Show HN: Aldi Price Map

https://www.aldipricemap.com/navel_oranges.html

by ayocado • 2 years ago

348 270 2 years ago

Hi HN, Inspired by the recent discussion on traderjoesprices.com, and sites such as mccheapest.com, here is a map of how much does it cost to shop (this week's promo items) at Aldi

Aeolun• 2 years ago

I feel like there’s a few countries missing :)

Intersting to see how the prices relate just in the US though.

ayocado17• 2 years ago

Oops, yes it covers US only. Could not find easily available data for European countries :)

twelvechairs• 2 years ago

There's also Aldi in Australia and China

Also I'm not quite sure about the grammar of "Aldi's"

extraduder_ire• 2 years ago

You and me both. I'm in Europe (Aldi Süd) and have been looking for something like that for years.

jansan• 2 years ago

In Germany we have two Aldis, Aldi South and Aldi North. I am pretty sure that within the region they cover prices for each product is the same everywhere.

sspiff• 2 years ago

Aldi products in Europe vary by country, so harder to compare. I'm also not sure if the prices vary within countries.

mrweasel2• 2 years ago

Denmark sadly just got a whole lot easier to add. Aldi gave up and closed their last stores before Christmas. Apparently losing 1 billion DKK every year is just bad business.

smithcoin• 2 years ago

This is great I would love to be able to toggle a high contrast version for those with red/green color blindness.

jrmg2• 2 years ago

Yes, as a red/green color blind person this is mostly useless to me because the scale goes from red/green, through greenish yellow, back to red/green. Expensive and cheap look the same.

NickFanion• 2 years ago

Yes, I can't read this either. Also, consider using a sequential color scale, rather than diverging. A diverging color scale should be reserved for datasets with a neutral value or natural midpoint. For example, if you were displaying growth, zero would be the midpoint, to quickly differentiate between positive/negative growth.

There is no meaningful midpoint here. A sequential scale from light to dark would be easier to read.

pistachiosPower• 2 years ago

how do you find data about price?

ayocado17• 2 years ago

It is from their weekly flyer page

jh00ker• 2 years ago

And then what do you do to get the data onto the map?

justhw• 2 years ago

Most vegetable/fruit prices seems cheaper on the west coast. I assume because most are produced and in California and don't have the added transportation costs?

ayocado17• 2 years ago

I would assume so as well. Generally produce apear cheaper in West/South although organic avocados are bucking this trend

rkagerer• 2 years ago

Up here north of the border, food (along with everything else) on the west coast in BC tends to be slightly more expensive than it is in e.g. Ontario. This is an interesting site, would love a Cannuck version.

getwiththeprog2• 2 years ago

Probably because avocados are less popular in the Mid-North, so they sell them for less.

dannyw• 2 years ago

Logistics make up the bulk of most cheaper unit cost goods.

The price a farmer gets is peanuts per unit.

Less applicable to an iPhone, but very applicable to produce or even toilet paper.

kube-system4• 2 years ago

The price a farmer gets is peanuts per unit.

Which is probably where that informal use of 'peanuts' comes from.

refurb• 2 years ago

I also assume suppliers are regional as well. Different supplier, different product, different prices.

disillusioned• 2 years ago

No milk or eggs?

ayocado17• 2 years ago

Only the products that are on this week's flyer are covered

pjot• 2 years ago

The way I’m interpreting the charts, the least expensive (green dot) clusters are indicative of which port received a given item.

The stores furthest from the port also have the highest cost.

ssss113• 2 years ago

So they’re passing on transport costs?

kuschku2• 2 years ago

Would make sense. Aldi tends to operate on a fixed margin.

In the past that used to be around 2-3%, which is why, until 2014, they wouldn't accept credit or US debit cards, as the fees were higher than their margin and they couldn't pass those on to customers.

lotsofpulp2• 2 years ago

All businesses pass on all costs, otherwise they would go bankrupt.

Revenue must remain greater than expenses (outside VC funded moonshots).

notaustinpowers• 2 years ago

I'm not entirely sure on that but I have no data to back it up, just personal experience. The south (GA, SC, FL, etc) has the Port of Savannah which is the 3rd busiest in the US (right behind Los Angeles and New York). Yet we have some of the most expensive food items, especially in Atlanta which is a massive nationwide distribution hub due to our railways and highways.

