The Real Reason Aldi Is A Favorite Among Organic Shoppers

What if you could get most of your grocery shopping done in a smaller, lower-stress, simplified environment, faster and more cheaply than at your current grocery store? Wait — you can — if you give Aldi a try. The German-owned discount grocery store chain has built a reputation for being "less." It offers less shopping hours and product selection than its competitors, and even expects its shoppers to dish out a $0.25 deposit for a cart, provide their own shopping bags, and bag their own groceries. Yet none of this has deterred devoted customers or lessened a growing surge of interest, especially among health-conscious shoppers who are looking for fresh, healthy, and often organic, foods. That's because the price is right (via Showbiz Cheat Sheet).

Organic foods are often notoriously expensive. One major natural-foods retailer has been nicknamed "Whole Paycheck" by those who balk at the thought of spending $8 or more for a pound of organic hamburger or $4 per pound for organic apples. That's where Aldi's appeal is impossible to ignore. It offers a respectable selection of organic foods, including fresh produce, for significantly less than the average market price.

Aldi CEO Jason Hart said in 2018, "More and more consumers are coming into our stores, and their demands are changing quite rapidly. They want more products that are healthier for you. They want more fresh, which is leading us to expand exponentially our fresh produce, fresh meat and organic products — anything healthier for the consumer" (via Supermarket News).

Beyond just strictly organic foods, Aldi also carries its own Simply Nature brand, which is either organic and/or GMO-free, and contains no artificial colors, flavors, high fructose corn syrup, or dozens of other less-than-healthy ingredients (via Normal Life Mom).

All in all, Aldi has listened to consumers and made healthy eating much more affordable and accessible. A few years back when Aldi was expanding its product selection, Vice President of Corporate Buying Scott Patton had said, "We want to bring products to the customers that they want. Clearly, convenience, fresh and healthy were the trends that we identified. In the end, it's not what we think should be in the store; it's what customers think should be in the store" (via Supermarket News).