Aldi Opens Times Square Hub to Test Ultra-Lean Grocery Logistics

Aldi开设时代广场店 测试超精益杂货物流 Aldi通过易陈列包装和大规模自有品牌采购，省去理货人工、进场通道费及冗余SKU，以此压低杂货售价。 在本期节目中，Scott Patton详细阐述了让Aldi即便在曼哈顿中城等高租金地段仍能提供超低价（如5.99美元的和牛绞肉）的运营效率模式。通过提前3至4年直接与农产品种植户锁定合作、将库存精简至约2,000个核心SKU、采用易陈列包装箱，以及在产品包装上设置多个条形码以提升收银扫描速度，Aldi大幅削减了人工与供应链成本。此外，Patton还探讨了Aldi如何运营备受粉丝追捧的特选杂货区“Aisle of Shame”、应对高密度城市环境下的货运物流难题、跟进酸酵面包等网络爆款食品趋势，以及应对GLP-1减肥药物兴起和牛肉通胀等膳食习惯变化。 Aldi 在曼哈顿时代广场旁开设了一家占地 25,000 平方英尺的折扣门店，通过提前 3 至 4 年直接与加州、墨西哥和智利种植者直签农田，彻底绕开传统批发市场并在高成本地段实现盈利。 (7:10) 针对曼哈顿狭窄路况，Aldi 采用短拖车和双人司机团队于夜间完成配送，并借助“陈列即售”预包装托盘实现整箱秒级上架，大幅削减店内补货人工。 (9:50) 相较传统超市的上万种商品，Aldi 全店仅维持约 2,000 个核心 SKU，且坚决不收供应商进场费（slotting fees），专注于极高库存周转率以消除消费者的选择瘫痪并让利售价。 (20:00) 全美 2,600 家 Aldi 门店已 100% 普及电子货架标签，每周节省约 10,000 小时调价工时并承诺不推行动态定价；每周轮换约 100 款杂货的“羞耻走道（Aisle of Shame）”更吸引了超 400 万名社群粉丝。 (25:00)

Aldi achieves prices 30% to 50% below traditional supermarkets through extreme inventory discipline, direct agricultural sourcing, and operational packaging engineered to eliminate retail labor costs, according to Aldi U.S. Chief Commercial Officer Scott Patton. Direct Agricultural Sourcing and Urban Freight Logistics (7:10) To keep produce fresh and inexpensive, Aldi bypasses conventional regional produce terminals such as New York's Hunts Point Food Distribution Center. Instead, procurement teams establish direct contracts with growers in California, Mexico, and Chile three to four years in advance, reserving dedicated acreage for specific varieties of grapes, berries, and apples. Harvested crops move directly from farm fields to regional distribution hubs, frequently reaching retail shelves the following day. Servicing dense urban locations like the 25,000-square-foot store near Times Square in Manhattan requires specialized distribution. Freight originates overnight from a regional warehouse in South Windsor, Connecticut. To navigate tight city street corners, Aldi deploys shortened trailers operated by two-person driver teams, delivering three to four truckloads of inventory per day to support high customer traffic without interrupting street-level logistics. Radical SKU Reduction and Labor-Minimizing Restocking (20:00) Aldi stocks roughly 2,000 core stock-keeping units (representing about 4,000 product varieties), compared to tens of thousands in conventional supermarkets. By declining manufacturer slotting fees and refusing to offer dozens of redundant variations—stocking four olive oils instead of 50 to 60, and two ketchups instead of 30 to 40—the chain reduces consumer choice paralysis while accelerating stock turnover. Restocking labor is minimized by using display-ready cases, which allow workers to slide whole trays of merchandise directly onto shelves rather than hand-stacking individual units. Patton estimates this reduces category restocking time for items like olive oil to approximately 2% of the labor required in traditional grocery stores. Furthermore, converting 100% of its 2,600 U.S. stores to digital shelf tags eliminated manual sign-hanging, saving roughly 10,000 labor hours nationwide each week without adopting dynamic surge pricing. Packaging Engineered for Checkout Speed Over Marketing (34:40) Aldi treats packaging space as an operational tool rather than promotional real estate. While national consumer packaged goods brands dedicate package area to origin stories and marketing text—known in the industry as 'romance copy'—Aldi eliminates this copy on private-label items to print four to six oversized barcodes across multiple sides of a single package. Cashiers and customers can scan items across bi-level optical scanners without rotating packages to find a barcode, directly raising throughput measured in items per minute. This cashier efficiency led Aldi to omit self-checkout stations at the launch of its Midtown Manhattan store. Self-checkout technology often introduces friction through weight verification, theft alerts, and produce lookups, whereas Aldi's staffed lanes process high transaction volumes quickly. Self-checkout remains limited to approximately one-third of the broader store fleet. Agile Private-Label Manufacturing and Dietary Adaptations (30:00) Private-label items constitute roughly 90% of Aldi's inventory. Because the grocer works directly with manufacturing owners and facility presidents rather than third-party distributors, it can formulate recipes, adjust packaging, and scale production within months. This agility enabled Aldi to quickly capitalize on viral food phenomena, such as introducing packaged sourdough that expanded into a line selling over 500,000 loaves weekly. Direct manufacturing control also allows Aldi to adjust to macro consumer shifts. In response to 70-year price highs in beef ($5.99 to $6.99 per pound), Aldi expanded poultry alternatives that cost 30% to 40% less. Concurrently, the rise of GLP-1 weight-loss medications spurred rapid introductions of high-protein and high-fiber goods, including fiber waters, Greek chickpeas, and protein-enriched baked goods. To clarify its product portfolio, Aldi is actively consolidating its historic 90 distinct private brands down to roughly 23 core labels, placing the Aldi corporate logo directly on package fronts. While Aldi's structural efficiencies enable identical pricing between suburban stores and high-rent locations like Times Square, the chain remains exposed to macro commodity pressures like historic beef inflation, and automated checkout technologies like RFID remain cost-prohibitive for low-margin fresh produce.

