Show HN: Aldi Price Map
An interactive “Aldi Price Map” that visualizes weekly flyer prices across U.S. Aldi stores has sparked interest in regional pricing, logistics, and grocery inflation. Commenters probe how the data is scraped and rendered, suggest better color scales and accessibility features, and compare it to similar projects for McDonald’s, Taco Bell, and European supermarket price trackers. Many express surprise at Aldi’s U.S.-only coverage here, noting Aldi’s split into Nord/Süd, its global footprint (including Trader Joe’s), and the lack of comparable, easily accessible pricing data in Europe and elsewhere.
Scope, Data & Implementation
- Map currently covers only US Aldi stores; creator couldn’t find easy, large-scale price data for Europe or other regions.
- Prices are scraped from weekly flyers; only items advertised that week are included, which excludes staples like milk and eggs.
- Many products have uniform pricing nationwide; only items with regional variation get a dedicated HTML map page.
- Implemented with Leaflet; a Python script generates static pages per product.
- Some suggest aggregating a basket of ~50 items per store for a more meaningful regional cost index or tracking prices over time to visualize inflation.
- Ideas for more data: Instacart price deltas, Aldi’s own (undocumented) commerce API, and existing EU scraping projects like “heissepreise”.
Map Design & Accessibility
- Multiple colorblind users report the red–green diverging palette is unreadable; expensive and cheap look identical.
- Suggestions: add a high-contrast toggle and use a single sequential light–dark scale since there is no natural “midpoint” in the data.
Price Patterns & Economics
- Commenters note cheaper produce on the US West/South coasts, likely due to proximity to production (e.g., California) and logistics.
- Some products show NYC- or region-only markups; Aldi is described as operating on fairly fixed margins with transport and distribution costs driving regional variation.
- Debate over how businesses “pass on” costs: some argue all costs are ultimately recovered in aggregate; others stress loss leaders, subsidies, and uneven pricing by location or customer segment.
- Regional vs neighborhood pricing is discussed; some European retailers explicitly want location-specific pricing, possibly tied to local wealth.
International Context & Brand Structure
- Many Europeans are surprised the map is US-only given Aldi’s European roots and much larger store count there.
- Aldi is split into Aldi Nord and Aldi Süd, with different territories; in the US, Aldi Süd runs “Aldi” stores, while Aldi Nord owns Trader Joe’s.
- Regional offshoots and branding: Hofer in Austria, different reputations and store quality between Aldi Nord/Süd and Lidl in various countries.
- Some note Denmark’s Aldi exit after long-term losses, highlighting highly competitive discount markets.
Linguistic & Cultural Side Threads
- Long thread on “Aldi” vs “Aldi’s,” possessives (e.g., McDonald’s’s), acronym capitalization (ALDI vs Aldi), and pluralization habits (LEGOs, “data”).
- Broader cultural comparisons on supermarket stigma, shopping patterns (one big shop vs multiple stores), and the appeal of other chains (Lidl, Costco, Trader Joe’s).