12 Red Flags To Look Out For When Grocery Shopping At Aldi

There are plenty of things to love about Aldi. How affordable it is, how quickly the lines go down, and how great so many of their products are. But that's not to say it doesn't have some flaws, and it has some quirks that can make the shopping experience less than perfect. There are some red flags to look out for when grocery shopping at Aldi, and being aware of them lets you know what to expect. And, in some cases, you might be able to solve the problems before they arise.

Aldi might not be perfect but there are some trade-offs that you have to make for those impressive prices. It might look like someone let you loose in a warehouse, but the fact that staff don't have to spend time unpacking boxes and stacking shelves means the savings can be passed on to the customer. Here are some of the not-so-great things about Aldi, which might put some people off.

It's your first time at Aldi and you traipse up and down the aisles searching for Pepsi or Cap'n Crunch only to come up empty handed. What gives? Well, one red flag to be aware of at Aldi is that you'll find almost no name brand products. Occasionally there might be a special on a brand you know and love but mostly the products seem to be from manufacturers you've never heard of, like L'oven Fresh, Benton's, and Simply Nature. Strange.

But there's a reason why you'll almost never see name brands at Aldi. The supermarket chain primarily sells its own private label products. These are products that were made by Aldi — or made for Aldi by various food manufacturers and sold under one of its private label food brands. It might seem like this means there's no consistent quality, or that the products will all be low quality budget alternatives to the real deal but this isn't the case. Aldi private label products are rigorously tested against similar products to ensure their quality. They have a good reputation and sometimes come out ahead of brand names in blind taste tests. Aldi likes being able to control the quality of the items it sells.

And there's another bonus to the private label products: they're cheaper. Aldi is the one commissioning the products so it can afford to sell them for less. It also saves space on the shop floor because only one type of Dijon mustard or salted chips needs to be displayed rather than offerings from 10 different brands.

There's a drawback to Aldi primarily selling its own private label brands: they're not all winners. Although the grocery store chain is known for its high-quality food offerings, it doesn't manage to hit every one out of the park. There are some low quality products hidden among the gems and it's hard to discern them unless you're in the know.

We looked at some of the highest and lowest quality foods you can buy at Aldi. While there are some amazing products that rival name brands and a bargain price — like Simply Nature organic apple cider vinegar and Earth Grown black bean chipotle burger — there are others best avoided. Millville toaster tarts are nothing compared to name brand Pop Tarts and Casa Mamita salsa con queso is mostly water with less than 2% salsa flavoring and not that much in the way of cheese.

So, one day you might find yourself telling anyone who will listen how great Aldi brand products are. And, the next, you're cursing your decision to go with anything but your favorite name brand. It can be a bit of a gamble, but the hits generally outweigh the misses.

Aldi has many great products but a red flag you should be aware of is that their produce is sometimes past its best. Rather than juicy, perfectly ripe fruits and crisp veggies, you might find yourself with limp broccoli or peaches that are a little too fuzzy.

You might go as far as saying that you should never buy your produce from Aldi. It gets such excellent reviews for so many of its foods but produce is where it lets people down. Although I've bought some great produce from Aldi, I've also had problems with fruits and veggies that have gone bad long before they should and I've encountered at least one carrot that you could practically put your finger through.

We're not saying that you should totally give the produce a miss — it's not all bad across the board. However, you should be aware of its limitations and pay attention when choosing it. Don't just pick up a bag of apples and toss it in your cart, look at each one carefully to check for bruises or soft spots. Also check the best-before date, where applicable, and avoid choosing anything that only has a couple of days on it.

The Aldi Finds section is better known as the middle aisle or the aisle of shame. It's that aisle where you can pick up everything from waffle makers to foot spas to drills, all at a discount price. However, the trouble is its offerings can be inconsistent.

You might see something you want in Aldi's weekly ads and turn up to your local store, only to be disappointed that it's nowhere in sight. These middle aisle bargains aren't guaranteed — and some can be downright hard to snap up. One of the facts only real Aldi fans know about the aisle of shame is that there's a best time to look for products. They're stocked in stores on Wednesdays, so that's the best time to find the most popular items. Some people show up first thing Wednesday morning but these items aren't always put out ahead of the start of the day. Times vary from store to store and sometimes they might not make it out until late on Wednesday. In this case, it's best to go on Thursday morning. You need to get to know the rhythms of your local store.