Aldi U.S. 首席商务官 Scott Patton 阐明，该连锁超市主要通过极致压缩单品库存（SKU）、以自有品牌主导供应链、直接与农业种植端建立数年期契约，以及消除包装与店内补货中的低效劳动，实现了显著低于传统零售商的食品价格；即便开进曼哈顿核心商业区，依然能保持与郊区一致的平价与盈利水平。 极简选品策略与货架补货效率革新 (20:00) 传统超市通常陈列数万个品规，例如仅橄榄油就提供 50 至 60 种选择、番茄酱提供 30 至 40 种，并依赖食品制造商支付的进场费（slotting fees）维系庞大货架。与此相对，Aldi 全店核心 SKU 严格控制在约 2,000 个（对应约 4,000 种具体规格），橄榄油仅备 4 种，番茄酱仅留常规和有机 2 种。Patton 指出，过多选择反而会引发消费者的决策疲劳与困惑；Aldi 坚决拒收任何品牌进场费，纯粹依靠精简货架带来的高周转率维持运转。 这种选品控制重构了门店理货的成本结构。传统超市依赖庞大的夜班理货团队逐一开箱并手工把包装正面朝前摆正，而 Aldi 采用定制的“即放货架包装”（display-ready cases），整箱或整托盘货物可直接推入货架，单类商品的补货耗时据测算仅为传统超市的约 2%。即便对于 Hellmann's 蛋黄酱或可口可乐等具有不可替代文化认同（所谓的“祖母配方”）的全国性名牌，Aldi 也要求供货商将两到三种口味混装在单一展示箱内，以极小化仓储位和货架占用空间。 绕过批发市场的源头直采与城市物流 (7:10) 在生鲜采购端，Aldi 完全绕过了像纽约 Hunts Point 这类传统区域性大型批发集散中心，转而直接与产地农业种植者对接。其生鲜采购周期提前 3 至 4 年启动，采购团队亲赴加利福尼亚、墨西哥及智利的田间挑选果蔬品种（例如在 100 余种商用绿葡萄中挑选兼顾口感、耐受力与货架寿命的 1 至 2 种最优品类），并包揽专属农田的定向种植。采摘后的果蔬不经分销商层层中转，直接由农田运抵区域分销中心，通常在次日即可送达门店货架，大幅压缩损耗并剔除中间加价。 为支撑曼哈顿时代广场周边约 25,000 平方英尺新店的高密度运营，Aldi 依托康涅狄格州南温莎的配送中心，通过夜间错峰行车规避都会拥堵，平均每日向该店运送 3 至 4 车次物资。鉴于曼哈顿狭窄街角的转弯半径与人流密度，Aldi 定制了更短尺寸的拖车车厢，并配置“双人驾驶团队”——一名司机负责操纵与装卸，另一名协同引导盲区并监控行人与电瓶车，使高密度城区的货运履约依然能契合高周转的工业化节奏。 包装工程化改造与收银结算速度极限 (34:40) 为压减店内劳动力开支，Aldi 将商品包装本身设计为作业工具。历史上 Aldi 直到 1998 年才引入条码扫描，此前员工凭借纯数字小键盘盲打输入价格的速度甚至超越早期扫描枪；为了消除收银员和顾客旋转找码的时间摩擦，Aldi 与硬件厂商联合推动双平面激光扫描仪的普及，并在自有品牌包装的外表印制多达 4 至 6 个大型冗余条形码，乃至采用环绕零食包装袋的条状长条码。为此，Aldi 刻意牺牲了传统名牌热衷用于品牌叙述的“营销修辞文案”（romance copy），将包装面积优先让渡给工业化操作与收银扫码效率，内部持续追踪“每分钟扫描件数”（items per minute）作为考核依据。 在门店运营的其他技术环节，Aldi 在全美 2,600 家门店全面上线了电子货架标签（ESL），每周单店直接节省 3 至 4 小时的人工换签工时，系统级节约工时达每周约 10,000 小时。Patton 特别澄清，电子标签纯为省工，绝不用于实时动态涨价，曼哈顿新店与郊区维持着相同的鸡胸肉（2.19 美元/磅）及鸡蛋（1.47 美元/打）定价。与此同时，面对因称重、防盗及年龄核验频发摩擦且 RFID 成本过高（低客单价生鲜难以承受）的自助结账系统，Aldi 凭借极速的人工收银吞吐量，在时代广场新店开业初期果断放弃引入自助结账，以此保障客流通畅。 自有品牌护城河与宏观消费变迁响应 (45:00) 自有品牌占 Aldi 总库存约 90%，远高于传统超市 25% 至 30% 的行业均值，通常能为消费者带来 30% 至 50% 的价格降幅。为解决过去多达 90 种内部独立品牌名称（如 Clancy's 薯片、Mama Cozzi's 披萨）带来的认知分散，Aldi 近期推进品牌重塑，将产品线精简至约 23 个核心品牌，并首次将统一的企业 Logo 移至包装正面。与传统名牌采购只需联络消费品企业下达 SKU 订单不同，自主品牌开发要求 Aldi 自建测试厨房、深度定制配方并全程把控生产线；这种与制造源头的直接捆绑，使 Aldi 能够极快捕捉社交媒体带火的风口，例如酸酵母面包产品线从立项到投产仅需数月，每周销量迅速突破 500,000 条。 面对宏观层面的通胀与消费习惯重构，该供应链结构展现出高度的替代弹性。在牛肉价格创下 70 年新高（碎牛肉在店内达每磅 5.99 至 6.99 美元）之际，Aldi 引导预算受限的顾客转向价格便宜 30% 至 40% 的火鸡肉碎与鸡肉碎。同时针对 GLP-1 类减重药物普及带来的生理需求转变，Aldi 迅速调整采购规划，顺应高蛋白与高膳食纤维激增的市场信号，大力拓充豆类罐头、高纤饮品及高蛋白食品，将上游直达的工业敏捷度转化为抗击滞胀的选品防护网。 节目展示了 Aldi 如何依靠微观工时削减、包装工程化改造和源头掌控建立起平价壁垒，但这一模式的前提是消费者愿意让渡品牌丰富度与传统沉浸式购物体验。随着零售行业对供应链技术及自研品牌的依赖加深，实体超市在极端低毛利与高通胀环境下的防御上限，仍取决于其能否持续抵抗名牌溢价对消费习惯的长期侵蚀。

## Background 本期节目由彭博（Bloomberg）旗下的知名播客《Odd Lots》于 2026 年 7 月 3 日发布在 RSS 及网络平台上。节目围绕德国硬折扣超市巨头奥乐齐（Aldi）在纽约曼哈顿时代广场附近开设巨型新店展开，通过专访奥乐齐美国首席商务官斯科特·帕顿（Scott Patton），深入探讨了这家以极致低价著称的零售商如何在寸土寸金的大都市运筹“物流交响乐”，以及其压低食品杂货成本的底层商业机密。 ## TL;DR 节目深入剖析了奥乐齐（Aldi）将生鲜与食品价格打到极致的核心模式与运营哲学。面对曼哈顿中城苛刻的街区转弯半径与高昂租金，奥乐齐通过定制短轴货车夜间进城、双司机协作以及原产地直采跳过传统批发层级，以超高坪效消化履约开支。在店内运营上，奥乐齐坚决执行极度克制的精简 SKU 策略，依托“陈列即售”原箱上架、多条形码包装设计与全面铺设的电子价签大幅砍减理货和结账工时，并通过高达 90% 的自有品牌深度研发掌控配方与产能。同时，嘉宾还分享了每周上新的“耻辱走道”（Aisle of Shame）爆款逻辑、因应对 GLP-1 减肥药带来的蛋白质狂热，以及时代广场店为何因极致的人工结账速度而战略性放弃自助结账机。 ## Atmosphere & style 整期对话兼具曼哈顿都市漫游的烟火气与深度商业拆解的理性锋芒，两位主持人乔（Joe）与特蕾西（Tracy）以轻松幽默、充满共鸣的“探店吐槽”开场，迅速拉近了听众与枯燥商业逻辑的距离。受访嘉宾作为深耕 30 余年的老零售人，回答务实坦诚、充满数据细节与一线实战案例，彻底打破了企业公关通稿的刻板套路。从高中打工“转标签”的苦涩回忆到全员背诵物价的硬核历史，对话在欢笑与微观数学推演间自如切换，听感节奏明快、生动解渴且极具商业洞察的启发感。 ## Bulletin - `04:55` 硬折扣超市巨头奥乐齐（Aldi）进驻寸土寸金的曼哈顿时代广场，开设面积达 25,000 平方英尺的全新门店，并保持全美统一平价（如 5.99 美元的和牛绞肉与 1.47 美元的鸡蛋）。 - `10:00` 针对曼哈顿拥堵与狭窄街道，奥乐齐启用了定制短轴货车、夜间错峰配送及双司机作业的“物流交响乐”，依靠时代广场店极高的坪效与客流周转覆盖额外的城市配送成本。 - `20:00` 全店实行极致精简的 SKU 策略（仅约 2,000 个核心 SKU，番茄酱仅保留 2 种），结合原箱直接上架（Display-Ready Cases），将货架补货耗时压缩至传统商超的约 2%。 - `37:34` 奥乐齐自有品牌占比高达 90%，在包装设计上舍弃营销“情怀文案”，转而印制多达 4-6 个超大条形码以追求极致收银吞吐量，同时正将内部 90 多个散乱品牌精简聚焦为 23 个明星品牌并正面印上 Aldi Logo。 - `42:15` 面对 GLP-1 减肥药流行与高通胀压力，奥乐齐凭借端到端研发敏捷响应高蛋白与高膳食纤维需求，同时在时代广场店完全摒弃自助结账，依靠多条码与高效率人工收银实现更高吞吐量。 ## Key takeaways - `06:40` 时代广场店并非赔本赚吆喝的形象“广告牌”，而是定位于承接庞大客流、白领通勤与即时配送的高盈利单店。 - `10:00` 依托全美 2,600 多家门店的采购体量，奥乐齐跳过传统城市二级农批市场，直接深入加州、智利等产地与果农签订长期包销合同，实现源头直采与风味定制。 - `10:00` 曼哈顿中城配送面临严苛路况，奥乐齐采用夜间配送、短轴定制货车以及“一人引路、一人卸货”的双人机组协同模式，以高效补货确保不断货。 - `13:00` “陈列即售包装盒”（Display-Ready Cases）允许员工整箱替换上架，无需逐件拆包码放，彻底颠覆传统超市耗费天量工时的理货模式。 - `14:48` 引入第三方全国品牌的准则极其严苛：仅当触及“祖母的配方”效应（如特定地域对蛋黄酱的极高品牌忠诚度）时才妥协引入，且仍需定制专属混装陈列箱以压降货位占用。 - `20:00` 极度精简 SKU 不仅消除了消费者的决策疲劳，更彻底摆脱了传统商超对通道费和货架租金模式的依赖，大幅消减了夜间人工理货与拉面成本。 - `25:00` 全面普及电子货架标签（ESL）每周在全美节省约 8,000 至 10,000 个调价换签工时，但奥乐齐坚决承诺不搞“动态定价”，全美各店保持统一定价。 - `27:30` “耻辱走道”（Aldi Finds）以每周轮换约 100 款非食品快闪百货的方式运营，不仅激发出超过 400 万成员的社群自发传播，更为生鲜主营业务带来极高复购粘性。 - `30:46` 自有品牌模式直连代工工厂决策层，使奥乐齐能在捕捉到社交媒体爆款（如烤番茄配菲达奶酪、酸种面包）后两三个月内完成全美供应链扩产铺货。 - `37:34` 摒弃商品包装上的营销情怀文案，将空间全面让渡给多面印刷的条形码与双平面扫描仪，通过追求极致的每分钟扫码吞吐量来压减结账等待时间。 - `42:15` 食品杂货单品单价过低阻碍了 RFID 技术的全面普及，而自助结账常因故障、称重和防盗监视陷入效率悖论，时代广场新店因此果断放弃自助设备并押注顶尖人工收银。 - `44:30` 生鲜采购的核心是农艺学层面的算法权衡：奥乐齐在源头从上百种葡萄品种中精选平衡了产量、甜酸比、货架寿命与果损的最佳品种，把复杂筛选留在后台。 - `45:00` 通胀压力与 GLP-1 药物普及重塑了消费结构，高蛋白替代肉（鸡肉/火鸡肉）、高蛋白功能食品以及豆类等高纤维平价食品迎来爆发式增长。 - `48:30` 奥乐齐正推进重大品牌重塑，将历史上 90 多个内部马甲品牌精简聚焦至 23 个明星品牌，并将 50 年来隐藏在背面的 Aldi Logo 统一移至包装正面以强化信任背书。 - `51:24` 奥乐齐的底层商业壁垒在于端到端的自主研发与配方盲测能力，引领杂货零售业从过去的“廉价白牌”全面跃升为“高性价比优质自有品牌”。 - `55:00` 数字标签与移动端点餐等零售技术革命大幅削弱了传统经济学中的“菜单成本”（Menu Costs），微观商业的技术效率跃迁正在深刻重塑宏观通胀动态。 ## Detailed walkthrough ### `01:40` 曼哈顿的“超市困局”与主持人的超市情结 节目一开始，主持人乔·威森塔尔（Joe Weisenthal）与特蕾西·阿洛韦（Tracy Alloway）分享了他们对逛超市的独特热爱。乔坦言自己极度痴迷超市，尤其是生鲜果蔬区，尽管平时家里多用线上买菜，但他每周依然会去一到两次社区附近的 Key Foods，把这当作一种生活乐趣。特蕾西则表示自己对如今美国的超市体验逐渐感到幻灭。她回忆起自己在日本长大的童年经历，直到初中回到芝加哥第一次走进美国超市时，整个人都被琳琅满目的货架彻底震撼，就像“走进糖果店的孩子”一样在麦片通道里兴奋飞奔。然而多年过去，这种新奇与愉悦感已被日常消耗殆尽。 聊到日常采买，特蕾西吐槽在康涅狄格州的沃尔玛（Walmart）购物有时简直是一种“抽干灵魂的体验（soul-sucking experience）”，而在曼哈顿的生活更是充满妥协。曼哈顿遍布着高档昂贵的全食超市（Whole Foods），或是像莫顿威廉姆斯（Morton Williams）、Gristedes 这类环境老旧杂乱却价格高昂的社区超市。特蕾西提到自己有一次在莫顿威廉姆斯随手拿了一份现做热汤当快手晚餐（所谓“girl dinner”），结账时居然要价整整 12 美元。乔也深有同感，直言曼哈顿的超市体验极其不均衡——既有高端昂贵的，也有“低端却昂贵”的，消费者忍受着局促破旧的环境，却根本拿不到低价。特蕾西还回忆道，当丈夫第一次从英国来纽约找她时，她带他去参观的第一个地方竟然是哥伦布圆环（Columbus Circle）的全食超市，以此展示美国超市的夸张规模。两人还对比了德克萨斯州备受推崇的区域巨头 H-E-B（拥有极其干净宽敞的店面、高性价比、极丰富的品类，甚至在店内设有专业寿司吧和烤肉区）以及阿斯特广场（Astor Place）新开的韦格曼斯（Wegmans），感叹曼哈顿市中心始终缺乏让人愿意走进去的高性价比平价超市。 - 特蕾西购物品尝：曼哈顿 Morton Williams 一碗即食汤标价 12 美元 - 德州标杆超市 H-E-B 的特色配置：超大面积、高卫生标准、极具性价比，自带店内寿司吧与德州烤肉坑（barbecue pit） - 曼哈顿日常痛点：缺少兼具低廉价格与优质购物体验的大型平价超市，沃尔玛等平价巨头长期缺席 --- ### `04:55` 时代广场旁开巨型超市：奥乐齐（Aldi）进驻曼哈顿中城 话题转向本次节目的核心事件：以极致低价著称的德国连锁折扣超市奥乐齐（Aldi）即将在曼哈顿时代广场（Times Square）两个街区外开出全新门店。乔和特蕾西在录音前一天（6 月 18 日）刚刚对新店进行了实地探店。对于曼哈顿寸土寸金的中城而言，这家新店的体量非同寻常，面积达到了惊人的 25,000 平方英尺（约合 2,320 平方米）。在曼哈顿核心商业区找到如此广阔的单体零售空间本身就极为罕见，更令人意外的是，入驻的并非奢侈品牌或高价精品超市，而是一家正面向沃尔玛和开市客（Costco）发起价格挑战的硬折扣超市。 特蕾西和乔打趣地坦白了自己的“探店偏见”：奥乐齐在导览时提供了不少美味试吃小吃，确实让人心生好感。不过最令他们震惊的，是亲眼在货架上看到了仅售 5.99 美元的和牛绞肉（ground wagyu beef），这一亲民价格在物价飞涨的纽约简直难以想象。这一发现也引出了本期节目的核心探讨方向：一家大型连锁超市究竟是如何在整个体系中层层挤压成本、将生鲜食品价格打到极致的？ - 时代广场奥乐齐新店体量：约 25,000 平方英尺，位于曼哈顿中城核心区 - 标志性低价单品：一份和牛绞肉（ground wagyu beef）仅售 5.99 美元 - 录制时间节点：节目录制于 2024 年 6 月 18 日，新店于次日正式对公众开业 --- ### `05:56` 对话首席商务官斯科特·帕顿：从基层到掌控商品货架 节目正式邀请奥乐齐美国首席商务官（Chief Commercial Officer）斯科特·帕顿（Scott Patton）入场。乔向斯科特询问了首席商务官的具体职能以及他在奥乐齐的职业履历。斯科特透露，他已经在这家公司奉献了超过 30 年的时间，职业生涯完全是从零售最前线一步一步走上来的。在早期阶段，他亲自经营管理过门店，随后负责过大型区域仓储物流中心的运作。大约在 11 年前，他正式调入采购部门，目前全权负责奥乐齐美国所有门店货架上的商品。 斯科特解释称，他的日常核心职责就是带领买手团队深度参与产品的开发、打磨，并负责将这些商品高效引入货架。这种长期深扎基层运营、仓储物流与前端采购的复合背景，构成了奥乐齐严密高效商品体系的底层支撑。 - 斯科特·帕顿在奥乐齐的工作年限：超过 30 年 - 历任岗位轨迹：一线门店运营管理 $\rightarrow$ 仓储物流中心管理 $\rightarrow$ 11 年前进入采购部 $\rightarrow$ 现任美国首席商务官（CCO） - 核心工作职责：统筹全美门店所有在售商品，与产品研发团队协同，负责从单品开发到上架销售的全流程 --- ### `06:40` 是黄金地段“广告牌”还是盈利重镇？时代广场店的商业逻辑与直采供应链 特蕾西抛出了一个关键疑问：在时代广场这样寸土寸金、游人如织的非传统生活区开设巨型平价超市，究竟多大程度上是为了品牌营销的“展厅效应”，又有多大程度是基于真实的单店盈利考量？