by Perry Cox

Created on: September 11, 2008   Last Updated: June 15, 2011

Shopping in Aldi is a much more pleasurable experience than it used to be. When the stores first opened in the UK 1990 I remember them being sawdust-filled, warehouses full of strange continental foodstuffs. However, I also remember them being a major part of the "bean war" on which tins of beans dropped to 3p! Aldi stores have come a long way since then and no longer have the "shame value" attached to them during my childhood. No longer do children make parents take Marks and Spencer carrier bags with them! What Aldi has retained though, is the cheap prices. Fortunately, they have now combined this with quality produce.

Aldi is now our first port of call for our monthly shop so let me take you around the aisles. Arriving at our Ormskirk branch we select a trolley depositing a pound into the slot. Aldi trolleys are huge, juggernaut like contraptions made for cramming as much in as possible. They are deep and wide with a rack on the bottom so you can fit even more into your trolley. This does however, make them unwieldy vehicles to manoeuvre. The more your shopping builds up, the harder it becomes to steer! Aldi trolleys do have the standard "child seat" incorporated into their design and my three year old does not have any trouble being lifted in or out (no knee banging!). There seems to be little catering for babies or light shoppers however with no "baby seats" in evidence and no hand baskets either. The latter is largely due to the fact most people do a large "tinned" shop in Aldi but occasionally, when you need a bag of sugar and some milk, a basket would be nice.

The first thing that strikes you when entering Aldi is that all the stores have a nigh on identical layout. I have been to branches all over the country over the years and the layout rarely differs. This allows me, as a regular shopper to know were everything is cutting down on my shopping time. Perhaps to compensate for the huge trolleys, the aisles are long and wide with room for two or three trolleys alongside each other without any chance of collision. Indeed, I am able to do a "three-point-turn" in any of the aisles without overly irritating my fellow shoppers. Flooring is clean and smooth tiling and the lighting is bright without blinding you. If I was to find criticism it would be that staff tend to park wooden palettes along the aisles during restocking which can bring two trolleys head on with one of us having to reverse.

Aldi is a shop that is primarily about its tins, jars, boxes and

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