EDIT: Makes sense for fruits and vegetables mainly, due to California's agriculture. But shelf-stable and prepackaged goods still maintain a very high price even over in the South.

kube-system4• 2 years ago

Pet peeve of mine: it's 'Aldi' not 'Aldi's'

https://www.ksn.com/news/national-world/why-do-people-add-s-...

ayocado17• 2 years ago

Edited :)

dataflow3• 2 years ago

Related: is the price map of McDonald's then McDonald's's price map?

ace2358• 2 years ago

Why not McDonald’s’

8organicbits2• 2 years ago

Companies often have press guides or branding guides that clarify this. For Macca, an old guide covers this (Trademark Usage / Page 3).

https://issuu.com/lukaszkulakowski/docs/002725

EasyMark3• 2 years ago

McDonalds'

Aaronmacaron• 2 years ago

https://web.archive.org/web/20231107074602/https://www.ksn.c...

cottsak• 2 years ago

you Americans need to think about your "LEGOs" problem

cgriswald• 2 years ago

You really don’t want to go down this road. I have no problem starting a movement to get Americans to call them “LEGO’s” and you won’t be able to even suggest it’s wrong because it’ll just be a contraction of “LEGO parts,” “LEGO bricks,” and “LEGO sets.” (But feel free to lambast us over punctuation and quotation marks.)

atoav3• 2 years ago

How long do you thing that they will turn the already-plural "data" into the hyper-plural "datas"? Or has this already happened, I am too afraid to check.

EasyMark3• 2 years ago

Imagine that, language and grammar change from country to country. We must alert the king! Light the fires of Gondor!

JasonFruit• 2 years ago

LEGOs makes sense; a LEGO is an indivisible entity, of which you can have a certain number. Calling the material simply LEGO makes it sound like an undifferentiated mass, like sludge, or cheese.

zyx3212• 2 years ago

If anything it should be Al'sdi (Albrecht's Discount)

lqet2• 2 years ago

To continue this nitpick: it's "Albrecht Diskont" (no genetive), so it should be AlDi or ALDI (the latter is the spelling used officially by Aldi).

When I was a child in the 90ies, older people still called Aldi "Albrecht" (and the middle class avoided going there for fear of being marked poor):

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/04/Albrecht...

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/13/Aldi-Kal...

https://www.lebensmittelzeitung.net/news/media/7/The-Albre-b...

Interesting side note: Aldi is not called Aldi in Austria (it's "Hofer" there, which blew my mind as a kid since the logo is the same), because the Aldi trademark belonged to "Adel Lebensmittel Diskont" there.

smeagull2• 2 years ago

Actually it's 'Aldis', because we're talking about more than one.

bilekas• 2 years ago

Actually it's 'Aldis', because we're talking about more than one.

Just to clarify why this is wrong. First we are not talking about more than one, there is only one "Aldi" company.

We don't use Aldi's (notice the use of the ' for possessive after a single noun) in this case even though every company name is a proper noun which would follow this rule. It's not used because the Price Map is not belonging to Aldi, it is a price map "FOR" Aldi.

AussieWog93• 2 years ago

I always assumed this was a purely Aussie phenomenon, but I guess it makes sense that it's more of an "informal speech" thing than a regional ism.

walthamstow2• 2 years ago

It's British too. Tesco is always called Tesco's.

Dathuil• 2 years ago

I can't read the link but we've the same thing in Ireland. I've always assumed it stemed from shops being family owned. e.g. We have a stationary store that was originally called Eason and Sons which when said quickly sounds like Easons.

There'a s few other examples but that's the one that always stood out to me

paulcapewell• 2 years ago

When accessing from UK: "This content is not available in your country/region."