斯科特解释称，该店位于时代广场旁两个街区，是奥乐齐在曼哈顿的第二家门店（第一家位于哈林区，明年还将在哈林区开设第三家，目前整个纽约地区已有 14 家门店）。该店所在的物业是一栋全新落成的商住综合体，奥乐齐拿下了底层全部商铺，上方则是高端住宅公寓。特蕾西赞赏了这种亚洲常见的混合用途（Mixed-use）建筑模式，楼下有超市、干洗店甚至托儿所，生活极其便利。针对“广告牌”的质疑，斯科特给出了极其明确且坚定的回答：“不可否认，这种高曝光率对品牌大有裨益。但平心而论，我们期望这家店能实现高额盈利。我们将迎来海量客流。如果不打算卖出大量杂货，那它就会沦为一个代价极其高昂的广告牌（That would be a very expensive billboard if we weren't going to sell a lot of groceries）。”除了游客和中城庞大的通勤人流，该店还将深度承接周边高密度的即时配送（E-commerce）业务。 随后，乔借探店时品尝到的优质葡萄和蓝莓，询问奥乐齐在纽约这种高密度都市的生鲜供应链运转逻辑——他们究竟是如何绕开像布朗克斯亨茨角（Hunts Point）这种传统农产品集散枢纽的效率瓶颈，将果蔬从产地送入市中心的？斯科特指出，生鲜采购恰恰是奥乐齐商业模式与众不同的缩影。由于奥乐齐在全美拥有超过 2,600 家门店，这种庞大体量决定了他们绝不可能依赖本地批发市场逐层采买，而是从源头直接锁定种植农户（growers），通过原产地直采跨越所有中间环节。 ```mermaid flowchart TD accTitle: 奥乐齐生鲜供应链与传统模式对比 accDescr: 展示奥乐齐如何跳过中间批发市场，直接对接农户并配送至 2600 多家门店 subgraph TRADITIONAL["传统城市零售采购链路"] T1["果蔬种植农户 (Grower)"] --> T2["产地经纪商/分销商"] T2 --> T3["城市级大型集散地 (如 Hunts Point)"] T3 --> T4["本地传统超市货架"] end subgraph ALDI["奥乐齐 (Aldi) 规模直采链路"] A1["源头合作农户 (Grower)"] --> A2["奥乐齐自有区域分销中心 (DC)"] A2 --> A3["时代广场等 2,600+ 家直营门店"] end ``` - 奥乐齐纽约及全美布局体量：全美超过 2,600 家门店；纽约大区目前拥有 14 家门店；曼哈顿首家位于哈林区，中城店为第二家，第三家预计次年在哈林区落地 - 时代广场店客群构成：周边公寓住户、中城日常通勤白领、外来游客以及外卖电商即时配送订单 - 核心采购哲学：凭借 2,600+ 家门店的庞大采购量跳过本地中间批发市场，直接与果蔬种植者（Grower）合作定制与采购 ### `10:00` 产地直采与曼哈顿中城的“物流交响乐” 要保证货架上的生鲜品质并压低成本，Aldi 的供应链布局早在三到四年前就已启动。以葡萄为例，Aldi 的团队会亲自造访加利福尼亚、墨西哥以及智利的种植园，深入田间地头逐一品尝不同的培育品种，并最终与种植户签订长期合同，划定专门为 Aldi 供货的专属地块。采摘下来的生鲜会直接从产地运往分销中心，通常在次日即可送达各门店。无论是葡萄、浆果还是苹果，这种直接溯源至源头农户的长期深耕关系，正是其生鲜供应链的核心护城河。 然而，将这些大宗生鲜与食品运入纽约曼哈顿中城（时代广场附近），则是一场极其严苛的物流挑战。所有进入该门店的货物均来自康涅狄格州的南温莎（South Windsor）配送中心。为了避开白天纽约拥堵的交通，货车全部选在夜间进城。普通的长轴重型货车根本无法在曼哈顿狭窄的街角转弯，因此 Aldi 特别启用了车身较短的定制货车，以适应纽约街道苛刻的转弯半径。 更具挑战性的是卸货的人力配置。通常在郊区，一名司机就能完成卸货，但在寸土寸金、行人车辆密集的曼哈顿中城，Aldi 每辆货车都必须配备两名司机：一人专门负责下车“眼观六路”，引导卡车在狭小的转弯半径内倒车停靠，时刻留神是否有违章停放的私家车或乱窜的滑板车少年；另一名司机则专注于快速卸货。这家新店每天需要接待 3 至 4 辆这样的货车，整个过程如同一场精密协调的“物流交响乐”。尽管额外的货车频次、双司机人力成本以及曼哈顿高昂的租金大幅推高了运营成本，但对 Aldi 而言，这纯粹是一道数学题——凭借超高的坪效与密集的客流量，销售规模足以轻松覆盖这些新增的物流与履约开支。 ```mermaid flowchart TD accTitle: Aldi 曼哈顿生鲜供应链流转示意图 accDescr: 展示从源头农户签约种植到南温莎配送中心，再到双司机短轴货车夜间送达曼哈顿门店的闭环流程。 subgraph Origin["源头端（提前 3-4 年规划）"] A["深入农田选育品尝品种"] --> B["签订专属地块包销合同"] B --> C["采摘后直发配送中心"] end subgraph Logistics["干线与城市配送"] C --> D["康涅狄格州南温莎仓储中心"] D -->|"夜间错峰启运"| E["定制短轴货车（适配街角转弯）"] E --> F["双人作业团队（一人引路/一人卸货）"] end subgraph Store["终端门店（时代广场店）"] F -->|"日均 3-4 车次"| G["高周转高销量冲抵额外成本"] end ``` ### `13:00` 陈列即售包装盒与高周转补货机制 面对即将涌入时代广场门店的海量顾客，如何防止货架被迅速搬空是运营的核心。在曼哈顿这种高坪效、高密度的店面，Aldi 依靠其招牌式的“陈列即售包装盒”（Display-Ready Cases）实现了闪电般的高效补货。Aldi 会要求上游供应链合作伙伴在打包蔬菜（如有机蔬菜、菠菜等）时，直接采用自带展示功能的托盘纸箱包装。员工在补货时完全不需要像传统超市那样将单件商品逐一拿出来码放，而是整箱整箱地往货架上替换。这使得门店即使一天内需要对生鲜区补货 3 到 4 次，也能在极短的时间内迅速完成。 这种极致的工时效率也引出了主持人们的趣味互动。Tracy 提到了以沃尔玛为原型的经典美剧《百味超市》（*Superstore*），戏称剧中的零售员工有 90% 的时间都在货架前一件一件、单品对应单品地摆货，一边摆一边八卦闲聊。Joe 坦言自己还没看过这部剧，Tracy 则热烈推荐，称其就像零售业巨头版的情景喜剧《办公室》（*The Office*），生动展现了传统零售在排面理货上消耗的天量人工，而这恰恰与 Aldi 砍掉一切冗余动作的精益流程形成了鲜明对比。 ### `14:48` 品牌取舍逻辑：“祖母的配方”与 2 种番茄酱的秘密 虽然 Aldi 绝大多数商品都是自有品牌（Private Label），但货架上依然能见到少数全美知名品牌的原装产品，例如知名烧烤酱 Sweet Baby Ray's。即便是这些第三方巨头，也必须彻底融入 Aldi 的物流体系。以 Sweet Baby Ray's 为例，供应商不会改变酱汁配方，但会专门为 Aldi 定制专属的“陈列即售箱”，甚至在一个包装箱内混装 2 到 3 种不同风味的酱汁。这意味着在 Aldi 的仓库中，多种口味只需要占用一个货盘点位，摆上货架也只占据一个展示位，在极大节省仓储和陈列资源的同时满足了口味多样性。 在决定究竟是上架知名品牌还是推出自有品牌时，Aldi 主要依赖两大考量标准： - **自有品牌渗透率数据**：观察特定品类下消费者对贴牌产品的接纳程度。 - **“祖母的配方”（Grandma's Recipe）效应**：许多美国家庭拥有世代相传的经典烹饪配方，而老一辈往往在配方里指定了不可替换的特定品牌。例如在蛋黄酱上，美国存在极其森严的地域分歧——北方及东海岸市场非 Hellman's 莫属，南方市场则对 Duke's 有着宗教般的狂热。这种由家族传统锁定的品牌忠诚度会在社交媒体与销售数据中显露无遗，Aldi 便会选择妥协并引入正品。 - **极致精简的 SKU 策略**：与传统超市的庞杂货架形成巨大反差的是番茄酱。主持人和普通消费者通常认为 Heinz（亨氏）同样是不可动摇的标志性品牌，但 Aldi 门店内并没有 Heinz，其整个番茄酱品类甚至总共只有 2 个 SKU。相比之下，一家典型的美国标准杂货超市往往会摆放多达 30 到 40 种番茄酱 SKU。数据证明消费者在番茄酱这一品类对自有品牌的接受度极高，Aldi 便果断剔除溢价品牌，将货架效率推向极致。 ### `20:00` 精简 SKU 的哲学与货架摆放背后的高昂成本 对话切入到 Aldi 区别于传统大型超市最核心的战略特征：极度精简的库存单位（SKU）数量。在像沃尔玛这样的大卖场里，顾客可能会面对货架上 60 种不同品牌的番茄酱（甚至包括吸引人的全新莳萝腌黄瓜风味），而在 Aldi 全店内仅有大约 2,000 个 SKU（约 4,000 个变体）。以番茄酱为例，常规超市通常摆出 30 到 40 种规格与品牌，而 Aldi 只提供两种：一种有机款、一种常规款。Scott Patton 解释，这背后是对消费者决策心理的深度洞察。Aldi 曾带领消费者前往竞品超市做过实地观察测试，当顾客站在摆有五六十种橄榄油的货架前时，他们反而会陷入决策困惑，选购后对自己的购买决策缺乏信心；而在 Aldi，橄榄油仅有 4 种精挑细选的类别（有机款、西西里款、纯正款与特级初榨），顾客反而能买得心安理得。 传统超市之所以保留 60 种橄榄油，一方面是信奉“给顾客更多选择”的传统理念，另一方面则深度绑定于通道费（Slotting Fees）和货架租金模式——供应商付的钱越多，获得的货架排面就越大。Aldi 几乎全部采用自有品牌，没有通道费和货架空间交易，商品存在的唯一理由就是必须在货架上快速流转。谈及精简 SKU 与低价的直接因果链，Patton 分享了自己高中时代在当地杂货店打工的亲身经历：当时他每小时赚 3.25 美元，每天晚上和七八个伙伴要连续工作 6 个小时，专门负责把被顾客挑乱的商品向前拉齐、将标签正面朝外摆正（“Facing/Turning the labels”）。这种繁琐的理货和摆架工作极其昂贵，而 Aldi 的 SKU 少且整箱上架，货品周转快到往往在需要整理之前就已经售罄，从而省下了数额惊人的夜间理货人工成本。 - **SKU 对比数据**：传统超市番茄酱 30-40 种，Aldi 仅 2 种（有机与常规）；竞品橄榄油多达 50-60 种，Aldi 仅保留 4 种精选款（有机、西西里、纯正、特级初榨）。 - **理货人工对比**：传统理货员需耗费整夜逐一旋转标签正面对齐，Aldi 采用原箱陈列加极低 SKU，极大省去了这笔巨大开销。 ```mermaid flowchart TD accTitle: Traditional vs Aldi Restocking Model accDescr: Comparison of traditional grocery stores facing 50 SKUs versus Aldi handling 2-4 SKUs. subgraph Traditional["传统超市补货逻辑 (高耗时/高成本)"] A["卡车卸货"] --> B["50个不同SKU的散箱"] B --> C["员工推车寻找50个匹配货位"] C --> D["拆箱/对正标签/摆正瓶身/防跌落"] end subgraph Aldi["Aldi 补货逻辑 (极简/高周转)"] E["卡车卸货"] --> F["整箱仅2-4种核心SKU"] F --> G["一眼识别指定货位并原箱上架"] G --> H["用时仅传统超市的约2%"] end ``` ### `25:00` 补货效率的数学题、电子价签与拒绝动态定价 Patton 进一步通过具体的算术对比阐述了低 SKU 带来的补货效率跃升。假设两家超市每天同样卖出 1,000 瓶橄榄油：传统超市需要从 50 个不同箱子中取货，理货员推着车在过道间逐一核对 50 个货架位置、小心翼翼摆正标签防止摔碎；而在 Aldi，理货员只面对 4 种橄榄油，位置一目了然，整箱推进货位即可。据 Patton 测算，Aldi 完成同等品类补货所耗费的时间，仅仅是传统超市的 2% 左右。在运营技术层面，Aldi 已经在所有门店全面普及了电子货架标签（Digital Shelf Labels）。 针对外界对电子标签可能被用来搞“动态定价”（例如当顾客伸手拿牛油果时价格瞬间飙升 2 美元）的担忧，Patton 明确予以否认，强调 Aldi 绝不会采用动态定价。他们的调价频率通常只是一周一次，主要受生鲜农产品产地价格波动驱动，并且全美各门店实行统一定价原则——即便是曼哈顿时代广场的新店，商品标价也与康涅狄格州的郊区门店完全一致，诸如 2.19 美元一磅的鸡胸肉或 1.47 美元一盒的鸡蛋在繁华闹市同样唾手可得。从节省成本的角度看，过去每家门店每周需要花费 3 到 4 个小时去人工取下旧纸质标签、插上新标签；按 Aldi 旗下 2,600 家门店计算，全面数字化每周直接节省出上万小时的人工工时，而省下的每一分钱都会最终反映在极具竞争力的低售价上。 - **补货耗时差异**：极简 SKU 使 Aldi 的货架补货耗时仅为传统商超的约 2%。 - **电子标签工时红利**：此前单店每周需耗费 3-4 小时更换纸质价格签，乘以全美 2,600 家门店，每周节省约 7,800 至 10,400 个工时。 - **价格一致性**：纽约曼哈顿中心新店与外埠门店价格完全相同，维持鸡胸肉每磅 2.19 美元、鸡蛋每盒 1.47 美元的超平价，不实行任何算法动态加价。 ### `27:30` 风靡全网的“耻辱走道”与快闪式非食品运营逻辑 随后话题转向了 Aldi 标志性的“Aldi 发现”（Aldi Finds）专区，该区域在忠实拥趸中被戏剧性地戏称为“耻辱走道”（Aisle of Shame，简称 AOS）。这个专区颠覆了传统超市只卖生鲜副食的设定，整条走道堆满了随季节轮换的杂货百货，从充气游泳池、电锯、五金工具，到国庆日（7月4日）或世界杯主题周边应有尽有。这一业态源于欧洲总部时期的基因，因为欧洲缺乏美国式的巨型平价大卖场（Big-box stores），Aldi 在五金百货（DIY）领域一直颇有建树，进入美国后他们把这种百货并置于食品旁的打法继承了下来。 与常规超市常年积压反季节库存不同，Aldi 采取的是高度敏捷的周度快闪模式：每周引入大约 100 种全新非食品单品，只在需求爆发的当口卖货，比如 2 月绝不会卖泳池，而是在夏季准时摆出。五年前左右，粉丝自发在 Facebook 上成立了“Aisle of Shame”社群，最初管理层十分担忧这对品牌形象有负面影响，但很快发现这是一种极其善意的幽默自嘲——顾客们原本只想进店买橄榄油和烧烤酱，结果却在车尾箱或客厅地毯上摆满了没忍住冲动消费的跑鞋、充气泳池以及五六十个香氛蜡烛，并发帖自嘲“我太羞愧了，今天又没守住预算”。