Grocery Store Ribbon Cutting Ceremony Videos Will Break Your Heart

For a long time now, I have found the ribbon cutting video to be the perfect way to get a general idea about a community. The attendance at these ceremonial events is a real mix, consisting of employees, management, developers, and the bored members of the community who have nothing to do other than to go to a ribbon cutting. There is a great deal of fanfare, and luckily these days, there is always a video camera. For this week's column, I've chosen to focus on grocery stores, but we will revisit the theme soon for restaurants.

Pasadena Aldi Store Ribbon Cutting

Growing up in the suburbs, we had an Aldi store, but I never once went inside. This video was my chance to finally check it out. If you watch this video, you'll learn that they focus on overstock items and smaller stores. No frills. It's a pretty basic concept: a smaller footprint means cheaper prices. In this video you don't really need to listen to what these people are saying—just look at them, because they are everyone.

Natural Grocers Ribbon Cutting

Well, I want to be nice, but I can't help admitting the facts: They say "healthy food makes you grow big and strong," but looking at the eight-foot-tall giant in the background of this whole video makes me never want to eat healthy ever again. The lack of a microphone makes it almost impossible to understand what kind of organic bologna she is trying to sell, so you can mute this one and just enjoy the visuals. If you don't know what you are supposed to be enjoying, it is the fact that for the entire delivery of her speech, they chosen to have the tall man behind her for a completely upsetting composition.

Sun Prairie Costco Ribbon Cutting -- Nov. 15, 2012

Costco, along with all the big box stores, scares the living shit out of me. This video explains why. If you turn the volume up, you can hear the monotonous hum of the entire store's lights, fridges, and air conditions blaring at you. This is the sound of coal being burnt as quickly as possible. The manager cannot speak loud enough to overcome the sound. On a lighter note, there's a little bit of humor as the manager tries to get a bunch of people under the ribbon before his speech. It's like clowns getting into a car, except for the fact that there is enough room for maybe 3,000 people behind that ribbon.

Brookshiers Red Oak Ribbon Cutting

Coolers full of doves kick off this presentation by Red Oak City manager, Todd Fuller, who is always pleased to take part in a ribbon cutting. Brookshires is one of the larger chains in the Texarkana region, and this video is one of the larger uses of what looks like a blackberry in the Ribbon Cutting Genre. I like the format of this one, which is the recording of Todd's heartfelt speech while we see absolutely generic footage of the store in its still empty state. Congrats, Todd.

Urbandale HyVee Ribbon Cutting August 14, 2012

I have actually been to this grocery store, and it is without any hesitation that I can say it is the largest I have ever been to. This HyVee used to be the anchor store for a small but thriving strip mall in Urbandale, Iowa. One day, they got the bright idea to level the entire strip mall and expand the grocery store by a factor of almost four. You don't get much of a tour of the store in this video, for this is another community portrait, but if you click on some of the suggested links, you'll get a better idea of the scope of this behemoth. It is truly one of the most absurd things that I have ever witnessed in my life.

This post previously appeared on MUNCHIES in May, 2014.