I always check carefully all expiration dates and the produce for any age. I know the savings there come from having less staff and less sparkle but I can appreciate what they have for what it is.

I also enjoy buying meat through Westwind Farms, a certified organic grower based in Middle TN, I work at the local Farmer’s Market here in Memphis on Saturday a.m.’s and I trade my hours for meat or fresh milk. While I can’t afford to buy all my meat from them, it’s a great trade, I meet cool people and learn a lot. It also satisfies my need for “selling” and learning about customer service.

These days I have no worries about my food. We order all our meat from local farmers in bulk (grass fed beef, pastured pork and chicken), and we purchase our produce through a CSA. We purchase raw milk, cheese, pastured eggs, and other organic groceries through a local delivery service. We eat at home 99% of the time, and usually regret the 1% of the time that we don’t. I agree with the previous comments that say “bugs happen”. They do, and it means that your food hasn’t been sprayed with petroleum based poison. Be happy for the bugs… if they will eat it, then it’s safe for your family to eat. Yes, it’s a bit more expensive (not as much as you think though), but I KNOW where my food comes from. I don’t worry about all the food recalls, and eating this way is an investment in our health.

Sorry Aldi, I only buy storage/freezer bags, and garbage bags there on occasion.

So sorry you had to experience that, EW!

Anyway, I was interested in that article and some of the responses, simply because I am an Aldi employee in the UK. Now before you swear at the screen and scroll down, I am not about to try and convince you how amazing Aldi is and scold you for disliking it…

Basically, I think that it is totally legit to not go back to a store or service if you had a bad experience. I think, no, I KNOW, that it is the staff that are hired that can ruin the experience for so many people.

In my store, we have strict but fair managers. If something is found out of date by a customer or staff member, it will be resolved straight away (e.g. The whole chiller/produce/bread etc.products are checked all over again, we offer customers refunds, exchanges, discounts etc.).

I cannot IMAGINE being able to work in a dirty store, we are all constantly cleaning here!! We take pride in working for Aldi.

I remember visiting another store out of town (Aldi), and OMG was it bad. The store seemed dingy and dark, there were boxes everywhere, and we (customers) were left waiting at an empty till for 10 mins, while a staff member was tidying!

In our store, as soon as a customer arrives, we are there at their service. Aldi is known for speed and efficency, like hell in this store!

So anyway, I guess it is hit or miss with Aldi, depending on which store you go to. And that should not be the case!

My own bad experiences include: Making hot chocolate as a kid, and drinking a few mouthfuls…and feeling something in my mouth that felt like little bits of rolled up paper. I rolled them around on the roof of my mouth with my tongue, wondering if some paper had gotten into the hot chocolate. I looked down at my cup and noticed that there were little white things WRIGGLING on the surface! GAH! Tiny little larvae of some sort! (Grain Moth? Flour Beetles? Who knows!) I spit out the hot chocolate in my mouth and dumped the rest out of the cup. Took a good look at the empty package, and noticed tiny holes in it, where the beetle/moth had eaten its way in to lay its eggs. Now I know to look for holes in any grain/flour/chocolate product that sat on the shelf too long. Didn’t stop me from drinking hot chocolate though. I’m just careful now. :)

Went through a small period of not being able to eat steak or chicken after Poltergeist first came out, due to some of the graphic scenes in that movie involving steak and chicken. Again, I was a small kid. Now if I saw the movie again, it wouldn’t affect me at all.

And, stopped eating at the Wendy’s in St. George, Utah after getting severe food poisoning there. Any other Wendy’s is fine.. just not THAT one. 0_o

For all you commenting on roaches, I had to giggle…I own four Madagascar Hissing Roaches as pets. They’re really sweet critters.. honest!