如今该社群已经聚集了超过 400 万名活跃用户，Aldi 采购团队也选择顺应民意接受这一爱称，将其作为观察消费者兴趣和反哺选品采购的重要情报源。 - **每周轮换规模**：Aldi Finds 专区每周更新上架约 100 种当季限定新品，售完即止。 - **粉丝社群规模**：由顾客自发建立的“Aisle of Shame (AOS)”Facebook 群组拥有超过 400 万名成员，成为高粘性的自发传播阵地。 - **爆款非标品类**：香氛蜡烛、充气泳池、电动工具及当季鞋服是顾客最常冲动消费且引发晒单热议的品类。 ### `30:46` 社交媒体趋势与自有品牌的供应链敏捷响应 社交媒体近年来在食品杂货零售中扮演了举足轻重的角色。除了各类用户自发组织的粉丝社群（如 Facebook 群组）能帮助零售商实时观察顾客偏好外，网络爆款食谱与饮食风潮更是直接左右了消费者的购买行为。例如，几年前知名美食博主 Alison Roman 的烤番茄配菲达奶酪（Feta Cheese）食谱在全网爆红，直接导致 Aldi 门店的菲达奶酪销量瞬间飙升破纪录。 面对这类突如其来的爆款需求，买手团队必须高度敏锐地捕捉动态。近期另一个典型范例是家庭烘焙酸种面包（Sourdough）的潮流。虽然自制酸种面包门槛极高，需要费时费力照料酵种，很多人缺乏耐心，但这向 Aldi 的买手团队释放了强烈的市场信号。Aldi 随后顺势推出了数款自有品牌的酸种面包产品，一跃成为整个面包货架类别中销量最高的产品，目前全美门店每周销量突破 50 万条。 Aldi 能够迅速响应消费风潮的关键在于其**自有品牌（Private Label）模式**： ```mermaid flowchart TD accTitle: 自有品牌与传统品牌供应链响应对比 accDescr: 对比传统全国性品牌与Aldi自有品牌在爆款趋势出现时的供应链响应速度与控制力 subgraph 传统品牌模式 A1["社交媒体爆款爆发"] --> B1["零售商致电品牌方"] B1 --> C1["品牌方需平衡各大零售商配额"] C1 --> D1["响应迟缓、货源受限"] end subgraph Aldi自有品牌模式 A2["社交媒体爆款爆发"] --> B2["直接致电生产商/工厂高管"] B2 --> C2["协调产线条线、优化包材包装"] C2 --> D2["数月内完成快速扩产与精准铺货"] end ``` - **直通源头**：普通零售商依赖全国性品牌时，必须与所有竞品争夺有限配额；而 Aldi 直接对接制造工厂，往往能直接与企业主或总裁对话。 - **掌控产能**：通过直接协商争取更多生产线工时、改造包装、扩充酸种面包产能，最快仅需两三个月即可落地增产。 --- ### `34:55` 条形码革命：从全员背诵物价到多条码设计 在超市结账效率方面，Aldi 有着极其独特的创新史。许多初次进入 Aldi 门店的顾客可能不会立刻留意，但只要稍加注意就会发现，其包装（如薯片袋、各类纸盒）上印着极多且巨大的条形码，有些包装甚至每一面都有条形码。 这项设计的演变根植于 Aldi 对收银吞吐量（Throughput）的极致追求： - **1998年以前的纯手工时代**：令人惊讶的是，Aldi 实际上是全美最晚普及条码扫描仪的连锁零售商之一。Scott Patton 于 1995 年入职第一天，培训主管就严肃询问他“有没有把所有商品的价格背下来”。直到 1998 年之前，Aldi 的所有员工都必须将全店商品价格熟记于心，并在传统十键数字键盘（10-key）上进行纯手工高速输入。 - **扫描仪技术的倒逼创新**：当年未采用扫描仪的原因，竟是因为收银员手工按键的速度远远超过了早期的扫描设备。为了突破瓶颈，Aldi 联合扫描设备厂商共同开发了“双平面扫描仪”（Bi-level Scanner），即包含水平和垂直两个扫描窗口，无论商品哪个角度划过都能捕捉。 - **包装多条码方案**：即便有了双平面扫描仪，收银员和顾客在结账时仍经常需要来回翻转商品寻找条形码。为此，Aldi 决定在自家包装上印制 4 个、5 个甚至 6 个条形码，有的甚至设计成贯穿整袋薯片的条纹，与包装图案巧妙融合。 - **数据驱动的效率监测**：Aldi 追踪每名员工每分钟扫描的商品数量（Items per minute）。无论是扫描仪的系统升级，还是针对难扫商品向门店员工收集反馈，所有包装调整都以提升扫描速度为核心指标。 主持人 Joe Weisenthal 幽默地插话猜测：在那个必须死记硬背价格的年代，物价上涨是否会因为“再让员工重新背一遍菜单太痛苦”而减缓了货币政策向消费端的传导速度？惹来一阵笑声。 --- ### `37:34` 放弃“情怀文案”，将空间让渡给生产力 针对其他全国性品牌和大型商超为何没有效仿多条码设计，Scott Patton 给出了切中商业本质的解释。这完全取决于品牌控制权以及企业对“坪效与效率”的优先级排序： - **品牌包材的控制权**：传统超市上架的是第三方全国性品牌，无权修改雀巢、哈根达斯等产品的外观设计；而 Aldi 掌握配方、包装与标签的绝对主导权，为了追求极致效率，理论上“哪怕印 20 个条形码都可以”。 - **“情怀文案”（Romance Copy）与效率的冲突**：对于传统独立消费品牌而言，包装版面是极其珍贵的营销资产。品牌方倾向于用大量篇幅讲述煽情的创业故事和品牌渊源——比如讲述某位华尔街投行高管辞去并购业务跑去做玉米片烘焙的“情怀文案”（Romance copy）。 - **让利于消费者**：Aldi 坚决舍弃了这类无谓的营销废话，把原本写情怀故事的版面腾退给条形码，省下的结账工时和营运成本最终直接转化为更低的零售价格。 在讨论完条形码与人工收银台的极致优化后，话题随即转向时下的自助结账（Self-checkout）前沿技术。主持人提及像优衣库（Uniqlo）通过 RFID 筐内感应实现的无缝结账体验，并探讨这套逻辑如何面对商品品类远比服装复杂琐碎的食品生鲜杂货零售场景。 ### `40:00` 自助结账的技术瓶颈与零售悖论 主持人对比了不同零售业态的结账体验：在服装店（如优衣库），顾客只需把整筐衣服倒进结账槽，系统通过射频识别（RFID）标签瞬间就能读取价格并完成扣款；但在普通社区食品超市（如纽约的 Key Food），顾客却不得不手忙脚乱地反复翻转包装寻找条形码，系统动不动就锁死报警，经常需要店员过来刷工牌授权，遇上含酒精饮品还要人工核验年龄，整个过程令人抓狂。针对食品杂货业的自助结账（Self-checkout）技术现状，斯科特·帕顿坦言这目前确实是“喜忧参半”（a mixed bag），消费者的态度两极分化。核心痛点在于 RFID 标签的成本对于单价极低的生鲜杂货（如牛油果和西红柿）而言依然过于高昂，短期内难以普及。即便技术再先进，购买酒精饮料时的法定年龄核验、散装生鲜的称重摩擦等问题依然无法彻底自动化。 目前 Aldi 约有三分之一的门店部署了自助结账设备，但其始终坚持保留人工收银通道，把选择权留给顾客。各大零售商眼下都在反复试验最适合自己的运营模型：究竟是采用围栏式集中隔离区（corral），还是单列排队分流？店面动线布局对设备使用效率有着决定性影响。然而，这也引出了一个零售业普遍面临的荒谬悖论：当商家不得不花钱专门雇一名员工站在自助结账区旁全程监控、纠错和协助时，“既然你都已经付薪水让人站在那儿干看着了，为什么不干脆直接帮顾客扫码结账呢？”随后主持人提到纽约阿斯特广场（Astor Place）的 Wegmans 超市，那里采用一条长队叫号分流至三四十台自助机器的集中调度模式，对于只买几件商品急于离开的曼哈顿通勤族而言运转得相当顺畅。 - **RFID 普及门槛**：服装行业单品利润较高易于覆盖标签成本，而单价几毛钱至几块钱的番茄、牛油果无法承受 RFID 芯片成本。 - **Aldi 铺设比例**：全美约 1/3 的 Aldi 门店配备了自助结账系统，但全部保持“人工通道 + 自助机”并行配置。 - **管理困境**：人工监护防盗与防错的工时成本，容易直接抵消自助设备原本省下的人力开销。 ### `42:15` 时代广场店为何放弃自助结账：极致的人工效率与排队博弈 令人意外的是，Aldi 在人流量巨大、寸土寸金的曼哈顿时代广场新店中，完全没有设置任何自助结账机。针对主持人的好奇，帕顿解释了背后的核心逻辑：竞争对手之所以大力推崇自助结账，很大程度上是因为他们传统的人工收银系统效率极其低下、排队太慢；而 Aldi 凭借独创的商品多面条形码设计与高强度训练的专业收银员，人工结账速度处于业内顶尖水平。在 Aldi，即使前面排着三位推着购物车的顾客，结账队伍移动的速度也极其迅猛，顾客甚至根本产生不了“想要去用自助结账来省时间”的念头。 此外，帕顿指出了自助结账在心理学和动线上的潜在弊端：它就像在快餐店柜台前做选择题，顾客站在原地焦虑地张望哪台机器空出来、哪位顾客手脚麻利、谁可能会被机器卡住，一旦选错机器排在一位操作不熟练的人身后，实际等待的时间反而比人工结账漫长得多。不过，Aldi 时代广场店在收银台前方特意预留了一大片开阔的缓冲区。帕顿表示，这既是为了给当下顾客直接走上前自主选择空闲收银台的空间，也是保留战略弹性——如果未来测试发现曼哈顿市中心客群确实存在强烈的自助诉求，他们可以随时利用这块预留空间改造动线并加装自助设备。这一探讨也引发了主持人对“排队理论”（Queuing Theory）和线列管理数学策略的浓厚兴趣。 - **取消自助结账的核心理由**：Aldi 依靠多条形码包装和专属扫描流程建立了极高的人工收银吞吐量，弱化了对自助设备提速的刚性依赖。 - **空间弹性预留**：时代广场门店收银台前方保留了大面积空白区域，以便日后根据人流行为随时低成本切回自助测试方案。 - **排队心理挫败**：自助结账常常诱发“选择困难”与“卡壳焦虑”，不可控的技术故障往往抵消效率预期。 ### `44:30` 从上百种青提中万里挑一：生鲜采购背后的风味与供应链算法 谈话随后转向生鲜品类的供应链细节，主持人问及超市看似平常的青提（Green Grapes）究竟有多少讲究。帕顿揭示了一个普通消费者鲜少知晓的产业真相：绝大多数顾客走进超市时想法都很简单，要么想买红提，要么想买青提；但实际上，仅绿色葡萄在全球就有超过 100 个细分培育品种。顾客去 Aldi 挑选的青提，与隔壁传统超市货架上的很可能完全是两个风味与物理特性截然不同的品种。每一个品种都在风味浓郁度与农业亩产量（Yield）之间进行权衡——通常亩产量极高的品种，其果味与糖酸比往往会被稀释，变得寡淡无味。 为了让顾客无须在货架前烧脑挑选，Aldi 的专业生鲜采购团队直接跳过普通的农产品批发市场（Terminal Market）。如果只是在二级批发市场扫货，商家只能被迫接受市场上当天供应的普通通货；而 Aldi 则是直接深入产地与果农建立订单合作，在数百种葡萄中精选出当季最符合标准的 1 到 2 个品种进店。采购团队精密平衡着甜度、酸度、货架期（Shelf-life）以及果损损耗率（Produce waste），以确保青提不会过酸也不会甜得发腻。主持人赞叹在探访门店时尝到的黑莓（Blackberries）不仅个头硕大，而且完全没有令人倒牙的尖锐酸涩感。帕顿确认这正是精选品种带来的直接结果：通过在源头与农户锁定优质种源，把复杂的农艺学筛选留在后台，最终换取消费者无需思考的一句评价：“Aldi 的青提和黑莓味道真好”。 - **品种多样性与取舍**：绿提品种多达 100 种以上；高产量品种往往以牺牲风味浓郁度为代价，采购的核心在于寻找最佳平衡点。 - **产地直采 vs 批发倒手**：放弃去区域农批市场随行就市收通货，由采购团队直连种植农户，按风味标准定制供应。 - **生鲜品控核心指标**：严控糖酸平衡（避免尖锐酸味）、果实质地、货架寿命以及门店端的损耗率。 ### `45:00` 通胀压力、蛋白质狂热与 GLP-1 催生的食品新趋势 从宏观经济环境来看，美国消费者已经承受了数年的生活成本压力。尽管 Aldi 通过直连农户、优化外包装箱设计以及简化 UPC 条形码等举措全力压降成本，但零售商依然无法对大宗商品市场的周期完全免疫。以牛肉为例，当前牛肉价格处于近 70 年来的历史高位，在 Aldi 门店内，绞碎牛肉（ground beef）的售价也达到了每磅 5.99 美元甚至 6.99 美元的高位。面对价格高企，消费者并未放弃对蛋白质的摄入，但行为上出现了明显的“消费降级”替代：转向购买价格低 30% 至 40% 的冷鲜绞碎火鸡肉或绞碎鸡肉。 与通胀并行的另一股结构性力量是蛋白质与健康狂热，其中 GLP-1 类减肥药物（如司美格鲁肽）的兴起更是关键推手。Aldi 大约在 18 个月前与合作伙伴进行调研时，全美约有 5% 的人口在使用 GLP-1 类药物；而随着该药物向口服药片形式转型，使用门槛降低，蛋白质品类的销售热度持续外溢： - 传统的生鲜肉类供应商将自己定位为“最初的蛋白质”，销量稳步增长； - 高蛋白概念席卷了全店的各类货架，包括高蛋白贝果（protein bagels）、高蛋白爆米花，甚至 Aldi 还推出了高蛋白气泡水（protein sparkling water）； - 除了蛋白质之外，膳食纤维（fiber）的需求也迎来了爆炸式增长。 两年前店内可能根本不会上架的高纤维单品——如希腊风味鹰嘴豆（Greek chickpeas）和高纤维水，如今都在货架上大受欢迎。豆类（beans）在五年前销量平平，眼下却出现了惊人的复苏，既因为豆类是“蛋白质+膳食纤维”的黄金组合，也因为豆类和米饭是性价比极高、饱腹感极强的抗通胀抗寒食物。 --- ### `48:30` Aldi 的品牌重塑：从 90 个内部马甲到聚焦核心自有品牌 在自有品牌（Private Label）运营方面，各大巨头纷纷发力，例如沃尔玛大力推广其“Great Value”（惠宜）以承接追求性价比的转注客流。相比之下，Costco 将所有品类集中在 Kirkland 这一高度辨识的单一品牌之下，而 Aldi 过去的策略则是给不同商品贴上不同名称的“虚拟农场”或细分品牌，全店拥有超过 90 个各自为战的自有品牌名称（如 Berman's 烧烤酱、Sweet Harvest 苹果酱）。然而几年前的顾客调研揭示了一个内部盲区：虽然消费者深爱 Aldi 的产品、品质和价格，但完全搞不懂这些品牌背后的关系。局内人以为“Berman's 就是烧烤酱”人尽皆知，普通消费者却一头雾水。 针对这一痛点，Aldi 启动了一场伤筋动骨的品牌重塑计划： - **大幅精简品牌数量**：通过筛选顾客真正具备高认知的明星品牌（如薯片品牌 Clancy's、冷冻披萨品牌 Mama Cozzi's），将原有的 90 多个内部品牌砍到约 23 个； - **全店重新换标并将 Aldi 标识放上正面**：Aldi 进入美国市场已有 50 年，但长期以来其标志性 Logo 始终被印在包装背面。此次改革将正式把“Aldi”字样和 Logo 移至所有自有商品包装正面，直接释放企业背书价值； - **平衡视觉体验**：Aldi 门店内自有品牌的占比高达 90%（普通竞争对手通常仅为 25% 到 30%）。