Holy moly. How is this even still a thing?

madeofpalk• 2 years ago

This content is not available in your country/region.

fitting for reading about a german supermarket chain

867-53093• 2 years ago

how about Tesco's || Tescos' || Tescos for Tesco. it's just Tesco

jmhammond• 2 years ago

Surprised to see Wichita news as the url about this! Hello from ICT

joezydeco2• 2 years ago

Pet peeve: it's ALDI, not Aldi. It's an acronym for ALbrecht-DIskont.

kube-system4• 2 years ago

Acronyms under most English style guides should be written in lowercase with the first letter capitalized. Only initialisms should be in all caps, which Aldi is definitely not.

e.g. https://www.nytimes.com/2023/08/17/business/aldi-winn-dixie-...

e.g. https://www.bbc.com/news/business-63015985

Aldi's corporate style is "ALDI" but that's just their internal guidance, not the rules of English.

daft_pink• 2 years ago

Initially, I was like wow someone has too much time on their hands, but now I'm totally fascinated by this and can't stop studying it.

This is awesome! Thanks!

ssss113• 2 years ago

I can’t believe a Big Mac has a different cost at individual stores. I’m not in the US.. I don’t think it’s like that here in Australia but someone will probably prove me wrong :D

eru• 2 years ago

Formally, McDonald's actually has relatively little control over the franchisees.

reiz• 2 years ago

That's a great map! If I would still live in the US, my wife would use that map every day :-)

thih92• 2 years ago

Why are some entries grouped together, like “spaghetti or butternut squash”?

hinoki• 2 years ago

(Spaghetti or butternut) squash

thih92• 2 years ago

Oh, didn’t realize spaghetti squash exists; til.

ayocado17• 2 years ago

It's just how Aldi has advertised the product in their flyer

bowsamic5• 2 years ago

I like Aldi Süd (the one you Americans have and also the one in the UK) but here in Hamburg and also in France it is Aldi Nord and it's really quite awful (more like Netto and Penny, both of which I hate). Thankfully we also have Lidl which is closer to Aldi Süd but honestly I'm a bit soured on Discounters in general recently. I still use them for some things but often they're more expensive than my local greengrocers for veg and often of very questionable quality, especially the fruit and veg, but also the Vollkorn bread and even the cheese are very hit and miss.

Here in Germany the situation is different to the US though, we often don't just go to one shop, we usually mix and match between 2 or 3 different shops even in one shopping trip. Though I guess if you had a Kaufland nearby you could probably just manage with one shop

denvrede3• 2 years ago

I live almost exactly on the "Aldi Äquator" (Aldi equator - this is a real thing), near to where the Albrecht brothers lived. People here go purposefully to Aldi South instead of Aldi North even if they happen to live just north of the equator. The whole shopping experience is much worse.

kuschku2• 2 years ago

Honestly, I prefer going to Aldi Nord. It's a cleaner, more focused shopping experience, while Aldi Süd and Lidl tends to have too much distracting fluff.

PaulRobinson• 2 years ago

In the UK I prefer Lidl to Aldi for reasons I can't quite fathom, and the pricing is within pennies of each other. Interestingly many of the middle-of-the-road supermarkets like Asda, Sainsbury's, Morrison's and Tesco now price match a ton of their own brand essentials to Aldi as loss leaders to try and get people in store. It's not quite enough to make it the default shop though.

What's kind of interesting is that in some sectors (wine, whisky, bakery), Lidl has started to win quality/tasting awards against premium retailers like Waitrose and M&S Food. But the prices are still down on the floor in comparison.

The only downside is the range can be limiting. Want to buy some fresh tarragon? Maybe some pods for your coffee machine? You're going to have to head elsewhere.

willyt• 2 years ago

I used to use tesco delivery for my big food shop in London. They were hopeless though always late, leaving other peoples shopping and they did mad substituting like tinned spaghetti instead of spaghetti where pasta shells would make more sense. I would buy £150 of stuff at a time and once I put the same order into Ocado which was the online shop for Waitrose, the poshest British supermarket chain. It was about £2 more on a £150 order and the delivery was cheaper. They turned up on time, there were no substitutions. I noticed that although there was a much larger selection of luxury items in waitrose, basic ingredients (pasta, flour, carrots, potatoes, tinned tomatoes, meat, fish) cost pretty much the same in all uk supermarkets, apart from Lidl/Aldi who are sometimes slightly cheaper. Waitrose makes money by tempting us to upgrade on basic items. Lidl makes money by selling us weird stuff in the middle of the store that we don’t need and by being more efficient with the number of staff in stores.

