"The Aldi Project: Reviewing Aldi Australia
If you’re like me you’re sick and tired of hearing about the economic crisis and have already taken steps to cut back on day to day spending. A few months ago I decided to go back to starting my shopping at Aldi before hitting the other stores.
Shopping at Aldi is depressing, the stores attract people who cant dress properly and families with kids who think they can open whatever they want and start eating. There’s no background music and the environment is very stale.
These negatives however are all easilytrumped by Aldi’s prices.
I hadn’t shopped at Aldi since my student days and I remember the biggest challenge about shopping at Aldi was walking into the store and being bombarded with dozens of knockoffs from brands you have never heard of.
In the longterm it can be a costly experiment (both in terms of money and your tastebuds) to try out the selection they have and decide what does work on the cheap and what doesn’t.
For this reason I decided to start an online collection of Aldi Australia products. I’ll try and add a few new items a week as I do my day to day shopping so the list will start out small but over time hopefully become a useful resource for those wishing to take the Aldi plunge.
Having a list is much, much easier to remind myself what to stay away from before I head out to do my shopping and hopefully it’ll give those just venturing out into Aldi world an idea of what to expect when it comes to bang for your buck.
I’ve deliberately left out fruit and veg as the prices tend to fluctuate and seasonal fruit is too annoying to keep track of.
Happy Aldi’ing!
Bread
Cereal
Drinks
Frozen Foods
Meats
Sauces, Dips & Spreads
Snacks
April 20th, 2009 at 11:41 pm Grayda(Quote)
Fascinating read! I just finished off a can of Red Bu… err, Flying Power and joked to my fiance that it gives you “Physical extensions most commonly associated with birds, angels etc.”. But it’s good stuff and when I can save $1.40 on my energy drink and have it taste similar to Red Bull, why not?
And for the record, Flying Power is made in Austria. That’s Austria and not Australia (which got me once or twice..)
April 20th, 2009 at 11:51 pm ozsoapbox(Quote)
Austria wow, seems like a lot effort for Aldi Australia to go to importing energy drinks from europe lol.
I’m going to split this section up soon into its respective categories so it’s easier to navigate. I’ve got about 10 new products to add (including aldi alcohol!) but it’s all getting too long for just one post.
I’m glad you enjoyed it. I’m slowly getting through the aldi range and haven’t grown extra ears or developed super powers yet so it’s mostly good
.
August 18th, 2009 at 12:51 pm Mezza(Quote)
Love your website…and am an aldi “convert”. Have you worked out which Aldi products are just relabeled well known brands?? I suspect alot of them and am curious to how much I’m saving. Keep up the good work!
August 18th, 2009 at 12:59 pm ozsoapbox(Quote)
Ooh I’d kinda half abandoned updating these. I’ve got like 60 photos on my mobile to sort through though.
Might give it a go updating them later this week if people are finding the list useful.
August 26th, 2009 at 2:02 pm Mezza(Quote)
Very interested – update away!!
September 12th, 2009 at 10:06 pm Mystichobo(Quote)
Flying Power is great, Friends and I both like it for its price. On my second carton (of 30 cans) now, mainly because I don’t like paying $4 for energy drinks at work
April 24th, 2011 at 10:32 pm Andi(Quote)
I know, this post is like 2 years old, but I just happened to read through some of your stuff on here, so I thought, why not put my two cents in here. xDD
I am surprised what kind of reputation Aldi has in Australia. Everyone I know, buys a lot of products from either Aldi or the Austrian version of it: Hofer. May it be meat, vegetables, bread, milk products, wine, fruit juices.
It happens to be quite low-priced and most of the products you get there might be called differently from the brands products, but usually they are from the same company. And especially the meat is very high quality here. It is from Austrian cattle and it has to meet the requirements of the EU.
Actually, as I know Red Bull is from Austria, I suspect the cheaper version from Aldi being produced by the same company as well…but I am not sure about that.
Anyway, I got nothing bad to say about Aldi and it is really big in Germany and Austria. There are soooo many shops, I wouldnt buy from, but Aldi is definitely not one of them hahaha. Even though I have to say, I like Hofer more than Aldi, because they get their products from Austria and not from Germany xD
Just wanted to throw in my opinion on this topic. Btw, sorry for my messed up sentences. I am not a english native speaker.
April 26th, 2011 at 2:00 am ozsoapbox(Quote)
ALDI Germany and Hofer almost sound like different stores altogether. In Australia ALDI solely competes in the bargain basement supermarket niche. They don’t really carry any premium products.
Not sure if that’s because the Australian supermarket sector is less competitive (duopoly) or because ALDI have intentionally targetted that niche.
No worries, thanks for contributing it was an interesting little read.
April 26th, 2011 at 4:57 am Andi(Quote)
Hofer is run by the Aldi group. Only the name and some products are different. Sounds like in Australia the concept might be a bit different though.
Actually I dont think Austrian supermarkets are more competitive, they just kind of coexist. Its very interesting to know about the differences between supermarkets in different countries!
July 29th, 2011 at 10:52 pm ausGeoff(Quote)
This is yet another classic example of the cheap rubbish that ALDI is offloading to Australians at allegedly unbeatable, “competitive” prices.
From today’s Herald Sun, 29/7 reporting on virus-infected $99 hard disk drives:
The hard drive is supplied to ALDI by a company called Smart IT Australia, described on its website as a global company which sells electronics products to 10 countries.
The company also supplies support for ALDI electronics products branded under the Tevion label.
ALDI external hard drives available for sale as part of its “special buys” purchases have been found to contain a computer virus.
Not good enough ALDI. But nonetheless, typical of this mob.
July 29th, 2011 at 11:22 pm ozsoapbox(Quote)
Yeah I read about the Aldi harddrives, hilarious eh?
Who buys a hard drive without knowing what brand it is?