如果全店货架千篇一律地印上巨大的 Aldi 标识，很容易让货架变得极其枯燥沉闷，因此包装设计的首要挑战就是在强化品牌归属感的同时维持视觉的丰富与美感。 --- ### `51:24` 自有品牌演进史：从廉价“无牌货”到重度研发的商业壁垒 回顾杂货零售史，在“自有品牌”这个名词普及之前，此类商品往往被贬称为“无牌商品 / 白牌货”（generic）。在过去消费者的记忆中，白牌货包装粗糙简陋（往往只有黑白文字），品质低劣，买“白牌番茄酱”甚至带有贫穷与低质的负面社会评价。Aldi 自 1976 年进入美国市场时便坚持全自有品牌策略，不仅主打高品质原料与精心设计的包装，更以 30% 到 50% 的巨大价格优势教育了市场，率先引领了从“劣质白牌”到“优质自有品牌”的行业大转型。 开发自有品牌与传统超市采购知名日化快消品牌（CPG）有着本质维度的能力壁垒，这也是 Aldi 历经 50 年构建的核心竞争力所在： ```mermaid flowchart TD accTitle: 传统品牌采购与自有品牌研发流程对比 accDescr: 对比采购成熟品牌SKU与自主端到端研发测试自营商品的两种截然不同的供应链路径 subgraph CPG["传统品牌采购模式（门槛低、依赖谈判）"] A["致电跨国 CPG 巨头"] --> B["敲定采购规格与少量 SKU"] B --> C["商务回扣与价格谈判"] C --> D["直接入库上架销售"] end subgraph PrivateLabel["Aldi 自有品牌研发模式（重度研发、全流程自主）"] E["买手洞察市场趋势<br/>（如希腊风味鹰嘴豆）"] --> F["寻找专业代工供应链并共创配方"] F --> G["送入总部实验厨房测试与盲测"] G --> H["多轮样品口感筛选与包装设计"] H --> I["成本端反向核算与最终投产"] end ``` 这种重度的内部选品与开发体系，需要极强的品类管理能力与敏锐的市场嗅觉。对 Aldi 而言，这不仅是节省流通渠道费用的手段，更构成了其与传统货架零售商之间最坚固的护城河。 --- ### `54:20` 尾声对谈：效率与多样性的商业取舍 在访谈结尾，主持人 Joe Weisenthal 与 Tracy Alloway 复盘了对 Aldi 及其时代广场新店的观察。虽然许多其他超市理论上也可以效仿 Aldi 极具特色的全套效率工具——例如全包裹式扫码条形码、直接作为陈列架的瓦楞纸箱包装系统，但在现实商业决策中，几乎很少有主流连锁超市能真正做到这一点。这本质上是一场商业战略的取舍：如今全美杂货业正在经历零食品类大爆发的“SKU 黄金时代”，许多亚洲超市凭借单一商品（如 KitKat 巧克力棒）便能陈列出从绿茶味到芥末虾味等 45 种丰富细分版本，以海量多样性取悦消费者；而 Aldi 则反其道而行之，通过极其克制的极简 SKU、对单品极致的深度定制研发以及近乎苛刻的流通效率，走出了一条绝无仅有的低价优质之路。 ### `55:00` 零售选择权权衡与技术变革对通胀动态的深远影响 主持人总结了 Aldi 的商业模式精髓：这是一家选择走完全相反道路的公司。虽然消费者在店内确实失去了传统超市中铺天盖地的丰富选择，但只要零售商能够精准提供顾客日常所需的大部分商品，其呈现出的巨大价差优势就是实打实且极其真切的。与此同时，对话进一步引申到宏观经济学中关于“技术变革与通胀动态”这一长期被忽视的领域。从最初手工贴价格标签，到全面普及条形码，再到如今优衣库（Uniqlo）广泛采用的 RFID 电子标签，结账与仓储管理效率的阶梯式跨越直接重塑了定价与成本结构。 随后主持人联想到经典的经济学理论“菜单成本”（Menu Costs）——即过去企业因为重新印刷菜单或重新标价过于繁琐且成本高昂，从而导致价格具有黏性。然而在现代商业社会，几乎所有人都在通过手机扫描二维码点餐、电子标签实时更新价格，曾经看似不可动摇的经济学假设如今是否依然成立？这种由底层技术迭代所引发的微观商业变革，显然亟需现代宏观经济学重新审视和深入研究。 - **Aldi 模式的本质取舍**：以牺牲部分冗余选择权为代价，换取精准满足核心需求的能力以及不可撼动的真实低价优势。 - **技术驱动的通胀研究空白**：从物理价签、条形码、RFID 电子标签到数字化点餐系统的演进，深刻改变了零售交易速度与边际成本。 - **经典“菜单成本”假说的颠覆**：智能手机二维码与数字化定价全面普及后，传统意义上阻碍价格调整的摩擦成本已大幅削弱。 ### `55:45` 播客尾声、互动渠道与赞助商致谢 在探讨完超市经济学与前沿技术之后，主持人 Tracy Alloway 与 Joe Weisenthal 宣布本期《Odd Lots》正式收尾。他们公布了节目制作团队成员（Carmen Rodriguez、Dashel Bennett、Kale Brooks 与 Kevin Lozano）的社交账号信息，并向听众推荐了彭博官方网站的 Odd Lots 每日通讯、24小时实时讨论的 Discord 社区平台（discord.gg/OddLots），同时呼吁喜欢曼哈顿实地探店节目的听众在各大播客平台留下五星好评。此外，彭博付费订阅用户可通过 Apple Podcasts 彭博专属频道解锁全程无广告的纯净收听体验。 节目的最后部分播放了品牌赞助广告： - **4imprint**：面向企业的定制礼品与品牌周边服务商，涵盖服装、饮具、数码科技与托特包，提供全方位的 360 度满意保障，确保订单准时且精准送达。 - **The Hartford**：专注于中大型企业的风险管理与商业保险机构，覆盖财产损失、责任险、网络安全及合规监管等多重挑战，通过数十年的承保与工程理赔经验为企业平稳运营保驾护航。 - **密歇根州经济发展署（Team Michigan）**：推介密歇根州的创新商业生态、多元顶尖人才储备与高品质工作生活平衡，助力初创企业与跨国集团加速规模化扩张。 ## Notable quotes > `06:40` That would be a very expensive billboard if we weren't going to sell a lot of groceries — Scott Patton > `01:40` soul-sucking experience — Tracy Alloway > `01:40` girl dinner — Tracy Alloway > `20:00` Facing/Turning the labels — Scott Patton > `27:30` Aisle of Shame > `27:30` 我太羞愧了，今天又没守住预算 > `34:55` 有没有把所有商品的价格背下来 — Scott Patton > `37:34` Romance copy — Scott Patton > `40:00` a mixed bag — Scott Patton > `40:00` 既然你都已经付薪水让人站在那儿干看着了，为什么不干脆直接帮顾客扫码结账呢？ — Joe Weisenthal > `44:30` Aldi 的青提和黑莓味道真好 > `45:00` 最初的蛋白质 ## Mentioned Aldi, Scott Patton, Joe Weisenthal, Tracy Alloway, Walmart, Whole Foods, Costco, H-E-B, Wegmans, Morton Williams, Gristedes, Key Foods, Sweet Baby Ray's, Hellman's, Duke's, Heinz, Alison Roman, Uniqlo, Kirkland, Clancy's, Mama Cozzi's, Berman's, Sweet Harvest, Superstore, The Office, Times Square, GLP-1, RFID, 4imprint, The Hartford, Team Michigan ## Video description <p>In June, grocery giant Aldi opened a store just off of Times Square in Manhattan. It's the company's first location in Midtown and, according to their US Chief Commercial Officer Scott Patton, Aldi has to orchestrate a "logistical symphony" to get groceries into the middle of one of the busiest places in America. For instance, they use shorter trucks to navigate the tight corners of New York City streets. On this episode, we speak with Patton about what it took to open this specific Aldi and why they chose a busy tourist location like Times Square. He also explains how the company &mdash; famous for its low prices &mdash; is able to sell even wagyu ground beef at a consumer-friendly price point, how the mostly private-label grocer thinks through which name brands to incorporate into their stock, Aldi's cult-favorite "Aisle of Shame," a short history of barcode innovation, and how GLP-1s are changing consumer habits.</p> <p>Only Bloomberg.com subscribers can get the Odd Lots newsletter in their inbox, plus unlimited access to the site and app. Sign up at&nbsp;<a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/subscriptions/oddlots?in_source=oddlotspodcast" data-link-cookie="1" data-destination="https://www.bloomberg.com/subscriptions/oddlots?in_source=oddlotspodcast">bloomberg.com/subscriptions/oddlots</a></p><p>See <a href="https://omnystudio.com/listener">omnystudio.com/listener</a> for privacy information.</p> [Source](https://podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/tracking.swap.fm/track/UVBrz8bN8aM2Xe47PEPu/traffic.omny.fm/d/clips/e73c998e-6e60-432f-8610-ae210140c5b1/8a94442e-5a74-4fa2-8b8d-ae27003a8d6b/8e5cf07d-8bf4-43a2-9703-b47b014a5166/audio.mp3?in_playlist=982f5071-765c-403d-969d-ae27003a8d83)

[6:40] Scott Patton: That would be a very expensive billboard if we weren't going to sell a lot of groceries [1:40] Tracy Alloway: soul-sucking experience [1:40] Tracy Alloway: girl dinner [20:00] Scott Patton: Facing/Turning the labels [27:30] Aisle of Shame [27:30] 我太羞愧了，今天又没守住预算 [34:55] Scott Patton: 有没有把所有商品的价格背下来 [37:34] Scott Patton: Romance copy [40:00] Scott Patton: a mixed bag [40:00] Joe Weisenthal: 既然你都已经付薪水让人站在那儿干看着了，为什么不干脆直接帮顾客扫码结账呢？ [44:30] Aldi 的青提和黑莓味道真好 [45:00] 最初的蛋白质

[0:00] logistical symphony [15:00] Scott Patton: grandma's recipe [34:40] Scott Patton: I showed up on day one, and my training district manager said, 'I hope you've memorized all the prices by now.' And I had this look on my face, and I said, 'No, no. No one told me about that.' [38:20] Adding romance copy and all those great words on the back of the... Is that what you call it? Is that the term of art? It's called romance copy. [48:47] Scott Patton: When you're an insider, you don't see these things... The customer said, 'No, we actually don't know what you're talking about.' [53:36] Technology changes are still an understudied area of inflation dynamics.