yourusername• 2 years ago

In the UK I prefer Lidl to Aldi for reasons I can't quite fathom

Maybe it is how the stores look? In NL Lidl looks like a normal supermarket that just happens to be cheap. Aldi is like someone went out of their way to make a supermarket as ugly and uncomfortable a shopping experience as possible.

bowsamic5• 2 years ago

Yeah it’s very different here. There is no concept of price matching and the better supermarkets have quality that scales reliably with price

LargoLasskhyfv7• 2 years ago

Penny and Netto are the Resterampe (Bargain Basement) of Rewe and Edeka. That aside, if you like Lidl, why not go to Kaufland, which is the Luxus-Lidl of the Schwarz-Gruppe?

Oh, and depending where in Hamburg, there is also https://www.globus.de/hamburg-lurup/index.php# which reminded me of my childhood, shortly after they've opened at the remodeled site of a former real,-, which is second only to https://www.edeka.de/eh/nord/edeka-center-st.-pauli-neuer-ka...

bowsamic5• 2 years ago

I mentioned Kaufland, as I said, if I were near Kaufland I would go, but there are not many Kaufland in Hamburg. On my way back from work there is a Budni, a Lidl, an Aldi (that I never go to), a Rewe, and a Denn's Biomarkt, so they are the convenient options. Also, Globus isn't really near us, but I visited it and it sucks! I hate it. Way too big aisles super spaced out for no reason. I much prefered the Real that was there. I have to admit that EDEKA at St. Pauli is amazing though. Sometimes I go out of my way just to go there.

I'm an immigrant from the UK though, this is all new to me. As others pointed out, most supermarkets are basically comparable in the UK. In Germany the variety between different supermarkets is crazy. Even between different Bio markts the quality difference can be extreme.

mlrtime3• 2 years ago

Here in Germany the situation is different to the US though, we often don't just go to one shop

What would give you the indication that the situation is different in the US? In any given week I shop at Aldi (Favorite), Trader Joes, HEB, Whole Foods, Costco and Wal-Mart.

I'm consistently shocked by which stores have the best prices AND best quality produce.

bowsamic5• 2 years ago

Apologies, I had assumed from my visits to the US that it was like the UK and France where it's common to only go to one single shop. When I lived in the UK most people I know bought literally everything from one giant supermarket and never felt the need to go anywhere else. For example, every Sunday we would do one giant shop at Sainsbury's and that was our week's shopping done. Can't really do that in Germany because all of the shops are shut on Sunday, so you have to shop on Saturday, but more likely here you are just doing multiple little shops throughout the week

BaudouinVH• 2 years ago

What would it take to add the ALDIs in Europe to this map ?

ayocado17• 2 years ago

Data :) Not easy to get it at scale without APIs

Kon-Peki4• 2 years ago

Well, the Aldi online shopping site [1] is using an API [2], but it is probably not intended to be used publicly. You could try exploring it to see if you can query prices directly.

[1] https://www.aldi.us/online-shopping/new-aldi-grocery-website...

[2] https://api.commerce.aldi.us/

Lio5• 2 years ago

That's an interesting question because there are actually two legally separate Aldi companies, Aldi Sud and Aldi Nord.

They divide Europe up by country so you'd have to get them to cooperate on that.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aldi#Geographic_distribution

s_dev• 2 years ago

Which Aldi is North America?

georgesimon• 2 years ago

I believe there is already a framework for this, for all supermarkets, and it is being used in several countries with significant political impact.

https://www.wired.com/story/heisse-preise-food-prices/

statquontrarian3• 2 years ago

I'm curious why you're using a commercial tile provider -- CARTO -- instead of OpenStreetMaps?

donalhunt• 2 years ago

It's a common misconception that the OpenStreetMap project provides free map tile resources for use by others. The focus of the project is the map data.

https://operations.osmfoundation.org/policies/tiles/

statquontrarian3• 2 years ago

What is the misconception? That paged you linked to says that map tiles are free for use with a few reasonable restrictions:

    Clearly display license attribution, normally in the bottom-right corner of the map.
    Do not actively or passively encourage copyright infringement.
    Recommended: Do not hardcode any URL to tile.openstreetmap.org as doing so will limit your ability to react if the service is disrupted or blocked. In particular, switching should be possible without requiring a software update.
    Recommended: add a link to https://www.openstreetmap.org/fixthemap to allow your users to report and fix problems in our data.
    Recommended: a contact email on your web page or app store page. If we cannot find contact information we will be unable to do anything except block if an issue arises.

