My first visit in Aldi store was in 2001 when I was in Germany. Even thought my cousin
family has a very high living standard, she still does most of the grocery showings in Aldi. She
explained to me that many Aldi products have the same quality as the brand-name products.
Later, Lidl, another generic brand wholesaler, entered the market in my home country and have
become my favorite grocery store. That is why, when I came in the United States, I was surprised
to learn that there are Aldi stores.
I usually do many of my grocery shoppings in Aldi, and I also have several top products.
The first one is Simply Nature Organic Plain Whole Milk Yogurt which costs only $2.99. If it is
on sale it costs $2.49. Stonyfield Smooth & Creamy Organic Greek Whole Milk Yogurt costs
$4.39 in Pete’s Fresh Market, which is a little bit cheaper store than Jewel-Osco and Mariano’s.
The yogurt is $1.40 cheaper in Aldi for the same size of 32 oz. My next favorite product is milk,
too. The Aldi’s Friendly Farms Organic Whole Milk half a gallon costs only $2.95. In contrast,
Horizon Organic Milk costs $4.69, and Organic Valley Whole milk is $4.79 for the same size
package. The difference in price wit Aldi’s product is about $1.80. The last product, that I chose
to compare, is bottled water. I usually avoid buying bottled water and think that it is a product
that people tend to spend a lot of money for it. In Aldi, there are two types of generic branded
water: spring and purified. The spring one, PurAqua, costs $2.79 for 24 packs, 16.9 oz. each or
near $.12 per bottle. At the same time, Ice Mountain 100% natural spring water costs $5.49 for
28 packs or $0.20 per bottle.
For my blind taste test, I chose String Cheese. I asked two friends to participate in my
test. One of them is a big cheese lover, and she pretends that she knows a lot about cheese. I
bought Aldi’s Happy Farms Spirals Mozzarella & Cheddar Cheese for $2.79, 10 oz. pack and
Kraft Twists Mozzarella & Cheddar Cheese for $5.49, 9 oz. pack. As I expected, the cheese-lover
recognized the type of the cheese, but both of them could not find a difference in the taste. They
were surprised when I told them how much the Happy Farms cheese costs. Moreover, I told them
that they can find many other types of cheese. Some of them from the Aldi’s Specially Selected
brand have a very high quality and excellent taste. Both said that they will definitely try other
Aldi products.
In my opinion, nowadays, people have become more dependent on brand name products.