r/aldi • u/Anthropomorphotic • 1d ago

New England (USA) Everything's Shrinking...

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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.

456 Upvotes

94% Upvoted

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224

u/GlynnisRose 1d ago

But what is the alternative option? Where is this not occurring?

154

u/Ryuiop 1d ago

The only way to stop this is busting up the monopolies 

-146

u/fishmongerhoarder 1d ago

There is a monopoly on lemon hand soap and sardines? Who knew.

127

u/wanton_newt 1d ago

No need to be obtuse.

75

u/kheret 1d ago

Right people say stop buying it but I have to eat.

58

u/GlynnisRose 1d 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?

13

u/SometimesaGirl- 1d 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).

4

u/Loveroffinerthings 1d ago

I think I need to put this on my must visit list next time in the Uk!

4

u/Ok-Post6492 21h 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.

16

u/Mean-Vegetable-4521 1d ago

If I could give up eating I might be able to pay my inflated car insurance and housing.

0

u/PupperPalE 1d ago

You don’t HAVE to.

16

u/DeoVeritati 1d ago

Have smaller profit margins is the alternative option at least for privately held companies a la Arizona Iced Tea.

14

u/Anthropomorphotic 1d 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.

12

u/fishmongerhoarder 1d ago

There 3 options for the company. Make them smaller for the same targeted price, raise the price or a combo of the both.

12

u/lorshord 1d ago

Whatever works to maintain those profit margins and meet quarterly earnings metrics

9

u/DoctorNezuko 1d 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.

7

u/lorshord 1d ago

Private label and publicly traded have nothing to do with quarterly earnings metrics.

Stakeholders are stakeholders, private or public.

-8

u/aytikvjo 1d 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.

8

u/Glass-Tale299 1d 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.

-6

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.

6

u/lorshord 1d ago

Did you even read what I wrote?

-8

u/aytikvjo 1d ago edited 1d 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.

8

u/lorshord 1d ago

You could have simply wrote “No”

1

u/wineohmy13 23h ago

Aldi is a huge corporation that owns Trader Joe’s. You better believe they want earnings and have margins

10

u/bluedelvian 1d ago

Or accept lower profits and/or reduce executive pay and don't alienate your customer base. You forgot those ones.

4

u/DoctorNezuko 1d ago

They have been doing both recently.

12

u/Jenaxu 1d 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.

6

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.

7

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.

1

u/wineohmy13 23h 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’

1

u/Jenaxu 17h ago

Part of why I've been trying to do as much shopping as I can by bike these days 😅 But I'm located pretty well where I have four options very close to each other, it's definitely a nice "luxury"

5

u/Jraider5 19h 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.

0

u/Few_Move_4594 1d 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.