Of course, there is no Service Level Agreement:

    Although our map tiles are generally very reliable, their availability to others is on a best effort basis and we offer no SLA or guarantees.

But that seems quite reasonable for donated resources.

ayocado17• 2 years ago

Pretty sure I am not paying anything or using any API key :) Open Street Map basemap was too colorful and contrast with my color scheme was not very good in many parts of the map

statquontrarian3• 2 years ago

From what I can find, CARTO does not have a free map tile server. In other words, while it technically works, I think it's against their terms of service. They probably don't care if you're small, so I wouldn't worry about legal threats, but at some point the tile server might check the referer and break your app.

It looks like you can just use OpenStreetMap instead, although the resources are donated so there is no guaranteed Service Level Agreement: https://operations.osmfoundation.org/policies/tiles/

wcedmisten• 2 years ago

Hey ayocado, I have some experience with self-managed/self-hosted base maps. There are some modern tools that make the setup pretty easy (e.g. Protomaps, MapLibre) and you can still use a minimalist style similar to the CARTO one you have now.

If you're interested in switching over, feel free to shoot me an email and I can try to help!

Here are some demos [1][2] I've made without using any third-party map services. All open source! [3]

[1] https://wcedmisten.fyi/project/north-america-hospital-distan...

[2] https://wcedmisten.github.io/nextjs-protomap-demo/isochrone

[3] https://github.com/wcedmisten/nextjs-protomap-demo

silisili• 2 years ago

I love maps like these, the McDonald's (1) or Taco Bell one (2).

That said, these don't seem to cover things most people really buy - meat particularly, and fresh veggies. Or paper products. Have you considered adding more items?

1 - https://pantryandlarder.com/mccheapest

2 - https://taconomical.com/

ayocado17• 2 years ago

It is not easy to get this kind of data as most of these companies do not provide any public APIs. I will continue exploring adding more products.

felixfbecker• 2 years ago

Was kind of disappointed to see no data points in Germany

kristopolous• 2 years ago

This reminded me of when I was in the north east. The produce there is terrible compared to what I can get in southern california. We're really spoiled here. Excellent and cheap produce year round.

gordon_freeman• 2 years ago

Would it not be better and more insightful to take an aggregate price of 50 items (picked from various categories) at each Aldi store and create a map like this to understand how Aldis in different regions have different pricing and the difference etc?

I am saying this because currently, some items like 'Navel Orange' are cheaper on the West Coast vs the East whereas items like 'Veggie Burger' are cheaper on the East Coast compared to the West Coast.

ayocado17• 2 years ago

I only have data for the advertised products in this week flyer, very limited product range in that unfortunately

chirau• 2 years ago

Why are spaghetti and butternut squash grouped together?

odiroot• 2 years ago

Eh US only. Doesn't even have Aldi's home ground.

oniony2• 2 years ago

Do Americans find it difficult to slice their own mushrooms?

master-lincoln• 2 years ago

Thanks for highlighting this absurdity. Gotta love em dorky Muricans

raziel2p2• 2 years ago

This is hardly unique to USA, the supermarkets here in the Netherlands also offer sliced mushrooms. I never buy them, but find it hard to judge if well off people want to spend an extra 90 cents to not have to spend 3 minutes cutting them.

sva_• 2 years ago

Wait until you see peeled mandarins in plastic containers.

https://www.bbc.com/news/business-35727935

prmoustache• 2 years ago

I've heard sliced stuff is something desirable for people with some disabilities but I am pretty sure most people who buy these kind of stuff don't suffer from any of them.

I am pretty sure vegetables/fruits will get bad and loose their vitamins faster too if sliced.