Aldi Finds has a big following online and people often go and stock up on multiple of the same item, although there are buying limits for popular ones. This plays a role in missing items. However, it's also the case that availability can vary by region. Some stores might not receive a huge number of certain items or they might get none at all.

Aldi isn't like any old supermarket. It's all about speed and productivity — and that extends to the checkout line. This means some customers aren't prepared for Aldi's bagging protocols. This can hold up the line. Or it can leave you feeling confused if you're the one who's unprepared.

While some grocery stores have grocery baggers or, at the very least you can pack your own bags at the register, this isn't the case at Aldi. The checkout area is designed so you can park your cart right up close to the cashier who scans items rapidly and loads them straight into the cart. You need to load heavy items onto the belt first so that they go in the cart first and don't crush other items. After paying, you take the cart over to the packing area to fill up your bags.

To further speed things up, you can swipe or tap your payment card while the cashier is still loading items into the cart. This helps keep things going quickly so Aldi doesn't need as many staff members and you can get your groceries cheaper.

Then there's the bags themselves. In most supermarkets, you can get your groceries bagged in paper for free. Things are changing due to single-use plastic bag bans in some states, but in some areas you can still get free plastic bags too. But free grocery bags are among the things you won't find at Aldi. So, if you rock up without a reusable bag on your person, you're going to have to pay.

When you show up to a grocery store, you don't expect to need cash to use the carts. But that's one of Aldi's toxic traits. Few things are free at this budget supermarket and while you don't have to pay to use the carts, you do need a quarter as a kind of deposit. This leaves many customers scrounging around for change, digging into pockets and checking down the back of car seats.

When you get to the row of carts, they're all chained together in a line, and inserting a quarter releases the one at the end. When you're done shopping and have loaded your groceries into your car, you return your cart, chain it back up, and the quarter you inserted is released. If you don't carry cash these days, you can buy tokens that do the same job.

The reason why Aldi makes customers pay to use its shopping carts isn't because it thinks that a quarter will stop someone stealing a cart if they want to. Rather, it's to encourage people to return them to the designated spots. This way, they don't end up littering the carpark and the store doesn't need to employ a member of staff just to wrangle them. This is yet another saving that can be passed on to customers.

The seafood at Aldi may be a red flag in and of itself. More and more of us are thinking carefully about where our food comes from and this grocery chain isn't hitting high standards about where it's sourced from. This is part of the reason why you should never buy seafood from Aldi.

Greenpeace has also found problems with the way Aldi sources its seafood. Even products labeled "sustainable" might not be. The albacore, particularly, isn't fished in a sustainable way, and there are also problems with the sourcing of salmon and shrimp.

If that wasn't enough, Aldi's Sea Queen brand of seafood may have indirectly funded the North Korean government and its nuclear weapons program. The brand was dealing with fisheries that regularly employ North Korean workers to cut costs, around 70% of whose salary goes to the North Korean state. But worse yet, these workers are subjected to awful conditions. Aldi cut these ties on learning the truth but that's a giant red flag if ever we saw one.

What's more, the quality just isn't all that great across the board. Buyers sometimes report that its frozen sushi is dry and lackluster. Plus, Aldi's salmon has tested positive for toxic chemicals, which isn't going to put it at the top of anyone's list.

Sometimes you'll head to Aldi and find the shelves understocked, especially in the Aldi Finds section. This can make your shopping trip seem like a wasted opportunity, however, the day of the week you shop at Aldi can make a big difference to your options. This is something you need to be aware of as a regular. It's frustrating, though, as you may end up planning your shopping trips around Aldi's schedule rather than your own.

Wednesday is the smartest day of the week to shop at Aldi. That's when the new offers in the weekly ad roll around. It's when you can pick up the best Aldi Finds products and also find fresh new deals on other products around the store. If you head there on Tuesdays, you might find the shelves looking a bit bare, especially in the aisle of shame and where the special offers are kept.

