The Aldi in the Americas (midwest) are not even remotely similar in quality to the Aldi's of Europe.
Walmart supercenters have much higher quality - every larger town has mainstream and cheap grocers substantially better than Aldi in every respect.
To me, Aldi for food is like Goodwill for clothes. I understand that some people hit hard times and have no other options, but my perception is that if you shop there it probably means that you are in serious financial trouble.
I personally don't like discounters (including Aldi), but a lot of people that are not in financial trouble go shopping there. Sometimes even well-off people. Germans can be very frugal, and this is especially true when it comes to food (although there are signs that this is starting to change).
It is fine to be frugal or go discount shopping - it is the quality of food at the American Aldi that felt me to like a really bad deal.
The chicken thighs say cost fifty cents (not sure of the price but utterly cheap), but once you cook it was almost inedible, a mixture of fat and big thick bones - felt like not even fit for human consumption.
That's because European Aldi's gets their chicken from Europe, while American Aldi's gets their chicken from America. They don't ship chicken across the Atlantic.
The root issue isn't Aldi's, it's the quality of food on the different continents. Food standards are much higher in Europe, so any grocery store is going to have generally better food than stores in America, unless you only shop at high-end places like Whole Foods and make sure to only buy good food there.
I don't follow. My point all along was that you can get much better quality (american) chicken at Walmart than at Aldi.
The only comparison to European Aldi's is to point out that in the US the food quality at Aldi is substantially worse than that of another typical local grocer, whereas in Europe it probably isn't
As a vegetarian, I can't really comment much on meat quality, but there were a number of scandals in Germany w.r.t. to meat (google "Pferdefleischskandal" if you know German). Again, though, this doesn't reflect on the wealth of Germans as much as on the relative importance of good food (especially compared to e.g. French or Italian people). I don't know if it's a result of my generation's parents or grandparents growing up in the aftermath of WW2, but "cheap food = good food" is an equation that many Germans would agree to (and which I personally find quite strange). I see a lot of people that always buy the cheapest food, but then they have an iPhone, a fancy car, a house, etc.
This is not to say that there isn't poverty in Germany. There definitely are a lot of people who are just getting by, especially after the Hartz reforms, although the social security net in Germany is still quite good. But it's not like nobody is well off.
Walmart supercenters have much higher quality - every larger town has mainstream and cheap grocers substantially better than Aldi in every respect.
To me, Aldi for food is like Goodwill for clothes. I understand that some people hit hard times and have no other options, but my perception is that if you shop there it probably means that you are in serious financial trouble.