If only Aldi carried Shapes...

Each week, like so many of us, I toss a burgeoning bundle of catalogues into the recycling bin, all except one – from the good people at Aldi. I love the Aldi catalogue, namely because – and perhaps a tad embarrassingly – it’s one of the most serendipitous experiences of my week.

Where else do you find cycling duds, complete with “ergonomically formed” arse padding, in the same realm as solar-powered welding masks, baby cos lettuce, and assorted supplies for scrap-booking (a craze that has long overstayed its welcome)?

I confess I don’t frequent Aldi as much as my joy over their catalogue may lead you to think. Grocery shopping is a task I relish as much as scrubbing the loo. It’s generally relegated to the eleventh hour of the weekend, with less than an hour to spare before closing time. And, as much as I do like some Aldi products (their Australian olive oil, tinned tuna slices and creamy raspberry yoghurt, to name a few) they don’t carry all of the household faves, among them Arnott’s Shapes. At any given time you can open my pantry to find no less than half a dozen varieties of these assorted “baked-not-fried” snacks, because no two of our children like the same flavour. Not only do I think our brood single-handedly keeps the cogs turning at the Shapes factory, I marvel at the ingenuity of Arnott’s to keep coming up with umpteen new variations of the flavour, BBQ. But I digress…

The fact that Aldi doesn’t carry everything on our shopping list means it becomes a supplementary supplier when we can find the time. But that doesn’t deplete my enjoyment of flicking through their assorted weekly wares, which, much to my delight, regularly include random and amusing-sounding German foods in honour of the supermarket chain’s origins. Take pfeffernüsse (pronounced, I think, Fef-fer-nooser), delicious little gingerbread biscuits, or lachs-schinken, which, from the picture, looks a bit like pastrami, but could for all I know be slices of smoked eel.

Perhaps there’s a lesson there for other retailers in the lead-up to Christmas, as more and more face liquidation in the face of online competition. Surprise and delight us with your catalogues, and throw in the odd Spritzgebäck for good measure!