That said, it can vary slightly store-to-store. Some have the products out first thing on Wednesday, some a little later on Wednesday, and others start putting the products for Wednesday out on Tuesday night. So it can take a bit of trial and error working out how things go down where you live.

The first thing you might notice when shopping at Aldi is that it isn't as big as your average supermarket. It doesn't have the endless aisles of Target or the cavernous warehouse feel of Costco. Instead, it's much more compact and feels more manageable to whizz around in 30 minutes.

However, the smaller stores come at a disadvantage in some ways. It means they carry fewer products and there are some items you won't be able to pick up on your grocery trip. We already know that brand names are off the table, but there are some items you can't find in private label brands, either. Some of these might be specialty items, like porcini mushrooms or gluten-free muffins. But others are things that some people consider everyday fare, such as grits, tempeh, or certain varieties of legumes.

This means Aldi isn't a store where everyone can do their full monthly or weekly shop. Sure, there are people who can find everything on their grocery list from this supermarket chain but it's not true for everyone. Some folks may need to do a supplementary shop elsewhere.

You find an Aldi product that you can't get enough of, buying every time you go grocery shopping. Then, suddenly, it's gone. Frustratingly, product availability varies seasonally and between stores at Aldi, so there's no guarantee that something you love is always going to be there. Much like anything in life. It can be disappointing to fall in love with a product only to have it disappear on you.

Some Aldi products are just there for the season. For instance, you might find more pumpkin products in fall or Christmas cookies around the holidays. It's easier to come to terms with the fact that these won't always be available. Though, with any luck, they'll be back next year. The plus-side of this is that Aldi can stock more of the kinds of seasonal products you might be interested in at a particular time of year.

The more unpredictable thing is that product availability varies between stores. If a certain item sells badly, it might disappear from your local but still be sold at the Aldi two towns over, which is pretty annoying. There's not much you can do about that other than buy the products you love by the case to boost sales or convince your neighbors to try your favorite products too.

We all love getting something for nothing, which is why coupons are so great. There's a certain thrill to clipping them or searching them out online and coming home with a free or heavily discounted product. But Aldi doesn't do coupons. Well, then, perhaps you can get discounts or special offers from a reward card program. Sorry, that's a no, too. As yet, Aldi doesn't have any kind of reward system for its regular customers.

This might seem stingy but there's a good reason for it. By forgoing reward programs and coupons, Aldi can provide incredible value to all its shoppers. Its prices are consistently lower than other supermarkets and the only way it can do this is by cutting costs elsewhere, so coupons and reward cards are some of the things on the chopping block. Isn't it fairer to give all shoppers great value products rather than just the lucky few who've come across coupons?

There is an exception to this, though. You might find coupons and special discounts on the opening day of a store. So if there's an Aldi opening near you soon, get down there on day one. Aldi also has weekly discounts on selected products and starts reducing prices on items about five days before their use-by date, so these are great ways to save money.

For some people, a trip to Aldi is like a day out. You can gleefully stroll the aisle of shame, getting excited checking out all the new products and seasonal offerings. But, for a not-insignificant minority, a trip to Aldi is anxiety-inducing. If this is your experience, you're not alone. Aldi anxiety is real. A lot of people feel it and plenty of folks choose to avoid the chain for that reason.

There are plenty of factors that play into Aldi anxiety. There's the thing with the carts — making sure you've packed a quarter or searching around for change before you head out. Plus, the stores aren't necessarily well-organized and may be laid out differently to the supermarkets you're used to, so finding everything on your list can feel like an ordeal. And without music playing (which is a way to save money by not having to pay licensing fees), you might find the chatter from other shoppers echoing around. We've also already mentioned how the checkout people work at lightning speed and insist you pack your groceries elsewhere.

It's enough to make even the calmest person go into a tailspin. If you want to get over your Aldi anxiety, start slowly. Go on small trips there at first and maybe bring a friend for moral support. Maybe one who loves Aldi and can help you find things. But if you decide Aldi just isn't for you, that's okay as well.