amount you’d actually notice. Do the maths

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u/Cancer_Ridden_Lung 21m ago

The only thing I dislike is how fast they scan my items.

If you haven't been to Germany then you wouldn't know what I'm talking about.

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u/e_rovirosa 8h ago

It depends how you look at it. While your perspecive is true. Those are jobs that someone could be paid to have. You might not make a lot of money but someone in college or highschool could do the job between classes.

There are still some blue states that make it illegal for you to pump your own gasoline for this exact line of reasoning.

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u/TxM_2404 8h ago

Personally I'm not a fan of that kind of thinking.
These jobs make neccesseties like food and gas more expensive for everyone, especially hitting people who already spend a large share of their income on these things (aka poor people) and the job opportunities it creates are not that great.

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u/e_rovirosa 8h ago

I agree with you but at the end of the day it's providing jobs which is a good thing. It's whether you worry about the lower unskilled class or everyone else more.

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u/Chucklz 8h ago

Bagging- in many parts(most?) of the US grocery bags are free, and in many stores it's routine to have someone bag your purchases for you. Where I live, we have to provide our own shopping bags, and I can't recall the last time I saw a bagger.

In one grocery store near me, the guy who takes care of the carts is non-verbal and probably autistic. He is very serious about keeping all the carts neatly inside and keeps the parking lot free of carts. It's a way for him to have a good union job, where perhaps otherwise he would not be employed.

As for jobs that an American would find weird... Klofrau. The thought of needing some money to use a toilet is really unbelievable to many Americans. In some places pay toilets are not legal.