Dean: Copper does not sound like a organic product.

It isn’t—as I’ve said it’s toxic to humans.

But… it’s also used as a fungicide by so-called organic farmers. And it remains toxic in the soil and won’t bio-degrade.

Dean: It’s about healthy produce

Unfortunately, the scientific consensus is that organically produced foodstuffs are no more healthy than their non-organic peers. The bio-availability of a vegetable’s or fruit’s or grain’s nutrients, vitamins and minerals is identical regardless of how they’re grown.

Short of genetic modification, a spud is a spud is a spud.

The “organic” food industry is a multibillion dollar cash cow for the marketing industry—and of course retailers such as ALDI.

When you take the exact same strain of a plant and grow it in two different ways, its chemical and genetic makeup remain the same. One may be larger than the other if one growing method was more efficient, but its fundamental makeup and biochemical content is defined by its genes, and not by the way it was grown.

US Consumer Reports found no consistent difference in appearance, flavour, or texture.

Therefore a blanket statement like “organic cultivation results in a crop with superior nutritional value” has no logical or factual basis.

Organic farming’s goal is not about global warming. It’s about healthy produce, avoiding land contamination resulting from artificial fertlisers and pesticides and the damage in producing them, and a sustainable cycle more in tune with nature.

Global warming is a separate issue which I think should be mainly addressed by population control (e.g. removing the baby bonus). Copper does not sound like a organic product.

On the livestock argument it would be better to replace cow meat with kangaroo. This would be more environmentally friendly and address the methane issue as well as land degradation.

Again the great increase (160%) in greenhouse gases in the last two centuries is due to industry rather than livestock and can very simply be managed by measures to reduce carbon fuels such as a carbon tax.

If they misrepresent one product so blatantly (as being a “quality” product, when in fact it’s rubbish), who’s to say they’re not doing so across their entire product range?

Dean: You seem bent on finding a single product to prove otherwise and to be honest I don’t buy that product anywhere.

Are you not dismayed to learn that ALDI’s beef sausages have been shown up as crap? Does this not sound warning bells as far as the rest of their stuff is concerned? Or should we just turn a blind eye to a possible once-off error in QA?

Dean: Aldi has by far the largest percentage of organic products.

Unfortunately, the consumer has been scammed (by all food retailers big and small) with the various unfounded promises of “organic” products, and their better environmental profile. But…..

A litre of organic milk requires 80% more land than conventional milk to produce, has 20% greater global warming potential, releases 60%more nutrients to water sources, and contributes 70% more to acid rain. Organically reared cows also burp twice as much methane as conventionally reared cattle, and methane is 20 times more powerful a greenhouse gas than CO2.

For the purpose of improving the soil, most organic farms need year round ground cover, the planting of which produces more nitrogen dioxide, a green house gas. If animal manure is used for growing an organic crop for direct consumer consumption, it can produce 14 times more greenhouse gases that conventional farming—due to methane production.

Organic farming often use copper (specifically in potato production, against potato blight and also in wine production, against a fungus)—the worst type of fungicide—and one which is persistent and builds up in the soil to high levels.

Copper is also toxic to humans, and worse still, it’s recently been shown that accumulating copper in the soil could produce bacteria that resist antibiotics, a situation which could contribute to problems in treating new bacterial infections.

Currently, less than 1% of Australia’s fresh food is produced organically, so I’m not too worried about its negative consequences.

You seem bent on finding a single product to prove otherwise and to be honest I don’t buy that product anywhere. So I still use Coles to get stuff that Aldi does not have but I use Aldi for the bargains.

As far as environmental effects Aldi has by far the largest percentage of organic products. This is probably the main reason I support them. Store managers – I’ve never had occasion to talk with one anywhere – I’m not there for socialising.

Dea: All I care about is the quality, price and environmental effects [...]

The quality of ADI’s product is in no way superior to Coles, Woolies or IGA. I’d go as far as to say that much of ALDI’s fresh produce is actually inferior to the others. According to a recent, independent Biotech Laboratories survey, ALDI’s thin beef sausages not only fell short of the approved lean meat content at a mere 39%, they were (literally) dripping in 24.3% saturated fat. This compares unfavourably with the Australian Standards Association requirement of 50% minimum lean meat content and a recommendation of less than 10% saturated fat. The best quality sausages in the survey contained 80% lean meat, or more than twice that of ALDI’s.

Pricing? Average when compared to the other supermarkets. Often you’re better off buying the specials at the others, even if it involves some extra legwork. We only ever buy stuff when it’s on special at Coles or Woolies or IGA, and I can guarantee after religiously reconciling shopping dockets, that there’s NO price advantage with an “average” basket of groceries from ALDI.

Admittedly, I haven’t shopped at ALDI for some time now (due to their crap customer service and pig-ignorant store managers) but unless something drastic has happened recently to change their pricing structure, I stand by my claims.

I’m not quite sure what you mean by “environmental effects”. ALDI stores’ footprint and their products have the same environmental impact as any other supermarket surely?

If you want to pay for flashy marketing and empty brand name status then that is your loss.

How on Earth can you say that when Aldi’s product is clearly inferior?

Forget price, when you add milk to Aldi’s wheat biscuits they fall apart and taste like crap. That’s got nothing to do with branding and marketing.

If you want to pay for flashy marketing and empty brand name status then that is your loss.

Aidi employee: the big food companies are much richer, and older than Aldi, a little newcomer to the market…

Uh… this is a 50-year-old company with an annual revenue of $60 billion.

And what exactly is this supposed to mean:

Aidi employee: Give Aldi a fair go, give them a chance to help us all

How are ALDI going to “help us all”? By ripping us off with over-priced, cheaply-made imported foodstuffs and sending the profits offshore to Germany?

That’s gonna help us? I think not.

If you knew that the reason that aldi was not getting the best wwheat was because the farmers of the good wheat had been stolen by sanitarium,

Yeah but as a consumer I don’t care about any of that. I’m not going to eat B grade soggy mush weetbix just because Aldi want a fair go.

Either provide me with quality weetbix or I shop elsewhere.

Seriously they were that bad.