Also it is a waste of packaging for nothing. I'd rather have someone standing in the vegetable area of the shop to slice stuff for the handful of people with disabilities than have them already packaged.

francisofascii• 2 years ago

I looked up the price difference locally on Instacart. $1.65 for 8 oz mushrooms, $1.75 for 8 oz sliced. The "sliced" version is labeled a "best seller".

rendang3• 2 years ago

That's sort of like noticing that frozen pizzas/TV dinners exist and asking, do people find it difficult to cook their own food?

Personally, I find washing the mushroom debris off the knife and cutting board to be more inconvenient than the slicing itself

theqwxas• 2 years ago

I find these types of maps fascinating. For people wondering what would this map look like if we were not limited to the USA and Aldi: https://www.numbeo.com/cost-of-living/gmaps.jsp?indexToShow=...

There are a few larger categories (groceries/rent/etc.) rather than individual items.

djdeutschebahn• 2 years ago

There exists data for websites of groceries in german speaking countries. But I think without location coordinates of each supermarket.

This one tracks all online prices of all the austrian grocery brands https://github.com/badlogic/heissepreise

Related thread on hn: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37533633 But didn't took of.

They also gathered some historical data and competed with an government initiative to establish a price comparison app.

das_keyboard2• 2 years ago

How naive of me to ecpect anything else than an us-only map when this is about a german supermarket chain with most of its stores in europe...

ayocado17• 2 years ago

Well I did search for any available data for Germany but nothing available easily :|

das_keyboard2• 2 years ago

To be fair, this was more of a tongue in cheek response and not really directed at you or your project directly.

For me Aldi is just such a european thing that I was genuinely surprised by this.

tpm• 2 years ago

At least for Austria theree seems to be this: https://github.com/badlogic/heissepreise

There is a link to raw data (a big json). Aldi is Hofer in Austria. Prices are probably the same in all their stores? Not sure something similar exists for Germany.

mzs• 2 years ago

Thanks for making this. Is there data provided for iodized table salt?

snowpid• 2 years ago

If you are the creator, the problem is more the title. You could write something like "Aldi Price Map in the US". Your current title is a good example of US defaultism and I happens way often (even in social studies where the scientist should be just embarrassed for that).

armcat• 2 years ago

Aldi is big in Australia too, around 600 stores across the country.

jaimex2• 2 years ago

We have fixed prices across the country though (Australia that is). Interesting that its so varied in the US, completely different model.

Beijinger• 2 years ago

Aldi (and Lidl) are okay. But I wish Europe had Trader Joe's (owned by Aldi) and Costco.

badpun• 2 years ago

There are some Trader Joe's products in my local Aldi in Poland.

coev• 2 years ago

Lidl expanding into the US makes my european wife very happy.

renw0rp• 2 years ago

We have Costco the last time I checked, at lest in the UK and Spain.

KomoD2• 2 years ago

We have Costco in Sweden, it's terrible, I'd never pay for a membership to be able to shop...

slfnflctd• 2 years ago

There are 2,356 Aldi stores in the US right now and it's probably growing. They've been expanding massively here for the past 10-15 years or longer.

oflannabhra• 2 years ago

"Aldi" is actually split across two different companies that operate in different regions of the world: Aldi Nord and Aldi Süd. In the US, Aldi Süd operates the Aldi stores, whereas Aldi Nord owns Trader Joe's.

joezydeco2• 2 years ago

They're now the third largest chain in the USA.

flutas• 2 years ago

They've been expanding massively here for the past 10-15 years or longer.

Yup, in my state they basically bought out ALL of the old Bed Bath and Beyond leases and are converting them to Aldi supermarkets.

wongarsu• 2 years ago

There are 4.215 Aldi stores in Germany, 1.997 of those from Aldi Süd who also operates the US stores. Add to that 960 Aldi Süd stores in the UK, 530 in Austria, and a couple more in the other neighboring countries, and I think it's completely fair to be surprised if an aldi price map focuses completely on the US.

stephenitis• 2 years ago

message the author and create the european map? create the map you want to see in the world

locallost• 2 years ago

I don't get this criticism at all. Somebody created something for free to scratch their itch, and they're likely from the US, why would they bother with anything else? If it's so important to you, you can always scratch your own itch, I doubt the author of the project would mind help.

ciex• 2 years ago

I don’t see anything indicating criticism in op’s comment, seems more like an expression of surprise.

