Anybody shop Ruler Foods- stripped down Kroger

[KnarlyCarl]

Anybody go here? 

 

My wife found this place in the city she's going to college in. Decided to try it out, see if the savings are worth it...

 

Ruler Foods is a warehouse store grocery chain in the United States, currently owned by Kroger. It is a no-frills grocery store where 80% of the offerings are Kroger Brand, the customers bag their own groceries at the checkout, and rent shopping carts for 25 cents. Kroger operates Ruler Foods stores in Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, Kentucky, Missouri, and Tennessee. It is part of JayC Food Stores, which was purchased by Kroger in 1999.

https://www.jaycfoods.com/topic/ruler-foods

 

 

Basically Kroger version of Aldi

Milk is $.99 a gallon for example, she got excited when she found her favorite sweet potato chips were real cheap, but still Kroger brand

[kruton]

We used to have one here in my home town but they have since closed up. I thought they were great, not sure why more people didn't go there.

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[Logan]

We don't have one 

[Foneguy]

Havent seen any down south

[Stercorarius]

Sounds like an East half version of grocery outlet.

[comp56]

Ruler Foods measure your savings?......now that is cheesy....for a grocery store.....lol

never heard of it and probably never see one in these parts....

[KnarlyCarl]

Haha yeah comp, I thought the same thing, plus they're just in the Midwest it looks...

[jadunjd]

I am big fan of the ruler foods which is operated by Kroger in the United States. Kroger introduced the kroger feedback program for collecting the customers impression towards their shopping experience and we can win $5k with this survey.

[Adwardneri]

There is no ruler foods near our neighborhood. I and my family often shop our grocery at Kroger and had quite a decent place to get items at reasonable prices. if you are also a regular customer at Kroger you can participate in krogerfeedback and win amazing gift cards worth $250 and $100. 

[paulengr]

The discount stores around here are Save A Lot (avoid), Dollar General (avoid), A&P if you find one (avoid), and ALDI. ALDI is owned by the same people that own Trader Joe’s. Very good quality and puts regular groceries to shame. Usually my bill is half or less. They pay employees above average. The downsides of ALDI are being a quarter (you get it back), bring your own bags, and don’t expect large selection...it is just basics. On the other hand the chocolate is all Belgian and you can get a lot of German specialties. I just had sauerkraut and Kielbasa for dinner. Their store brand sauerkraut is amazingly good. I grew up in a heavy German area so this might not be your thing but they also have a lot of Mexican specialty stuff too, better than most grocery stores.

What I find with them is same as Sams club...you will need to adjust what you normally buy for groceries a bit or shop two stores.

I think Kroger pulled out of North Carolina. Publix seems to have run them out. Too bad...anything is better than Food Lion, Bi Low, or Harris Teeter.

[fm2176]

On 8/5/2020 at 11:57 PM, paulengr said:

The discount stores around here are Save A Lot (avoid), Dollar General (avoid), A&P if you find one (avoid), and ALDI. ALDI is owned by the same people that own Trader Joe’s. Very good quality and puts regular groceries to shame. Usually my bill is half or less. They pay employees above average. The downsides of ALDI are being a quarter (you get it back), bring your own bags, and don’t expect large selection...it is just basics. On the other hand the chocolate is all Belgian and you can get a lot of German specialties. I just had sauerkraut and Kielbasa for dinner. Their store brand sauerkraut is amazingly good. I grew up in a heavy German area so this might not be your thing but they also have a lot of Mexican specialty stuff too, better than most grocery stores.

What I find with them is same as Sams club...you will need to adjust what you normally buy for groceries a bit or shop two stores.

I think Kroger pulled out of North Carolina. Publix seems to have run them out. Too bad...anything is better than Food Lion, Bi Low, or Harris Teeter.

 

A little nerd exposition: US Aldi stores are owned by Aldi Süd, while Trader Joe's is owned by Aldi Nord.  The two Aldi companies have been independent of each other since 1966.

 

Since moving back to Northern Virginia I find myself visiting Aldi quite often.  Another German-headquartered store with a similar aesthetic is Lidl: carts are "free" and the selection is a bit better with more name brands, but still pretty cheap.  Both stores offer basics, have a good selection of German foods and delicacies, and usually have a more streamlined shopping experience than the typical supermarket.  They also each offer tools and associated items throughout the year in their rotating aisles/bins.  I have a bench press I bought from Lidl for $79, o-ring assortments, and even some forstner bits, among other one-off items.  Aldi usually has two aisles dedicated to this stuff, from law and garden, to clothes or personal hygiene, to the aforementioned tools.  Lidl has a few aisles of bins in the center of the store containing a lot more variety, probably designed to entice the poor husbands being dragged along to buy something to restore their manliness.   

 

Up here my choices are Shoppers (expensive compared to others), Food Lion (I actually like them for the prices), Wegman's (never been), Aldi, Lidl, Giant (growing on me, especially their manager's specials on meat), and Walmart (cheap beer and proximity makes it a go to unfortunately).  A Publix will be opening before long (didn't mind them in Georgia but preferred the Piggly Wiggly).  A little further north we have Trader Joe's (never been), Harris Teeter (never been), and Whole Foods (never been).

 

 

[paulengr]

We have LiDL too. They are slightly higher than ALDI but similar concept. Low SKU and aggressive pricing with low overhead and smaller stores, on par with the larger Dollar Generals. Our area was part of the initial LiDL experiment.

I’ve heard about ALDI being different but they have several items that are not just similar but identical to Trader Joe’s. I don’t know what the Sud/Nord tie is and they might be independent but definitely not separate.

If you are referring to the big Wegmans in Fredericksburg it’s big but not cheap. Think Whole Foods or Trader Joe’s in full size.

I would not count Food Lion (same company as Piggly Wiggly) as discount. They are full line traditional. Along the same lines as say Bi Low (Geirgia) or Harris Teeter (North Carolina). Both run some crazy good sales as loss leaders on things not normally sold that low but the rest of the store is high markup.

Not Walmart either. When they first expanded into groceries they were definitely inexpensive but these days the only thing low about Walmart is quality on everything, including tools. And contractors have horror stories about them.

[fm2176]

The Wegman's I almost went to is off the Dale City exit.  I drove my commuter van through the parking lot, saw the crowds, and went to Food Lion instead.  While the prices may not be the absolute best, Food Lion does have some deals (especially on generics) that others can't match.  Case in point: soft drinks...I can get the Food Lion brands for $0.59 a two-liter right now.  Mix a Diet Dr. Perky with a $13.90 half-gallon of Military Special blended whiskey (actually, not too bad in taste, especially for the price), and I have an inexpensive way to indulge. 

 

Food Lion is owned by Delhaize, while Piggly Wiggly is owned by C&S Wholesale Grocers.  I used to frequent the Piggly Wigglys in Louisiana and around Fort Benning, GA and for some reason I just like the small(er) store feel.  Some remind me of IGAs (which  I passed a few of around the South).  Winn Dixie was a place I'd stop at on occasion down there are well.

 

Retail history has always fascinated me, from who owns what (how many non-tool guys know that Milwaukee is owned by the same company that makes Ryobi, or that DeWalt, Mac, and Black & Decker are all part of the same corporation?), to what was and what will come.  I'm old enough to remember a lot of stores that no longer exist (Ames, Hills, Nicholls, GC Murphy, Bradlees, Miller & Rhoads, Thalhimers), which were staples of the generations that preceded my own.  I've also seen numerous grocery store chains come and go in certain areas, and the OP reminds me of some of the experiments made by other companies (Food Lion had Bloom, and in Waycross, GA I found the only Dollar General Supermarket I've yet seen).