For anyone who knows me, they’ll know i’m quite into my food. I love to cook and I love to taste different flavours – cooking fresh spicy Italian is probably my favourite and the one my kids will eat with me bowl for bowl.
A few years ago (well, maybe ten), I discovered the wonders of Chorizo – it’s like a super ingredient to add to pasta to take a simple tomato and pesto sauce and turn it into a deep paprika spiced bowl of loveliness.
When the Aldi opened near my Nottingham office, I sceptically wandered in to have a look and realised I could access lovely quality Spanish Chorizo at near Spanish prices. I bought it, I cooked with it and I was impressed.
But recently, they changed supplier, or at least changed recipe to hit a lower price point and it’s a pale (literally) shadow of its former self.
Now, it may seem a bit odd to get obsessive over Chorizo and how it relates to a big brand like Aldi, so it’s caused doubts. Where else have they started cutting corners?
If your offer is great quality at low prices that means you are working towards the principle of ‘how good can we make it for the money?’
if your offer changes to low prices, then the change in emphasis for the brand means the new mantra is ‘how cheaply can we get away with making it?’
So, if i’m right, then all their time spent recruiting new middle class shoppers has been wasted. They’ll all wander back to their normal suppliers and Aldi will be back as a low cost shop – ie a shop for low cost food and household things we’re not sure we need – and not the brilliant discount retailer it was becoming.
