I actually managed to get lost in a new one, which serves the vast sprawl of nearly prefab housing stretching beyond Canary Wharf down to the Dagenham bend and beyond. Last i looked, there's no update of the views on Google Maps to shock and awe you that housing so many miles from any kind of center could be so close to central prices.
But, yeah, big supermarkets are rare. The trend has been to "corner shop" style stores, which is basically the supermarkets gaming the planning system ("local amenities, social infrastructure", erk) so they can game the prices (20% markup on same SKUs compared with their own bigger stores not unusual, but this is just another incentive for them to not keep SKUs in every store, as the Frozen Chips Lament supports)
"I have to go well out of my way to find a different branch of Sainsburys or Waitrose to get certain products"
Gah, too bloody right. The supermarkets aggressively target SKU's to demographics, and in the E2 . . E14 area, demos are all over the board. One time this borough qualified as one of the lowest per capitas in the EU, yeah, riiight, it's a cash economy, which isn't obviously getting measured, off the back of which Tower Hamlets gained vast supplementary funding which they used to create a hegemenous political enclave.
Oops, off topic there, sorry. For readers not familiar with this territory, you've got a social housing ghetto sandwiched between Canary Wharf and Liverpool Street, our primary banking districts. I use the word ghetto accurately i believe, because the census puts young immigrant families of a single origin at beyond 60% of population, this over a vast area and this group are in one bit of it, a group i assure you is not equally represented in banking or professional services.
Yup, doing the shopping here involves Waitrose at Canary, Tesco Liverpool St, Sainsbury at Stepney Green. Maybe i should make something out of it by doing guided tours at the same time, since that triangle covers half of the biggest district in the country . .
I'm on HN, and we're discussing local frozen chip shortages, and we can't solve them. Ouch!
trivia: local slang for neigborhood in the East End of London has always been "Manor". As in "i'm going to be on yer Manor later, mate". I wonder if this has anything to do with the fact stretches of Victoria Park and elsewhere were, before urbanisation, in fact private Manors, some created by Canal barons, who got land deals like Rail Barons did in the USA. See, that guided shopping tour idea might have something in it . .
Not in any way meaning to disrespect the man, but i'm not sure which Herr Albrecht you mean, of the brothers, and we know so very little about them.
In Europe ALDI goes hand in hand with all the same complaints attributed to WalMart, often with good reason, but possibly with less scope of impact due to sharper anti-monopoly enforcement.
Actually, on very narrow lines, if you're in America, looking at Europe from a distance, ALDI (AlbrechtDiscount) = WalMart. Even the business names are in the same style :)
I wasn't aware of Trader Joe's (not living in the territory) until this discussion ~ it sounds a very cool place, way beyond the comparatively - by the sounds of things - stiff and terrifyingly expensive up-scale food outlets i see in London. (but then comparing food prices is always going to be a shock between such vastly different scale markets)
I'm actually shocked that they (Trader Joe's) offer a wage you might be able to live on in a major city. That's a model business. Just not sure about the role model thing, as that's so personal.
This is all good, but ~ not checked into this ~ presumably, like ALDI, Trader Joe's is a private company, and so we've little insight into profitability. Anyone got any intel on that? The oddest thing is why a known ruthless operator would do almost the opposite style so thoroughly. I can only put it down to the sibling dynamics where they locked each other out of territories. Hmm, maybe there's a business model in that. 1. Have twins 2. . . .
But, yeah, big supermarkets are rare. The trend has been to "corner shop" style stores, which is basically the supermarkets gaming the planning system ("local amenities, social infrastructure", erk) so they can game the prices (20% markup on same SKUs compared with their own bigger stores not unusual, but this is just another incentive for them to not keep SKUs in every store, as the Frozen Chips Lament supports)