TikToker Leroy Lupton went viral this week after he recorded himself trying to bag up items at an Aldi store faster than the cashier could scan them. The speed of Aldi’s checkouts is part of the store’s appeal — staff call it the “thrill of the checkout” — but as Lupton shows, some shoppers can easily become overwhelmed.
But personally, I was a little disappointed by Lupton’s amateurishness in his video, where he appears ill-equipped and ill-organized. Meanwhile, I am the undisputed world champion at beating Aldi staff at the tills. I’m an Aldi regular, and perhaps my proudest moment to date was on March 9, 2019 (I remember because I tweeted about it). On that day, I bagged my items so efficiently that not only did the till guy say “well done” heartily, but my oldest son screamed at me, “Dad! You’re so fast!” When I die, I want the legend on my grave to read, “I’m good at Aldi.”
The secret to my success is simple, and it starts in-store. The reason Aldi employees can scan so quickly is because most of their own-brand products have giant wraparound barcodes that can be scanned with minimal fuss. If you can find them, and your budget allows, try to look for third-party products with regular rectangular barcodes. Finding these can disrupt the cashier’s flow and buy you a few precious seconds of bagging time.
“Scattered fruit is your friend”: Scattering grapefruit among groceries to fool the cashier. Photo: Paula Soloway/Alamy
Then rose fruit is your friend. I recently started eating grapefruit for breakfast like a 1980s yuppie, and I’ve found this to be a key tool in slowing down cashiers. Grapefruit are not coded, so they must be entered manually. I buy 5 grapefruits a week, and a big trick here is to not put them all together on the conveyer belt, so the staff can enter them all at the same time. But if you scatter them randomly while shopping, the cashier has to stop and enter each one individually. You can make a pretty big difference here. Is it fair to the staff? Actually it isn’t, but remember this is a war.
Finally, take a proper bag with you. Lupton’s big mistake was fumbling around with a crumpled carrier bag, which is ridiculous. Do as I do and buy a reusable trolley bag. A colour-coded bag that stretches the width of the trolley and sits gaping open, waiting to be drop-filled. My system is perfect: one for chilled and fresh items, one for groceries, one for household items and one for drinks. As soon as they’re scanned, they’re in the right place.
This week the Guardian challenged me to beat a cashier, so on Thursday morning I bought £48 of groceries at my local branch – it was no contest at all. My no-fail rule was that the moment the cashier scanned the last item, I had my card in hand, ready to pay, and popped my Groovy Biscuits straight into the till.
Ardi had no idea what had happened: they were playing against the champions.