NeveHanter• 2 years ago

It's US centric and US-only but the title doesn't say so, especially for the brand that's not usually associated with the US

tomcam• 2 years ago

Did the TLD provide any clues? I would Germans would prefer a .de domain.

victorbjorklund• 2 years ago

Cool. Anything similar for EU?

rustybolt• 2 years ago

As someone from the Netherlands, I was surprised how expensive the local supermarkets in the US are (and also that they don't include taxes in the price labels). I still remember that over 10 years ago, one banana and one granola bar cost me over 10 dollar (nowadays it's probably a lot more). I almost cancelled the purchase at the checkout, but I didn't want to look like a cheapskate.

The nearest K-mart would be 1.5 miles out of town and of course everyone would take the car to go there to buy groceries in bulk.

nicksergeant• 2 years ago

That seems odd. Where in the U.S.? A banana at my grocery store in western New York State costs less than 50 cents (49 cents per pound).

Granola bars admittedly can be ridiculously overpriced for what they are but even just one CLIF Bar is less than $1.50.

raziel2p2• 2 years ago

That sounds insane. Are you sure you weren't being ripped off? Or this was a convenience store at a very lucrative location (i.e. tourist trap)?

Kon-Peki4• 2 years ago

Or this was a convenience store at a very lucrative location (i.e. tourist trap)?

Seriously. What's interesting is that in the big cities (NYC, LA, Chicago) if you go to the neighborhoods where people actually live, grocery prices for fresh items are usually lower than in suburban or rural parts of the US. High sales volume overcomes the high real estate and labor costs.

ericb• 2 years ago

That doesn't sound right. Bananas are generally the cheapest fruit in the US. Was this some sort of fancy energy bar? Were you in Hawaii or Alaska?

reducesuffering• 2 years ago

An organic banana and a granola bar at Trader Joe's (Aldi Nord) in the US is $1.50.

867-53093• 2 years ago

(USA)

threesevenths• 2 years ago

Every price map like this should serve as a reminder that competition works. You can see prices are lower in areas where there is competition for a particular product and higher where there isn't any competition.

belter• 2 years ago

So...Will get my Navel Oranges in Whichita, will do a quick jump to Mount Pleasant for Kiwis and get me the Spaghetti in Farfield...A Python script retrieving current Airline rates and implementing Minimum Spanning Tree should help optimize next week's shopping...

Theodores• 2 years ago

You could do this for YouTube views. "How I fed my family of twelve for ten dollars a week*", popping by various cities to get the best prices on unprocessed food ingredients, to serve them up some gruel, totally ignoring the travel costs.

Flying a thousand miles to pick up a pack of dried lentils, then another thousand miles to get a couple of tins of chopped tomatoes and then some more miles to pick up a bag of flour - that would have made great content a few years ago. This would be legitimate because the revenue from the 'content' would have paid for the flying.

frankdejonge• 2 years ago

Seeing that Washington granny smith apples are not the cheapest in Washington is pretty odd.

FinnLobsien• 2 years ago

Funnily enough I thought trader joe's was an Aldi store brand for a long time because I grew up in Europe

infecto• 2 years ago

But it is kind of? Theo Albrecht bought it in '79.

donatj2• 2 years ago

What an odd selection of items to compare. Presumably representative of the authors diet - by my gander some sort of pescatarian.

Almost nothing on this list I ever buy, other than some of the produce. Why not some staples for the rest of us like milk, butter, bread, sugar. Heck, basically any pizza without cauliflower crust.

ayocado17• 2 years ago

This is the list of products under their weekly promotion flyer. 0% correlation with my diet :)

donatj2• 2 years ago

Hah, I stand corrected.

figmert• 2 years ago

Some years ago, the UK had a great website comparing online prices between supermarkets called MySupermarket[0]. They went closed down, but it genuinely saved me lots of money. IIRC, it even compared the prices with delivery fees.

