Aldi explains why supermarket checkout staff scan your shopping so quickly
Emily Brown
Featured Image Credit: Peter Dazeley/Getty Images/Christopher Furlong/Getty Images
Aldi might be known for being affordable, but ironically those low costs come at a price, and that's the speed with which the products fly through the scanner at checkout.
Admit it; it's a pretty stressful experience. If you don't have your bag open and your hands free, ready to throw things in at lightening speed, you end up falling behind and being that customer holding up the entire queue. Not ideal.
Everyone has their own way of dealing with the speedy checkout system, with some risking potentially fragile items in favour of getting everything in a bag as quickly as possible, while others opt for the frantic 'throw it in the basket' method before taking the time to organise everything at the packing station.
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The trend of speedy scanners at Aldi is a very well-known one, but not everyone knows exactly why the employees are so keen to get your shopping off the conveyor belt.
A lot of people have shared theories, with one speculating that it's some kind of 'speed challenge' while another suggested it's the result of 'ninja training' that all employees have to go through.
While that might be a pretty cool induction process, there actually aren't any ninjas or challenges involved.
When contacted by The Mirror, Aldi explained that staff members are 'encouraged' to be as efficient as possible, including at the checkout, because it helps to keep their prices low.
However, we don't have to live in fear of being too slow when it comes to packing. The company acknowledged that some people will be slower than others when it comes to packing, so checkout assistants are trained to alter the rate at which they scan so that they match the pace of the shopper.
The habits of checkout employees have previously been discussed by Aldi manager Matthew Lesky, who explained on TikTok about how workers are trained to help products fly across their scanner.
“We’re actually trained to push something across the scanner with a flat hand and with a right hand let it fall onto an open palm and then gently let it roll off into the cart," Lesky said.
“While in some ways we’re actually trained to ‘throw things’ - sometimes it gets a little out of hand, pun intended, and things tend to go where we don’t want them to - it’s something we’re always working on," he continued.
This knowledge might not necessarily make the supermarket workers scan your shopping any faster, but at least next time you're at the checkout you'll know that the speedy method helps keep prices low!