Innovation

ALDI focuses on selling the most commonly purchased grocery items rather than giving consumers an excessively wide variety of product choices The list of innovations is long.

• About 1,400 of the most commonly purchased items are sold in packaging that is recycled, minimal, and designed to be environmentally friendly
• ALDI’s customers have to bring their own shopping bags or buy reusable bags at the checkout register
• ALDI has an innovative cart rental system, which keeps its food prices low by eliminating employee time spent on retrieving carts
• The corporation builds modestly sized stores and eliminates non-essential grocery store services to reduce land and energy use
• ALDI designs the cardboard boxes that its products are shipped in so that they double as the product display
• ALDI stores only operate at popular shopping times, which lowers labor, energy and rent costs, and increases customer savings
• ALDI accepts debit cards, cash, and EBT cards, and does not accept credit cards as credit card processing fees are extremely expensive
• Ninety percent of the products sold are exclusive ALDI brands, and they aim to meet or exceed the quality of national brand names. Interview quote: “The store has bravely decided to promote and package 90% of its food items which are organic and proudly bear the name Simply Nature.”

Inspiration

Karl and Theo Albrecht, the brothers that founded ALDI, learned the grocery business from their mother, Ana Albrecht. They were motivated to succeed in the grocery business in order to avoid following their father into the mining industry. Their father developed a disease after working in the mining business for many years. The brothers' main goal in the grocery industry was to sell products of the highest quality at the lowest price. Their first ALDI motto was, "The best quality at the lowest price".

The brothers' drive to keep costs as low as possible is what spurred them to develop the innovative ideas that ALDI employs to keep its food costs low for consumers.

Overall impact

The most important community advantage of ALDI is its extremely low prices for high quality organic food. The majority of Americans struggle when grocery shopping due to the high cost of life in the USA. ALDI’s low prices for organic and natural foods will allow many Americans to improve their diet without breaking their wallets.

Other community benefits of ALDI stores include good pay for employees with proper job security, and using local suppliers when possible. Interview quote: “ALDI attracts employees who are impressed with the company’s philosophy, culture and share its values." Interview quote: “ALDI believes in supporting local business and while some of our items are imported, most of the produce is bought from local farmers. This is another way of ensuring that consumers are getting fresh food.”

Lastly, many of ALDI's innovations are beneficial to the environment, such as not giving out shopping bags, the Little Green Box initiative*, smaller store sizes, and their use of recycled materials for product packaging. *Recycle labeling that includes the % of recycled material in the packaging.

Business benefit

The list of business benefits is long.

• All of ALDI's innovative ideas not only lower costs for the consumers, but also for the company.
• The company saves money by not paying for credit card processing fees.
• The company saves money by using up less land space through smaller store sizes.
• The company saves money and resources by not providing customers with shopping bags.
• The company saves money and resources by using recycled materials for their product packaging.
• The company saves money by only opening their stores at popular shopping hours.
• The company saves money and resources by not having their employees walking through parking lots and collecting shopping carts.
• The company saves money by selling mostly ALDI brand products, rather than products of other brands.

Social and environmental benefit

The company reduces its environmental impact in comparison to traditional grocery stores through its various initiatives.

These initiatives include not providing shopping bags, building smaller stores, using recycled materials for product packaging, the Little Green Box campaign, and reducing the use of shelf materials.

Interview

Trent Daugherty, Store Manager