Low-cost Aldi stores expanding to Southern California

MORENO VALLEY, Calif. (KABC) -- The no-frills grocery chain Aldi is expanding to Southern California, opening eight stores in the Inland Empire this week and more throughout the region later this year.

The store focuses on keeping prices low with practices such as requiring a 25-cent deposit on shopping carts, offering its own generic-brand products and printing barcodes on all sides of items to make checkout faster.

For example, its stores offer products like "honey nut crispy oats" - comparable to Honey Nut Cheerios, but at half the price.

The Germany-based chain, which has its U.S. headquarters in Illinois, plans to open 45 stores across Southern California this year, creating about 1,100 new jobs. The company's expansion plans would bring it to 2,000 stores across the United States by 2018.