LIVONIA, Mich. — The grand opening of the new Livonia ALDI grocery store took place on Thursday morning. The media was invited to take a tour of the store and enjoy samples along the way.
This is the 82nd store opening in Michigan, out of the 1,800 stores nationwide. The Livonia store is part of a $3.4 billion investment by ALDI to expand to 2,500 stores nationwide by the end of 2022.
Livonia Mayor Dennis Wright officially opened the new Livonia ALDI’s store and welcomed everyone for coming. He told me, “This is a spectacular store in a spectacular location. We are proud to have ALDI’s in Livonia for the community.” Livonia City Council President Laura Toy was also in attendance.
Zaundra McKissie, a customer from Southfield, is an avid ALDI’s shopper. She was given a $25 gift card as she entered the new store. “I go to ALDI’s quite often. I like the prices. I have been going to ALDI’s ever since I came to Michigan about 15 years ago. My daughter was number two in line to get in, and I was number six,” says McKissie.
Ben, Store Manager of the Livonia store, says there are no department managers. Everyone helps out in all of the departments.
“Breads are not handled one by one and put on store shelves, they are stacked in trays. Then we replace the trays,” says Ben. L’oven Fresh white bread costs 85 cents, honey wheat is 99 cents and regular wheat bread is 89 cents. Across from bread is the potato chips. Clancy’s regular chips are 89 cents.
“The Deli department is in the back of the store and merchandise is boxed in cases, not individually. This procedure helps with stock rotation.
Darci, ALDI District Manager, walked us to the ‘ALDI Finds’ section. These items are sold for a limited time til they are sold out. “We test the item out in the store to see if we want to carry it in our stores,” noted Darci.
She also took us to the Fresh Food Section which is expanded. “There are weekly specials for meat along with organic meat. We have popular items on ad each week.” Ben told us that their “Never Any” chicken brand has no hormones or antibiotics.
The Dairy Department has glass doors to open to get the milk. They have heat coming down from the ceiling with fans, so the enclosed cold stuff won’t bring cold in the aisles as you shop. “We also don’t handle the milk one by one, but have racks of milk. We slide the rack out when empty and replace it with a filled one,” says Ben. Friendly Farms gallon of milk costs $2.18, Friendly Farms Almond Milk is $1.69.
Darci walked us to the Wine Department. “We sell ‘Winking Owl’ wine for $2.89 per bottle. We also have regional beers, such as Founders and Traverse City beers and we will be rotating different brands at times.” The beer prices run from $5.99 to $6.99 for a six-pack of bottles. I didn’t see any can beers.
Ben says there are ‘Special Buys’ in the freezer section for a limited time only. Some are seasonal items. For example, steamable butternut squash in a 10-ounce package runs $1.65.
The shopping carts cost 25 cents. Customers must insert the quarter into the slot and it unlocks the cart from the previous one. When you are finished shopping and have checked out, you plug the cord back into the next cart and your quarter comes back out.
The big plastic re-useable ALDI bags cost $1.99, small plastic bags are 10 cents and paper bags are 7 cents. Although, you may bring your own bag. It is preferable to have a bag to load groceries as opposed to just putting them in your cart.
Visit the new ALDI store at 29330 Schoolcraft Rd., Livonia, MI. Hours of operation are from 9 a.m. to 8 p.m. Monday thru Sunday.