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When you're running a business, the best days are the ones where priorities stay on track. For midsize and large companies, risk can affect multiple parts of the organization at once, from property and liability to cyber and regulatory challenges. At that level managing risk becomes an ongoing discipline At the Hartford the focus is on helping businesses manage risk before it turns into something more disruptive And when losses do happen, that work is paired with insurance coverage shaped by years of underwriting, risk engineering, and claims experience. Learn more at thehartford.com slash risk mitigation. Policies provided by Hartford Fire Insurance Company and its property and casualty affiliates, Hartford, Connecticut. Bloomberg Audio Studios. Podcasts. Radio. News. Hello and welcome to another episode of the Odd Lots podcast. I'm Joe Weisenthal. And I'm Tracy Alloway. Tracy, can I tell you something? I don't know if I've brought it up on the podcast before, but I love grocery stores. I love visiting different kinds of grocery stores. I love produce aisles. I like seeing new ones. If I'm like in a rush or whatever, it's not so pleasant, but I really like grocery stores. How often do you do the weekly grocery shopping, Joe? Well so we usually buy online but I go to Key Foods which is in my neighborhood probably once or twice a week for things And actually even those quick runs I actually enjoy Obviously unboxing is not fun and there are aspects of it that are fun but like it an interesting experience and i like food i will say i'm starting to become cynical about the american grocery experience which is terrible because i didn't go to american grocery stores for a really long time so what years are you talking about like when you're in japan so i was i grew up in japan i remember going to grocery stores when I came back to Chicago in middle school and just being absolutely wowed by the variation that was there. You know, like literally a kid in a candy store running down the cereal aisle going, oh my God, I've never seen any of these things before. Doing the whole, what's the famous? The Elton thing. So you can get how at least they spark joy. Of course. Of course. But now I think I take them as an accepted. Yeah. Because now I'm sort of... Oh, you get yourself, for sure. I shop a lot at Walmart in Connecticut. Which is sometimes a soul-sucking experience. I shop a lot at the grocery store that we're about to discuss. I shop a lot at the nearest grocery store in Manhattan. Which one's that? That one's a Morton Williams. Okay. Yeah. And that one... I trying to be diplomatic Just depressing The price I ran in there once and I grabbed like a cup of soup like freshly made soup because I was having dinner A girl dinner, basically. Twelve freaking dollars. The Manhattan specific grocery experience, I would say, uneven to put it best. There are some decent ones, but there is a lot of places that are like high end and expensive. Yeah. And low end and expensive. You know what I'm saying? You go to these places and they're sort of shabby and they're dirty and stuff like that. You're like, well, at least I'm getting a deal. And then it's like, actually, no, it's just a worse experience and also it's expensive. This reminds me also when my husband first came over from the States to join me here in New York. The first place I took him to was the Whole Foods on Columbus Circle. Oh, really? Because I just wanted to show him, look at this grocery store. It's crazy. You know, there's a new Wegmans at Astor Place, which is where I get off. And I really expected that to become part of my routine because that's where I get on the subway. I like it. It's cool. I made a lot of stuff, but it hasn't become part of my routine. So there's opportunities still, I would say, for the better Manhattan and just the better grocery store experience still. It is very true that Manhattan has a shortage of, let's say, lower priced grocery stores. Lower priced, yeah. That you want to shop at. We've got the Whole Foods. Well, we have trade. [5:00] joe's maybe yeah true the closest but we have a lot of whole foods a lot of wegmans i'm not even going to mention what's the uh the one with the g oh yeah christine's yeah there we go christine's morton williams places like that but we don't really have you know we definitely don't have a walmart well in texas we have heb which everybody loves it's like one of the most beloved brands i think in the region they're like super and they're huge and they're clean and they have good prices incredible variety and a sushi bar and a barbecue pit in the store anyway there's a new grocery store opening up we're recording this june 18th tomorrow as of the time we're recording this but tomorrow like right in times square right adjacent to times square there's a brand new aldi which is i guess where you shop sometimes when you're in connecticut yeah so this is very unusual in my mind because you wouldn't expect a giant grocery store to open just off times square i think the new location is something like 25 000 square feet which is just absolutely huge especially for that I can't even imagine actually finding the space for something like that. And then secondly you wouldn necessarily expect I don want to say a discount grocery store but a lower grocery store that competes squarely with the Walmarts the Costcos of the world Totally And they are I think substantially cheaper I searched this They claim cheap but also the third party well we should just say we already went on a tour we got a new location we're a little biased because also they they gave us a tour so this is the disclosure they gave us a tour and they had all these like little snacks out for us and stuff like that so i'm already predisposed you know but on the plus side we have personally witnessed yes ground wagyu beef for $5.99. It does exist. But I haven't tried it yet. Anyway, let's get to the conversation. Let's talk about opening a grocery store. Let's talk about how do you actually ring prices out of the system because that is the story and that is what's exciting for us. We're going to be speaking with Aldi U.S. Chief Commercial Officer Scott Patton. Scott, welcome to the podcast. We saw you yesterday inside the new Aldi and now you're here on the podcast. So thank you so much for joining us. Thanks for having me and so glad you could make it out to the store yesterday. It It was a really awesome experience to walk through. Really, Times Square, Aldi right off the Times Square, amazing. Let's just talk about what does the chief commercial officer do? Tell us about what's your actual job and your career at Aldi. So I actually started with Aldi over 30 years ago. I've been through all the various operations from running stores to running a warehouse. And I joined the buying department about 11 years ago So I responsible for all of the products in the stores And that what I do We work with the teams who develop the products and get them onto the shelf So tell us about the new location because as we were discussing Times Square not necessarily an intuitive place to start a giant grocery store. Yeah. So Midtown Manhattan, that's our second location in Manhattan. You're right. It's not intuitive. Where's the first one? First one is up in Harlem. Okay. Yeah. So we have 14 in the Chicago, I'm sorry, 14 in the New York area, one in Harlem, Midtown now, and another opening in Harlem next year and two blocks off of Times Square. You're right. It's a very unique location for us, but a lot of traffic. We have a lot of tourists. We have a lot of commuters. There's going to be a lot of e-commerce and it's just a great location. It's a cool space. What was there before? It's a brand new building. It's a brand new building with residential on top and we've taken the ground floor. Do you think that's an appeal? I think I would like to live above a grocery store. It seems like a nice amenity. It's great. There's going to be residential above us and unbelievable apartments. To have that convenience for the people who live there, it's going to be great. Yeah. A lot of cities in Asia, as you know now, have mixed-use buildings. Yeah, I love that. I think it's great. Some of them even have daycares on the bottom and then the grocery store, dry cleaner. You take care of your entire life within one compound. I'd be totally down. Yeah. So the Times Square location I get that there a lot of foot traffic but how much of it is just creating a showcase for the Aldi brand in an area where you know there going to be a lot of visitors a lot of tourists versus how much of it is the expectation that this is going to be a really busy location that actually making profit There's no doubt that having that visibility is going to be great for the brand. But to be fair, we intend to be very profitable at the store. We're going to have a ton of customers. That would be a very expensive billboard if we weren't going to sell a lot of groceries. We've done an episode. We've done a few like produce episodes. We recently did an episode on tomatoes with one of the senior VPs at Beldor. That was amazing conversation. We did a conversation a few years ago about the Hunts Point Delivery Distribution Center in New York and maybe why it's not the optimal sort of node for delivery. what is the supply chain between, for example, when we entered the store, we were like in the produce aisle and tried some grape, some blueberries that are very nice. Why don't you walk us through what is the supply chain from like where that grape comes from to where the distribution center is to the store and that journey? And that's a prime example of how we buy a bit differently. So we have over 2,600 locations. So what does that mean is we can't buy from the local market. We start with the grower. I have the opportunity in my [10:00] to visit the growers. So we've been to the grape growers in California, in Mexico, in Chile, and it really starts probably three to four years in advance in partnering with these growers. We go to the fields, we try their varieties, they're all sampled out, and we decide as a company which varieties do we want them to grow for us. From there, they start growing, we have the contracts, and they grow specific plots dedicated to our business. So of course, we have the harvest, it goes straight from the grower into our distribution facilities, and then to our stores often the next day. So it's a complicated supply chain, but the key to success is going all the way back to the origin. So whether you're growing grapes or berries or apples, those relationships with the farmers and the growers, that's actually what makes it special. But in terms of the actual distribution into New York, because we've had conversations with not just grocers, but people who are trying to build things in New York, and they talk about how hard it actually is to get bulky things into the city. How are you trucking in, I assume, truckloads of groceries every day and where are they coming from? So we come from South Windsor up in Connecticut. We have a truck that comes over. We come at night because of the congestion. And you right it very difficult to get a truck especially in the Midtown We have to have a bit of a shorter truck We actually have to have two drivers Did you say a bit of a shorter truck It a bit of a shorter truck because they can hit the turning radiuses So for instance at the store when the truck comes in to deliver it a shorter truck There's two drivers, one to kind of guide and watch the parking and make sure we can cut the radius back in, another one to unload the groceries. So it's a two team just to deliver groceries. And this store is going to get three to four truckloads a day. So it's a lot of effort. It's a lot of manpower. And it's a logistical, really kind of a symphony to get it done. Let's just talk more about that because when I think, okay, why do we pay a lot for groceries in New York City? Intuitively, that makes a lot of – just even the trucking component and the fact that it's – you go out to the suburbs and they don't have to have like a guy saying, is there a car there? Is a kid on a scooter or something like that there? Talk to us a little bit more figuring that component out and the two drivers and like how that sort of – the math of what that contributes or saves in terms of groceries. Yeah. And with everything we do, and we're really focused on efficiency. You mentioned sushi bars and barbecue place before. So we don't have those. But when we're going to put a truck, we're going to get two guys onto a truck, two drivers onto a truck, three to four times a day. That goes into the calculus. Of course, we look at the rent we're going to pay. It's more expensive in Manhattan no doubt about it But then we look at the sales It just a math equation We make sure that yes there going to be extra costs on delivery There going to be extra costs on properties That just a fact but it goes into the equation So, okay, you've got trucks delivering the groceries overnight. You have a huge space. I should just emphasize, we saw it. We ran through the aisles because we never get the chance to run through groceries. I'm going to speed it up two times, Joe. It'll look really good. Yeah, that's right. You're expecting a lot of people in that location. How are you going to be restocking the shelves? Because it's a big space, but there are a lot of people in New York. I imagine things will literally be flying off the shelves to some degree. What does that restocking process look like in a crowded city? Great question. And we have awesome employees at the store, first and foremost. Some unique things about how we restock our stores is all of our product comes in a display case. So, again, we go back to those supply partners and we say, okay, how can we restock the organic greens? How can we restock the spinach? They put it into a display-ready case. This is like a box where you can see the items. It's a tray. So our staff can restock case after case after case and not have to stack it unit by unit by unit. So we're going to restock that produce three to four times a day, but we can do it really, really fast. Joe did you ever watch Superstore No What was it I never heard about the show until recently It basically a thinly veiled sitcom of workers who work at Walmart They don explicitly say Walmart, but it's obviously Walmart. And I swear to God, 90% of their time is stocking shelves like unit by unit. That's basically all they do and talk while doing it. Was it good? Should I watch it? It's sort of like The Office, but for giant retail. Who wrote the novel about working at Target that we should have? Oh, I don't know. Remember, someone recently in the last few years wrote, it'll come back to me. We should have her off. You should watch that one. It's awesome viewing. Wait, let's talk about, we're going to get to, I know a big part of your thing is that a substantial number of SKUs are private label. But before we get to the private label and how that business works, I just want to like sort of clarify one thing. So one of the brands that we noticed that is on your show is Sweet Baby Ray's Barbecue Sauce. My favorite. And so what you're saying is you will work with Sweet Baby Ray's. They're not going to have a custom Aldi Sweet Baby Ray's or change the flavor. But talk to us about the degree to which a brand provider will modify the sort of delivery package so that it's ideal for your logistical setup. Yeah, we are mostly private label, but we do have some brands like Sweet Baby Ray's. And we have them. They will take that case, and they'll do a display-ready case just for us. So unique to Aldi. [15:00] They'll even go a step beyond the display-ready case. They'll put two or three flavors into that case. So for us, again, it's one shelf spot. It's one pallet in our warehouses. It's one slot. And we can get two to three flavors out of that. So we work with the brands as well, but really within our system. Yeah. How do you decide which brands to actually have in-store versus when to go private label? Because as you say, there are a lot of recognizable things. Sweet Baby Ray's Craft. We saw Hellman's mayonnaise, but we didn't see Heinz's ketchup. So talk about that. Yeah, there's going to be some what we would call iconic brands. And we know customers love some of their brands. Now, in this market, it's going to be Hellman's. If you go down south, it's going to be Duke's. The great American divide over mayonnaise. Do you have Duke's in the southern grocery stores? Okay, got it. Yeah, so we'll have a few of that. But these iconic brands, think about Coke. You're going to find Coke in our store. You're going to find Sweet Baby Ray's. They are one of the market leaders in barbecue sauce. You're going to have the Aldi versions of barbecue sauce as well. But we're fine to carry some of those iconic brands as long as they can fit into our system and hit the efficiencies and restocking that we need for busy stores like in Manhattan. Sorry, not to just keep pressing on this, like Hellman's versus Heinz's. But I think of like Heinz tomato sauce the 57 whatever is like being an iconic brand I would have thought of it Yes I would have too Like I would not have guessed that people are so chill with not having that What is I assume it comes down to the data but when you looking at okay when do we need to have an iconic brand versus a non-iconic brand as our limited ketchup offering? First of all, how many ketchup SKUs do you have? We have two ketchup SKUs. Wow. And how many would a typical, I don't know, a typical grocery store? Between 30 and 40. That's incredible. That's remarkable. I mean, that right there is like a sort of remarkable stat. So then what is the data that says, okay, it's okay to like not have a Heinz's, but it would be like a sort of mistake or strategic error to not have a Hellman. At least at this location. Yeah, there's two. I would call the data point would be private label penetration. We look at private label, how accepting our customers of private label in that space, in that category. And for instance, we know in mayonnaise, there are some very dedicated fans in the debate between Hellman's and Duke's. We're not going to settle that today for sure. but also comes down to what I call grandma's recipe. Sometimes grandma has handed down the recipe and she calls for a specific brand in her recipe. And we know those items and we can see that from the data. We can see it on social media. And those are the items that we want to carry in our store. And sometimes grandma's recipe is the reason. So Whether you planning a big tech event launching a new campaign or just stocking up on team gear finding the right promotional products makes all the difference 4imprint offers thousands of options, from on-trend apparel and premium drinkware to tech, totes, and giveaways, so you can find the right fit for any audience, purpose, or budget. 