That said, I love Aldis, which just came to our area last year. I’ve always managed to stretch our grocery budget by shopping for particular items at various stores, including Wal-mart, Winn-Dixie, and Dollar General. When Aldis arrived, I visited as soon as I was able. No other store can beat their prices for eggs (79 cents a dozen), whole milk (2.29), whole wheat bread (99 cents), frozen whole fruit/berries, and their regular every day prices for pantry staples meet or beat the store brands. I have only made one purchase I regretted and that was for the canned mixed vegetables – had no carrots as it was supposed to, and the potatoes were smushy. Other than that, everything I have purchased there has been great.

In fact, in recent weeks, I have been working with an extremely tighter-than-tight budget, and thanks to Aldis, I spent my limit of $50 each week for two weeks, exclusively at Aldis, and fed our family of five three square home-cooked meals a day, and even had a little bit of money to splurge on a couple of boxes of Devils Food Cake mix (89 cents each) and a couple of bags of their version of Doritos, which at 99 cents a bag for the same size bag of $3.99 Doritos means I will rarely ever buy Doritos again.

Plus, my kids get to an additional chance to learn how to work as a team and solve problems – watching them deal with all the groceries, and having to reorganize them into another cart, and sort them – it wears them out, but it is good for the soul.

This is Nora from BurdaStyle. We always strive to being honest and transparent. Please send me a note about your thoughts on why we are dishonest.

Thanks
Nora

Your reply made me see how important your readers are to you. But I forgot your site is for entertainment purposes ONLY because it is not funny.

Censor away Trent and keep up the positive, there are people in developed countries who look at maggots and say “oh good, protein!”

Andrea

I live a couple miles away from an Aldi’s and have shopped there on occasion, usually for non-perishables. And so far, I’ve not had a problem with those products. I’ve avoided their produce and perishable items from the day the store opened, though, because I get a gut feeling that they aren’t as fresh as they need to be. My sister-in-law shops there regularly and buys a wide variety of their products, which I’ve had occasion to sample at family gatherings. After that, I can say that I probably wouldn’t buy those same products myself, not because they’re spoiled, but because the quality is noticeably cheaper than even a store brand. Compare Heinz or Bush baked beans to the Aldi version, for example. Aldi’s tasted like navy beans in very watered down ketchup. Unappetizing!

What bugs me more than the products are the Aldi cashiers. Maybe it’s just this particular store, but every time I’ve visited, they hardly acknowledge my presence, make very minimal eye contact, always seem to be in a perpetually bad mood and in general seem to barely tolerate their customers.

Yes, I know their parent company also owns Trader Joe’s, but except for a few crossover products – for a couple weeks after it first opened, this Aldi’s had great deals on 2 pound bags of Jasmine and Basmanti rice – it bears no resemblance to it. It must have been their version of a marketing ploy, because I’ve not seen either kind of rice there since.

On the other hand, we do have another discount grocery chain in our area of western PA called Save-a-Lot. I will say that I also steer clear of buying frozen foods, meats or produce at this store, but for non-perishables and paper products, it’s great, and a less expensive alternative to our resident mega grocery chain, Giant Eagle.

Keep up the good work, Trent!

I recently ate at a Johnny Carinos, and my husband and I were sharing a salad. As he was eating, i noticed an aphid crawling on a lettuce leaf. Though the manager and waitress apologized profusely, they did NOTHING to make it right financially–they didn’t even comp the salad!!!

I think God has given us this defense mechanism to protect ourselves, so we should never feel guilty about it. Experience speaks a lot louder than logic a lot of the time.

The world is not a perfect place I am grateful that the majority of the time growing up I had food.

Before you burn ONE bad experience into your brain do remember they might just own other stores or chains like ALDI owns Trader Joe’s. Which has been previously mentioned but I will say it again since Trader Joe’s products have been supported on THIS site.

I agree with the posters who said “get over it” and it is all your “ego”. I feel the need to say shame on you Trent. There are people right now who need your help and encouragement not your ego or you personal bad experience judging where they acquire their food!

I have been reading your material since I saw it on MSN. I even posted here how I tell all my friends or anyone even breathing about finances to come to this site. Well, no more. I am too nauseated by my bad experience and will not be coming back!