Karl Albrecht, Billionaire Co-Founder of Aldi, Dies at 94
One thing that I found very interesting: upto maybe 6-7 years ago in the Aldi shops there were no barcode readers at the cashier. Instead, the cashiers knew the price of _all_ products by heart and they had an incredible speed in typing at the numpads. I was truly amazed, it was hard to keep up puting the goods back into the shopping cart. There were literally no queues forming, since they took only cash.
Now the shops are a little more modern, accept cards and the cashiers are rather mindless drones instead of numbers prodigies from before.
We Al-Di in the end.
But, to contribute positively, what brands managed to build was trust in their name - you go to the supermarket and faced with 40,000 products, (10 new grocery items are introduced every day) buying a brand name means less gambling on whatever processed food you're faced with.
Aldi reduced the choice between the same item from brands and just had the choice between foodstuffs.
I think it's interesting to note that Trader Joe's "has been owned since 1979 by a German family trust established by Aldi Nord's owner Theo Albrecht." [1]
There's an Aldi near where I live so I thought I'd check it out. I've lived in Europe and spent extended periods in Asia so I've seen all kinds of shopping experiences.
For a place with an reputation for being innovative, Aldi seemed very downscale and out of step with tastes, even compared to the neighboring Wal Mart, never mind a Carrefour or a Japanese supermarket. Heavy on canned food. It seemed like something out of East Germany before the Wall came down. I'm surprised they thrive anywhere.
Did I have an uncharacteristic experience? What's good about an Aldi shop? It's weird that the same outfit operates Trader Joes.
Does Bloomberg have a problem with umlauts?
- Aldi Sued => Aldi Süd (i.e. south)
I don't understand these old bilionaires. It seems there's so much work to be done, and possibly a great deal of low-hanging fruit, in anti-aging research. Who's to say what Aubrey de Grey et al would have been able to deliver by now if given a few billion ten years ago?
You can't take it with you. Give it to science, FFS.
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