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[20:00] Thousands of hours for strategic work. Now we're helping companies get smarter by putting AI where it actually pays off, deep in the work that moves the business. Let's create smarter business, IBM. So more broadly, Aldi's is, I'm not sure famous is the right word, but one of the differentiators of the grocery store is that you have fewer SKUs, right? You just have fewer products there, or you're more mindful about the products that you're actually putting on the shelves. What have you learned from that process that surprised you at all versus, say, if I go into a Walmart and I've got 60 different types of ketchup staring me in the face, including the new dill-flavored pickle one? Which does sound good. Yeah. Tempting. Tempting. We have 2,000 SKUs in the store, probably 4,000 varieties. Now, let's take the ketchup example. So we just talked about the typical store is going to have 30 to 40 varieties. And as you asked, we have two. I would simply ask the customer, do you really need 40 choices for ketchups? Or is too good? We have organic. We have conventional. Is too enough? We have the right size. Do you need upside down squeeze, right side up squeeze, small glass, big glass? And what we actually we did some I will call it I call it a study but I call it some interesting walks with customers through our competitors And sometimes you would stand in front of let say an olive oil selection Ketchup is 30 to 40 Olive oil could be 50 or 60 different selections depending on where you shopping And what we found was afterwards, the customers felt less confident in their purchase. So we have four different varieties of olive oil. Four is a pretty good selection for our store. You can have organic, you can have Sicilian, you can have pure and you can have extra virgin. Good selection. If you're a consumer faced with 60 different choices of olive oil, how do you know which one to buy? So they were less confident in their choice when they were trying to choose from 60. When you have four, they felt pretty good about their selection. Unscientific for sure. But to watch the reaction on the customer's face when you walk them in front of it, they were really puzzled with which one do I buy? This is probably an unfair question on all sides around. What do you think conventional wisdom is in the grocery store business? If we're talking to the chief commercial officer, whatever, Q Food. What do you think the conventional wisdom is in grocery about why it's important to have 60 different olive oil skis? It's about selection. The belief is that customers want these different options. And to be fair, customers do want some of those options and it can come down to shelf space Which suppliers are paying you to be on their shelf And sometimes the more you pay the more shelf space you get So at Aldi you know with our private label we have two catch There no shelf space there no slotting fees and that a big difference So yes, there can be selection, but we need to move those articles through the store very, very quickly. Well, talk about this further. So again, like a hallmark of Aldi's is fewer SKUs. How does that actually feed into, I guess, more efficient processes for the grocery store and then lower prices for shoppers? You mentioned the TV show earlier about the people. And I grew up in a grocery store. So I didn't grow up. And so I worked there in high school. And I was paid probably $3.25 an hour to come in at night and turn the labels and stock everything forward. And me and eight of my buddies would do that for about six hours. And you think about that cost. How expensive is that to do that in a grocery store? And I was in a small local grocery store. Think about a big competitor who's paying all those folks to do that. Now, our products come in. You're in the case. You only have 2,000 SKUs to put on the shelf. We're not having our folks come in and turn the labels and front everything at night. In fact, they sell out so quickly we don't need to. So that's just one example of all that cost that goes into turning those labels and pulling everything forward. We don't have that. What does turning the labels mean? So let's walk through some math. Let say I don know let say a store sells 1 bottles of olive oil a day I don know what a number but that probably somewhere it sells a thousand bottles And let say that store sells 500 brands of extra virgin and have 500 brands of organic bottles. And then there's another store that sells a thousand bottles of olive oil a day, but it's like 50 Sicilian, 50 organic, 50 extra virgin, 50, whatever, 50, whatever. Walk us through the math of why a thousand bottles with the two SKUs is going to be significantly more efficient and cheaper from a store perspective than a thousand bottles with more SKUs. So when the truck comes in at a traditional grocery store, let's say you have 50 different SKUs, you have to restock them all. That's 50 different cases you have to open. You have to find the 50 different cases. You have to match it up to the spot on the shelf, restock it, make sure you have the right one, get the labels all turned the right way, get the bottles all square. You don't want to drop any. So you have 50 different options. So one person is sitting there with a cart with 50 different cases, trying to match them to the right spot on the shelf, come to the Aldi store. We have two. I'm sorry, olive oil, we have four. You can very clearly see this one goes right here. So we can literally restock all of our olive oil in probably 2% of the time that it takes to stock another store. So just think about the math on trying to put that puzzle together of 50 different varieties compared to four. Your price label [25:00] are digital, right? We are. Most, if not all of your stores now? All of our stores are digital. All of the stores. Okay. How does that help with labor costs? And then also, I have to ask, there's been a lot of criticism of some of these digital labels because people think they're dynamic pricing and that as they reach for an avocado, the price is going to go up by $2 or whatever. How should we think about those? Yeah. So let me handle that part first. We've heard those same criticisms or concerns out there. We do not do dynamic pricing. We would never do dynamic pricing. Actually, all of our stores have the same price. We change them usually once a week or so, depending on what's going on in the produce market. Wait, even the New York store would have the same prices? Same price in New York as out in Connecticut. And I know that's going to be pretty nice. It's hard for me personally to believe. We'll call it a pleasant surprise for those in Manhattan. When they walk in and they see, you know, chicken breast for $2.19 a pound or eggs for $1.47. So it's going to be kind of amazing. But when we talk about the electronic shelf labels, we were spending between three and four hours per store per week to change out our signs. So when we switch to the digital version, we save all of that labor. So, again, 2,600 stores times four hours a week. You can do the math on that. Think about all that savings. Again that how we get chicken breast down to 219 But the opportunity is there to abuse that system but we will not do that So just to be clear I mean the reason you were changing out physical labels is because the prices were changing but you not changing them on a minute kind of basis No, we would usually change them once a week. You know, we have the Aldi fines area where those come in. We have 100 new items every week. I don't know if we'll talk about that, but we'd have to put all those signs out, take the old signs down. That's a lot of labor to do those things, but we don't have to do that anymore. This was something I did not know about prior to yesterday's field trip. So the Aldi fine section, I guess apparently your fans have dubbed that the Isle of Shame. They had. So this is where some brilliant merchandise, like a true showman, a merchandiser has figured out something. So explain what this aisle is and why it's so iconic to so many. There's like a four million person Facebook group dedicated to this specific aisle. Where did this come from, this aisle, the so-called Isle of Shame? So it actually, to explain the concept, you know, you walk into a grocery store, you're expecting to buy groceries, your soup, your sushi, all those types of things. And we have a whole aisle that's a lot of general merchandise. So we're going to have swimming pools. We're going to have a lot of seasonal. Yeah, seasonal. Right now, Fourth of July is coming up. FIFA World Cup's in town. So we have those articles as well. The origins of that actually goes back to our origins in Europe. So if you think about European I know if you been to Europe they don have a lot of the competitors that we have here a lot of the big box stores So Aldi actually had a pretty big business and still has a significant business selling these types of general merchandise It could be DIY. It could be paint. It could be power tools. So we took that concept when we came to the U.S., and it's pretty successful. Now, how it's different in the U.S. is it's still very unique that you're going to have all of these articles right next to your groceries. So what we do is we bring in about 100 new items every week. And they're going to be, I'll call it random, but not so random. They're actually going to be the items you need when you need them. So we're not going to carry these articles all year long. We're not going to have an inflatable pool in February. If you look at the competition, they will have that sitting on the shelf. So we bring in the inflatable pool right when you need it. So back to your comment on the Isle of Shame, which I will say, we do have a Facebook group started by our fans. and it's called the Isle of Shame or AOS. And this popped up, I think, four or five years ago. And we started looking at that as a business saying, what is going on here? What is happening in this Isle of Shame? And as a retailer, you're always worried about your brand. You're concerned about your brand. And you see this growing Facebook group called the Isle of Shame. And you have to ask yourself what are we going to do about that So it is 100 driven by our fans And really what happens is our customers come in each week they start posting back and forth oh look what I got I got the pool I got the chainsaw I got whatever it is and they're having a lot of fun with these things and this group has grown to over 4 million users on a regular basis so origins of Isle of Shame pretty interesting people were posting on to Facebook I went to Aldi I got my ketchup. I got my barbecue sauce. I got my olive oil. And I also got these cute athletic shoes. And then they were like, I'm so ashamed. I didn't stay on budget. I'm so ashamed. So they were posting these shame photos from trunks of their cars, from their kitchens. We sell a tremendous amount of candles. People were posting their family rooms with 50, 60, 70 different candles of all the... I love a good scented candle. I fully admit my basicness when it comes to scented candles. So it was shame in a good way. So I think as a brand, we've said, okay, let's not fight this. It's great because people love it. So it's the Isle of Shame. It's the Aldi finds. And we love that our fans want to post about it and talk about it. And we learn from this as well. So like I said, I run the buying department and we have great buyers out there. They watch this all over time. [30:00] Thank you. Thank you. For imprint, for certain. Buying the dip, manually sweeping idle cash, putting on a hedge. On public, you can now create AI agents that handle all these tasks on your behalf. Just describe what you want to do in plain English. Like, if the VIX hits 25, buy a put option on the S&P 500. Or, if my cash balance goes above $20,000, move the excess into my direct index. 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Now a global workforce of 300 can use AI to fill their HR questions resolving 94 of common questions Not noise proof of how we can help companies get smarter by putting AI where it actually pays off, deep in the work that moves the business. Let's create smarter business, IBM. You've been in this business for a long time. It feels like one of the things that's happened, I can't even say relatively recently, but in recent-ish years is that social media has become such a bigger force when it comes to shopping. So you have Facebook groups like the one you just described, and you can watch those and maybe get a sense of what customers are liking. You also have social media trends. So every once in a while, you have a food item or an Alison Roman recipe that goes viral, and suddenly everyone wants to buy new tomatoes or a particular type of cheese. How has that impacted the buying process for you? Certainly, we have to pay attention to those trends. And you mentioned the feta cheese and tomato recipe from a few years ago. Our feta cheese sales went through the roof. So we had to work very quickly with our suppliers to get more feta. More recently, one is the sourdough trend. So sourdough baking at home, the sourdough trend. Now, sourdough is not easy. You got a future starter I would love to do it I don have the patience for it But that tells us and our buying team hey what going on with sourdough So now we launched a couple of sourdough items a couple of years ago It actually the top performing item in the bread set now So we are selling over half a million loaves of sourdough every single week in our stores So when you suddenly see feta flying off the shelves, how long does it take you to actually figure out what's going on here and what's driving the additional demand? And then how long does it take for you to respond to it? And that's one of the great things about being private label, because we're in control of our label. We're in control of our supply chain. We work directly with our producers. So if we were a brand, we'd have to call them and say, hey, can we get more of your brand that you're sending to every other retailer? We go directly to the manufacturer. We say, look, how can we get more line time? How can you dedicate more Aldi product? What can we do with packaging? It can be as quick as a couple of months. It can take a little bit longer depending on the item. But being a private label, we can just pick up the phone, call directly that supplier. oftentimes it's the owner, the president of the company, and say, look, what can we do about Feta? How can we expand your sourdough line? What can we do to help you? Then we partner with them. One of the things, and I had never gone into an Aldi before, and I'm not sure I would have noticed it had you not pointed it out, but then once you pointed it out, it was quite obvious. For example, on a bag of chips, you have really big barcodes. And some boxes then you notice had a barcode on every one of the things that you have. [35:00] surface and some of the really big barcodes. And it's like, okay, I get that. That's intuitive. It makes the swiping faster. Give us a little history of barcode innovation and how do you actually sort of measure the optimal, I guess, ratio of adding barcodes and figuring out how much that can contribute to faster throughput versus adding barcodes. And then like, you can't even see what the product is. So finding that sort of efficient frontier of barcode allocation on a package. And I think before we talk about barcodes and scanning, we actually have to go all the way back to before we had scanners. Okay. So we were actually the last retailer to roll out scanning and source. So I started with a company in 1995. I showed up on day one, and my training district manager said, I hope you've memorized all the prices by now. Oh, my God. And I had this look on my face, and I said, no, no. No one told me about that. Memorized all the prices? Memorized all the prices. So up until 1998, all of our employees memorized all of the prices and they would enter them by hand on an old fashioned 10 key. And so the price memorization was critical to our efficiency. We talk about efficiency and throughput. Now, you could say, why didn't we do scanning back then? Our cashiers were they were too fast. We couldn find a scanning system that was fast enough to keep up with our 10 key So we did two things One we started working with scanning manufacturers And the bi scanner which you may or may not be familiar with if you think back a long long time ago there was one scanner It was level. Yeah. And cashier was comfortable. So bi-level scanners were essentially created out of our input saying, look, we need to do this faster. Bi-level, so that means there's the horizontal surface and then the vertical thing. And they're both have a chance of picking up the barcode. Exactly. Okay. Exactly. So that was one of the innovations that we were pioneering with our suppliers to say, look, how can we move our memorizing prices? Wasn't the long term fit for sure. It's very difficult, by the way. But when you have these bi-level scanners, OK, there's a chance here. And the second part was on packaging. So I think we've all been in a grocery store and you've seen the cashier struggling to kind of turn the item. And or we've been at self-checkout and been struggling ourselves. Yeah. Yeah. So we came up with the idea and we're just going to have multiple barcodes. So we measure everything we scan. Right. So all of our associates, they're measured on items per minute and we can track the items per minute. So if we're going to do a scanner update, does it pick up scanning faster? We track those items per minute. If we do packaging innovations and we'll get feedback from our store staff to say, look, this item's not scanning well. So to your example you didn notice it in the store and actually most of our customers don because we hide it so well So you can take an article any item in the store you will find four five or six barcodes And until we point it out to a customer they don even know it exists So hopefully people go check their pantry and go, oh, my gosh, I never noticed this. Well, it is funny, though, on the chips example, it almost looks like it's part of the bag design because it's like a stripe that basically goes around the whole thing. But wait, now I'm thinking back in the age of when cashiers were memorizing grocery prices. Do you think that had an impact on the monetary policy transmission mechanism? Do you think price increases didn't filter down into consumer? It would have been too burdensome on the company to make their employees do another memorization. Someone needs to do a paper. Yeah, we should. Okay, obvious question, though. The barcode thing kind of blew my mind because, as you said, I never noticed it before. How come other grocery stores or other brands don't do something similar? Because we're private label, these are our products and we use that real estate. We design the labels. We design the brands. We control the ingredients. We design the labels. So for us, we're based on efficiency. I would say some of our competitors aren't as focused on that. It does take up real estate on the package. There's no doubt about it. But the fact that nobody notices it is pretty interesting as well So for us it strictly productivity And since we control the product and the packaging we can put 20 barcodes if we wanted to But if I like a Haagen or something and I designing my box of ice cream sandwiches or whatever it is, I would be reluctant to give up some of that additional space to barcodes. I think so. I mean, if you're a brand, you want to talk about the products and we have the romance copy and you want to tell the history of the product. I think they're more focused on that than the retailer's productivity. We're focused on the productivity so we can get the savings for the customer. But you're absolutely right. Adding romance copy and all those great words on the back of the... Is that what you call it? Is that the term of art? It's called romance copy. I have often felt feelings of romance as I read the back of ice cream packages. Do you ever like those things? It'll be like Bob and Joe's corn chips and it's like the story will be like Bob was working at Goldman Sachs and realized why am I devoting my life to M&A when I could be devoting it to like design bake? I'm not a fan. I always think that's – I do not need romance copy. You need to know the origin story of your potato chips, Joe. You need more barcodes. Yeah. Talk to us about what you see in this sort of – this current state of the art