39% Of People Agree This Is The Worst Grocery Store Bakery

"Consumers are advised not to shop when they're hungry," according to Prolitec Ambient Scent Services, because "hungry shoppers buy more." But did you know that the sensation of hunger can be intensified by the smell of food? Well, it's true, and that happens to be one reason why grocery stores are designed in such a way that their bakeries are not only open and visible to the public, but their ovens and air-flow systems allow the scents of freshly baked goods to "drift out to shoppers." 

In particular, studies have shown that the smell of baking bread can increase the sale of baked goods by three-fold. When a grocery store's in-store bakery is putting out tasty items made from scratch, that can actually be a good thing (assuming that coming home with delicious, fresh-baked bread and cakes is a good thing). Such is the case, apparently, with Whole Foods and Costco. 

The in-store bakeries at both Whole Foods and Costco fared quite well in a survey of 649 Americans conducted by Mashed seeking to identify the worst grocery store bakeries; neither earned more than 9% of the total votes. The same cannot be said of one particular grocery store chain, however, that nearly 39% of survey respondents agreed has the worst in-store bakery. Read on to find out which supermarket won this dubious dishonor. 

When Mashed asked 649 Americans which grocery store has the worst in-store bakery, nearly 39% (38.67%n to be exact) of those surveyed pointed to German-based grocery store, Aldi. The next-worst grocery store bakery, according to those surveyed, can be found at Sam's Club, which earned 15.25% of the votes. Coming in third and fourth of the worst of all grocery store bakeries were Meijer and Kroger. Both came in just behind Sam's Club, having earned 14.79% and 13.87% of the votes, respectively. And as stated above, Whole Foods and Costco's in-house bakeries were generally well-regarded, garnering less than 9% of the votes each.

It's worth noting, however, that one reason that Aldi's in-house bakery may have done so poorly compared with the bakeries at other grocery stores in the U.S., is that Aldi has not been in the in-house bakery business long enough to have perfected the concept yet. According to Clark, Aldi only introduced its in-store bakery in 2018. and only in three states (Illinois, Wisconsin, and Maryland). In addition, Aldi may be battling a difficult-to-shake not-so-good reputation with regard to its baked goods that dates back to 2011. Apparently, Aldi was once guilty of vending "freshly baked bread" on two seconds' notice from small, button-operated ovens in German stores. While some people did, in fact, like the bread, many felt there was "no way the bread could be truly baked fresh on the spot."