Save-A-Lot was founded in 1977 and is a US knockoff of Aldi food stores. Both Aldi and Save-A-Lot compete for the same market. They claim that their products are 40%-60% cheaper than other stores. Their brands tend to be slightly more expensive than Aldi's, however the products tend to be of a higher quality.
Save-A-Lot's store format is a limited-selection store, which they call edited choice store. A limited-selection store is a store in which they carry only the most popular items and only in the most popular size. Save-A-lot stores have about 1,250 grocery items per store and restrict their store sizes to roughly 15,000 square feet. They carry inferior goods, which they call an exclusive label brands, and some name-brand normal goods. The Save-A-Lot brands, none of which bear the Save-A-Lot name, tend to be of a middling to high quality and tend to be of a much higher quality than other store-named brands. The stores typically lack shelves and instead have the items in cut out cardboard shipping cases. You must bag your own groceries at Save-A-Lot.
Save-A-Lot purchased the Deal dollar store chain in 2002. Many Deal$ stores are located physically inside of Save-A-Lot stores in a format they call the Hybird Store.