I was sad they closed down, but a few companies have popped up since, but I've not been able to try them to see if they come close to how good it was. Heck, at the time I thought about creating an alternative, but wasn't sure where to start, so didn't end up trying.

Anyway, point is, we need more of this sort of comparison sites for things to keep things competitively priced, and to ensure people don't pay more for the same things.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MySupermarket

neogodless• 2 years ago

Relevant Trader Joe's discussion:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39304068

Daily price tracking for Trader Joe's (traderjoesprices.com)

2024-02-08T16:37:38 (270 points / 146 comments)

moxplod• 2 years ago

This is awesome, is there something like this for Costco?

jjice• 2 years ago

For those disappointed about limitations of the data, I assume it's because aldi.us has a minimal web presence that comes down to pretty much only weekly fliers when it comes to food pricing data (locally at least).

When I was in college (within the last 10 years), Aldi was a god send. We could get a load of whole wheat bread for 70 cents. A one pound bag of pretzels was like a dollar. A dozen bagels was $1.25. A pound of turkey lunch meat was $3. I had a semester where my food spend averages $23 dollars a week, all thanks to Aldi's insane prices (I let it go up a bit after that).

While everyone has been affected by food price increases, I was pleasantly surprised to see that Aldi is still notably cheaper for a lot of things about two weeks ago. The bad part is now when I see a can of beans for $1.50, it seems like a rip off since it's about _twice_ as much as the Aldi equivalent. The ingredients are the same: beans and salt.

I love Aldi for their raw efficiency that they generally take up. I know quite a few people who hate the structure of an Aldi, but I absolutely love it.

Navarr• 2 years ago

Aldi does pickup through Instacart, and while I know the prices wouldn't be 1:1 - it might be a great source of data for price deltas

m3kw9• 2 years ago

This doesn’t really help because they all set the same prices in a big geographic area

0xbadcafebee3• 2 years ago

Neat tool to start asking questions about food systems. The variations of prices are affected by many different things, from where it's made, to how it's transported, where it's stored intermediately, how much vertical integration is involved, the costs of retail in different locations, etc.

French Green Beans and Washington Granny Smith Apples are good ones to compare. West coast: only bottom-end prices. East coast: only top-end prices. These are two items you could grow on either coast, need temperature control for shipping, can be seasonal depending on the source. You could find them locally on either coast, so they're probably not shipping them from one coast to the other (or are they?). Price fluctuation might be just regional retail costs or supply/demand. Or it could be they're shipping them cross-country just to simplify logistics and marking up the price accordingly.

Simply Nature Organic Pasta is all over the place. Could be regional price fluctuations, could be logistics, maybe demand.

maxglute• 2 years ago

What's with the very clean north south kiwi divide?

slu• 2 years ago

After about 25 years in Denmark without earning money, ALDI closed all shops here last year.

whitakerch• 2 years ago

I'm loving the grocery store price map/compare stuff lately. Oh how I wish it was easier to collect that data and watch items. Especially at Costco, Whole Foods, Publix.

mipsi• 2 years ago

"Mama Cozzi's Pizza Kitchen 12" Veggie Cauliflower Crust Deli Pizza" Pizza with Cauliflower? WTF or just an Easter egg?

sgerenser2• 2 years ago

It’s a cauliflower crust pizza. Fairly common among the keto/low-carb crowd, but definitely fairly niche.

peter_d_sherman• 2 years ago

Very nice!

I would love to see something like this but for all supermarkets around the world with prices in local currencies adjusted.

i.e.

Where is the cheapest place in the world to buy a banana?

Where is the most expensive place in the world to buy a banana?

Now the 'banana' -- could be any food item, it doesn't matter.

A future tool like this could be able to help future societies predict which areas of the world are in economic ascent and which are in economic decline (cheaper prices = economic ascent, expensive prices = approaching potential future economic peak and/or approaching potential future economic decline, etc.)

Anyway, looks great!

mderazon• 2 years ago

Are there any regulations for supermarket chains around mandatory data exposure via API ?

And if not, why ?

ngshiheng• 2 years ago

it's nice to see sites like this! i've made something similar tracking craft beer prices in Singapore in the past (burplist.com)

Show HN: Aldi Price Map

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