of self-checkout. And the reason I – there are a couple of things I ask because, for example, Uniqlo, which is where I buy a lot of my clothes, I love their self-checkout. But there's clothes. There's on grocery. [40:00] You dump all of the clothes into a bucket. It spits out a price, probably like RFD or whatever. It's done. It's that. And then, so my local key foods, you're like doing the thing where you're twisting. Half the time, like someone has to come by and like swipe something. Maybe something will need an age verification. It doesn't really quite seem to work yet. And so I'm curious what you're seeing at Aldi in terms of where we are with self-checkout technology. I think it kind of drives people crazy. Yeah, I think it's a mixed bag. I mean, some people love it. Some people don't love it. And for all the reasons that you said, you know, RFID hasn't come to grocery yet. RFID is a pretty expensive technology when you're talking about selling avocados and tomatoes. So RFID hasn't quite made it there yet. Even the best self-checkout, you're going to have to have an age verification for alcohol purchases. You're going to struggle sometimes to weigh the produce. So we have it in about a third of our stores. I think some customers love it. But in our stores that have self-checkout, we always have an employee checkout as well. And that's the option to the consumer. I think we're still learning. Retailers are figuring out what works best for them. do you want to corral do you want an attendant what's the best layout let's corral so you might want to move people through more of a line or do you want more of a separated area so the layout of the self can have a pretty big impact on the effectiveness how many people are monitoring it and by the time you pay someone to stand there and monitor it could you just scan their groceries for them Those are the questions that I think all the retailers are facing right now I actually think, Tracy, the way the Wegmans does it in Astor Place, the self-checkout is not bad, where they have one line and then like 30 different or 50 different machines. And they're like, you in 25, you at 28. That actually seems to work reasonably well compared to some of the other versions I've seen. I think it's fine, especially in New York where people are usually grabbing a few items and then just leaving. I could see the argument for self-checkout. But actually, this brings me to what I wanted to ask. You opted for no self-checkout at the new Times Square location. So I'm really interested in why you decided to do that. And then secondly, you mentioned Corral versus Line. So there was a big space in front of your checkout counters that we saw yesterday. What system is that and what's the logic behind having that particular system in New York? I think when you think about self-checkout, the appeal on that in a lot of our competitors is their checkout system is pretty slow. So we've already talked about we have our multiple car codes. We have our scanner systems. We're incredibly efficient. So we don't always need the self-checkout to speed that process along. Now that space is there. We might decide in the future to try some self We want to have the real estate available to change the layout if we think we need it So like I said we still trialing to figure out what works But for us if there three people in front of you in line at an Aldi store you going to get through so quickly you may not even need to self out And I will say, if we've watched people in self-checkout, it's kind of like standing in a fast food restaurant. Which one do you pick? Who's going to be fastest? Who's going to be able to figure out the machine? That can be a bit of a frustration as well because if you pick the wrong one, you could be waiting even longer even in a self-checkout. So the space we saw yesterday, that's just you go up, you decide which checkout you want to go up to. You're not waiting in a single line. No, no. That was my question. I found line management really interesting for a few years. And I kind of wanted to write a book about lines and like the strategy behind lines. Maybe I'll get back into it. I'm sure that we could do, you know, I'm sure there's a lot of really impressive mathematics behind line and queuing theory and all that stuff. How many different types of green grapes are there? We talked about this yesterday and I just let you go back to that. You go to the farmers, you pick a grape. Like how many different options are you looking at, et cetera? Novelty. And we talked about this again with tomatoes. They always seem to be coming out with new tomatoes. Where are we at with the grape market? Yeah. So the grape market is fascinating because for the average consumer, which we are all average consumers, right? You have green grapes you have red grapes You go to the store you want green you like red and you ask a customer I like the green ones I like the red ones But when you get into the details like I said we have an awesome produce buying team There over 100 varieties of green grapes So when you go to the Aldi store or the competitor next door, likely you're going to have two different varieties. Now, each of those varieties has a different flavor profile, different yield, the higher the yield, sometimes the less the flavor. So there's trade-offs and all those types of things. So what we do, we work with the growers. We mentioned this earlier. We figure, you know, what's the best flavor profile? We don't want the customer to have to think about it. We want them to come to our store, come to Aldi and say, I love the Aldi green grapes or I love the blackberries. I love the blackberries and they don't know the details behind it. Those blackberries were huge. They were big and they didn't have that sort of tart that sometimes makes you pucker. Yeah, that's another example of picking the variety. So if we were just buying off the market, you're just going down to the local produce market and saying, give me whatever blackberries you have. You're going to get what they have available. working with the grower you can narrow that hundred varieties of green grapes down to the one or two you want to have in your stores what's in season what's going to have the right flavor profile we don't want it too sour you don't want it too sweet you want to have good shelf life produce waste that's all those types of things go into the decisions of our produce team it's actually pretty sophisticated and it's fine the customers take it for granted we just want them come in and say these green grapes are great but we've done all the work to figure that out with the farmers [45:00] I want to ask at least one what Aldi can tell us about the macro environment right now type question. So one of the stories that we've been talking about on the show and lots of other people have as well is high produce prices, higher beef prices, certainly general inflationary pressures on the consumer. And I'm very curious if you've seen that in the spend at your own stores, if you've maybe seen smaller basket sizes, or maybe you've seen people trading down from beef to chicken, that sort of thing. What are you seeing in terms of inflationary pressures on your shoppers? So shoppers are, I think, they've been under pressure for several years now. And for all the reasons we talked about before, whether it's the case design or the UPCs or going straight to the farmer, we try to keep all those cost pressures down. but we're not immune. We're not immune to commodity markets. You mentioned beef, for instance. Beef prices are at 70-year highs. So we still see our customers buying beef. However, I'll give you an example. Ground beef right now is relatively expensive by historical context. You can talk $5.99 or $6.99 a pound, even at the Aldi store for ground beef. What we've seen is some consumers opting for ground turkey or ground chicken A nice substitute a good quality product still fresh probably 30 cheaper or 40 less expensive And that a good option Customers are still going to buy their protein Protein is all the craze right now But we have seen some switch in between maybe a higher protein, expensive protein like beef, and a lower cost like chicken. I guess we should ask a question about that protein all the craze right now. So it's like the problem with all this, there's a lot of confounders, right? Because say a lot's changed in the last 10 years on all kinds of levels. We can talk about the role of social media. We can talk about, obviously, COVID and inflation or just COVID and how that made sourdough bread a thing, the hobby. But GLP-1 is clearly part of the story, I think, with the protein boom. What are some sort of like clear data points that you see where you say, OK, like the GLP-1s are changing consumer buying behavior other than just say, yes, they want more protein? Yeah. So GLP-1s, we worked with some of our partners probably 18 months ago. And I think it was roughly 5% of the population at that time was on GLP ones We'd have to check that but they also said when this goes to pill form which is happening right now We're gonna see that adoption rate go up. So as GLP ones are coming into pill form, of course We're seeing more protein sales. What's interesting is if you talk to the meat team and the meat growers out there They would say we the original protein and of course we selling more of that But we seeing is protein really go throughout the store Protein bagels Oh yeah You talking about protein popcorn which there going to be a point when it comes too far we rolling out a protein sparkling water. So our data points would say it's actually quite tasty. When you take a protein sparkling water and anything with protein right now is accelerating. I think there'll be a pullback at some point. Yeah, the pendulum needs to swing to fiber. Americans need more fiber, not more protein. Yeah, fiber is coming on as well. Okay, you can have fiber. Bean sales are actually up significantly. Really? Yeah, we're selling significantly more beans. Is that a GLP-1 thing as well? It's a fiber. It's a fiber-protein combo. Yeah, so we have a Greek chickpea that we've just rolled out, which is actually amazing. And I would say two years ago, we wouldn't have carried a Greek chickpea. But now we've rolled out a Greek chickpea, high in fiber. Customers are responding to it. We're rolling out a fiber, water, but you're right. More protein, more fiber. And for us, it's making sure we have the products the customers want and being on trend. But bean sales, five years ago, bean sales weren't surging. But we're seeing a research in some of these categories that maybe weren't thriving in the past, but now they're starting to come back to life. That might also be inflationary pressure because one of the greatest value meals most filling meals you can ever make is red beans and rice as I like to say Anyway just going back to the sort of competitive advantage of Aldi So we talked about your own label and how that makes you more efficient and all of that We've seen a lot of other stores, I guess, grow their own label options. So Walmart, I think, has it's called Great Value or something very obvious like that. And they've been talking about the customer like trading away from known brands into their own great value labels because of the inflationary pressures. Have you boosted your – have you ever decided to do your own sort of Aldi brand for a lot of these items? Because when we say your own label, a lot of them don't say Aldi. They say some random farm. What was the brand one? Something acres, you know, something pastoral like that. But it's not like Kirkland where it's like one name that you associate with a store. Yeah. So we've asked our customers a couple of years ago. We said, how do you feel about the Aldi products? And they said, we love your products. We love your prices. We love your quality. But they don't understand our branding. So about six months ago, we made a big announcement that we need to change the way we brand. So right now, we had over 90 different, we'll call them Aldi brands in the store. And you're exactly right. Berman's would be a good example. It was the Berman's barbecue sauce. So we asked our consumers. We said, [50:00] You understand what's happening here. Of course, I've worked at Aldi. I'll call it too long. When you're an insider, you don't see these things. You're like, okay, of course, Berman's is barbecue sauce and Sweet Harvest is applesauce. Everybody knows that. And the customer said, no, we actually don't know what you're talking about. So we said, okay, what should we do? So we asked them, which brands do you know? Of course, Clancy's is our chip brand. That's actually, a lot of customers knew that brand. Mama Cozy for our frozen pizza. They knew that one. So we're switching from 90 brands down to about 23. Now, that's a big departure. We're going to relabel every product in the store. That's a big shift for the consumer. But even within that, you're exactly right. We're going to put Aldi on the front of the package because Aldi is a great brand. We've been in the States for 50 years and we recognized, I don't know why it didn't dawn on us earlier, we didn't have Aldi, the logo and the name on the front of the package. It was always on the back. So now when customers come in, they're going to know it's an Aldi product. Now, the trick is we have 90% private label in our store. So if you imagine a store with all Aldi on the front and it's 90% versus competitors are going to be 25 to 30%, it could look a little bit boring. So the trick is to make sure that we design the labels in a way that it's not boring. That actually is my final question I could ask a ton of grocery questions but before it was called private label like when I was a kid they were called generic And generic is like basically synonymous with boring When did the grocery industry sort of figure out that these, quote, in-house brands, that this kind of business should not be called generic and should be called private label, which does not sound as boring. And I think there was a negative connotation. You bought the generic, you bought the generic ketchup? And generic, if you think about the labels, if you go back, they were black and white. They were actually poor quality. It was generic. It was poor quality. It was actually not a good quality, and it was labeled appropriately because it looked terrible. So when was the moment where it was like, let's actually make these appealing things? I think we had something to do with that because in 1976, we opened up with all private labels. So I think we started the private label transition. Now, it took a long time for our competitors to catch up, but this is what we've done for 50 years. So I think we started the trend. We started with great labels. We started with good quality. And then eventually you can see that cost difference. If you're talking 30 to 40 or 50% difference for us, the consumers resonated with it. Now, if you're a competitor, do you want to sell the brand or product or do you want to sell your private label? That depends. It depends on your margins, but we are set up to develop those products. Our whole buying organization has been buying and developing products for 50 years And I talk about buying it easy to buy a branded product You call up your local CPG you say I want to carry these five SKUs. What's my cost? You negotiate a little bit. You have a little back and forth, which is always fun to negotiate. You get a cost, it's on your shelf and off you go. If I want to do that with a private label, we have to have an idea. We have to have a buyer who says, you know what? I want to have a Greek inspired chickpea. We have to go find a supplier. We have to create the recipe. We have to sample it. We have to send it over. We put it in our test kitchen. We sample multiple varieties. We say, this is the variety I want. Then you start negotiating the cost and then you ship it to the store. So it's a whole different business operation, developing and selling private label products as compared to, I'll call it just buying and selling brands, much more complicated and requires expertise. And that's why I said we've been doing it so long. That's what we're built on. It's easier to just buy someone else's product, but when we're developing our own, it takes a lot of skill, a lot of market research, and a lot of category management. All right, Scott Patton, thank you so much for coming on Odd Lots. I love talking about food. You know, the Times Square audio is not on my typical route, but I'll try to check it out soon. I would go there for the hot honey goat cheese that we sampled yesterday. I would make a special trip Yeah we go there in one of these afternoons All right well I appreciate it Thanks for having me on Tracy, I thought that was fun. I would genuinely say I learned a lot about grocery store, business, operations in the last day. And between that and our trip to the Aldi store, I know more about the grocery store. No, and it was fascinating just to see, I don't want to say little, but these just subtle, a subtle variety of efficiency improvements like the packaging system, the display cases, the barcodes everywhere that in theory could be replicated by other stores. But like you don't actually see it. No, it definitely seems like you have to make a choice because I would say like there's two things. You know, we did that episode on the proliferation of snack foods. Right. and one of the trends is we truly live in a golden age of variety right excuse and it's like you know we talked about how you know you can go to a place like uh you know what's the um there are a couple popular asian grocery stores and see 45 different version of kit kats from green tea whatever prawn kit kats but then also you [55:00] okay, here is a company that has made a choice to just go in completely the opposite direction. But then you can see it's like, all right, well, the consumer really doesn't have as much choice. But if you can get them to mostly what they need, then the price differentials seem pretty genuine and real. The other thing I was thinking is it feels to me like technology changes are such are still an understudied area of inflation dynamics. And I mean, just the actual barcodes It's switching from like physical labels to barcodes and maybe now having the tags that Uniqlo has and things like that. I would love to see more research on that particular area. Yeah, I know. That's like the – because the original is like menu costs, right? You can't update the menu. Yeah. But it's like, was that real? And now we all order through QR codes. Yeah, there's been so much change. Like some of those first things need to go back and revisit it. But yeah, all very interesting to me. Shall we leave it there? Let's leave it there. All right. This has been another episode of the All Thoughts Podcast. I'm Tracy Alloway. You can follow me at Tracy Allaway. And I'm Jill Weisenthal. You can follow me at The Stalwart. Follow our producers, Carmen Rodriguez at CarmenArmandDashelBennett at DashBot, Kale Brooks at KaleBrooks, and Kevin Lozano at KevinLloydLizano. And for more OddLots content, go to Bloomberg.com slash OddLots. We have a daily newsletter on all of our episodes. And you can chat about all of these topics 24-7 in our Discord, discord.gg slash OddLots. And if you enjoy OddLots, if you like it when we take field trips to grocery stores in Manhattan, then please leave us a positive review on your favorite podcast platform. And remember, if you are a Bloomberg subscriber, you can listen to all of our episodes absolutely ad-free. All you need to do is find the Bloomberg channel on Apple Podcasts and follow the instructions there. Thanks for listening. 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