Does Aldi Tweak its Products?

Image by Anana Vibe from Pixabay

Aldi is a famously secretive company, from its reclusive owners to its well-guarded business practices. What you see in the store is just the outer layer of an international corporate empire that continues to shake up the grocery business.

One thing we all know, though, is that Aldi is always changing. Whether it’s expanding its reach, remodeling stores, redesigning logos, or introducing new delivery methods, the company rarely stands still … and because it isn’t publicly traded, it can afford to innovate while looking at the long view.

Aldi products are also changing, and I’m not just talking about the rotating Aldi Finds section. A major part of the Aldi operation is contracting with vendors to provide the private labels that make up the vast majority of Aldi’s shelf space. I was once told, by a person with inside knowledge of Aldi’s operations, that vendors clamor for the right to take up Aldi shelf space, with literally thousands of products filling up Aldi corporate space for Aldi specialists to evaluate for possible inclusion in store inventory.

Here are some of the ways we’ve seen Aldi products change over the years.

Reformulated Food Products

The vast majority of Aldi food products are private labels: Millville, Clancy’s, Friendly Farms, and the like. Aldi contracts with companies to rebrand their products as Aldi products.

From time to time, we see Aldi tweak its food products. Maybe the taste changes. Or the texture. Or the preparation method. Or all of the above. Of course, we don’t know what’s going on behind the scenes. Is it because Aldi dropped one food vendor for another? Or because the vendor, in coordination with Aldi, decided to change the product? Was the motivation for the change based on consumer feedback? Or was it because of financial decisions, like the cost of the product? While we sometimes can speculate, we don’t always know, because Aldi doesn’t say.

Having covered Aldi products for a while now, I can say that, for the most part, Aldi tweaks tend to be an improvement. One of the more notable examples is Cheese Club Macaroni and Cheese Dinner, an Aldi imitation of the famed Kraft Macaroni and Cheese box with the cheese powder. When we first tested the Cheese Club version in 2017, we were not impressed, even after doctoring the mac and cheese with shredded cheese and other additions. However, at the urging of a commenter, we gave it a second shot in 2018 and found the new formula was a big improvement.

Occasionally, we’ve seen Aldi tweak its products in the wrong direction. Prior to 2019, Aldi sold Journey to India Tikka Masala Simmer Sauce, which we considered to be arguably the best jarred tikka masala simmer sauce we’d ever had, even compared to products we’ve purchased from international grocers that carry Indian products. Throughout 2019, though, Aldi either tweaked or changed suppliers, resulting in a tikka that was not nearly as good.

Redesigned Non-Food Products

Aldi runs a constant stream of new non-food products through its stores. The majority of those non-food products are Aldi Finds, which are only in stores for a short time. The rest are Regular Buy items that fit some essentials category, like toothbrushes, toilet paper, paper towels, soap, and laundry detergent.

We’ve seen tweaks to both of these product categories. On the Aldi Find front, we’ve seen both small and large adjustments to specific items that come into the store year after year. For example, many of Aldi’s camping supplies have undergone evolutions year after year, whether it’s adding a pillow section to a self-inflating sleeping mat or tweaking a camping cot’s design. Electronics are also a popular choice for product tweaking, such as what we’ve seen with Aldi’s various pressure cookers and air fryers.

On the Regular Buy front, we’ve seen changes, large and small, including tweaks and additions to toilet paper and paper towels. Over the years, for instance, we’ve seen Aldi make changes to its dishwasher pacs.

Rebranded Private Labels

Back in 2017, I wrote An Unofficial Guide to Shopping at Aldi, an eBook that included a list of Aldi house brands in one of the book’s appendices. When I revised the book in early 2019 as part of a second edition, I couldn’t help but note some of the private labels that changed in just a two-year period. They included:

• Heart to Tail, a pet care line, which combined Fine Feline and Shep, the Aldi dog product line
• Park Street Deli, which replaced some products in the Little Salad Bar line
• Earth Grown, a new vegan line that debuted in 2018
• Earthly Grains, a new rice and grain line
• Radiance, a cleaning supplies line mostly focused on dishwashing products that replaced Reeva
• Fremont Fish Market, a seafood line that replaced Sea Queen
• Bee Happy, a kids line that replaced the likes of Outdoor Active
• Simply Nature, which got a slight tweak from its original SimplyNature

Since then, we’ve seen other Aldi house brands appear or disappear. Aldi added Belavi and SOHL Furniture to headline its decor and furniture offerings. Another decor private label, CASALUX, first hit stores in 2023.

In addition, I’ve seen Aldi shift specific products from one label to another, such as relabeling the Adventuridge Hydration Backpack the Crane Hydration Backpack or moving a lap desk from the Easy Home line to the SOHL Furniture name. We’ve even seen instances where Aldi took a name brand product and rebranded it under a house brand label.

Repriced, Repackaged, or Resized Products

Virtually every grocer does these three things. Prices change, packaging changes, and sizing can change, too. Aldi is no different. We’ve seen prices fluctuate — something we try to track with some Aldi Finds — but we’ve also seen Aldi engage in a widespread industry practice known as product shrinking, where the grocer will sell a slightly smaller edition of the same product for the same price as the larger version. And, of course, Aldi frequently redesigns its product packaging, usually in a way that looks awfully like their national brand counterparts. (Sometimes Aldi even copies their competitors a little too well.)

Dropped or Replaced Products

Finally I can’t help but note that, sometimes, Aldi’s tweak of a product is to discontinue it altogether.

Aldi Find electronics seem to be a common casualty. Way back in 2016, we profiled a Medion Desktop PC and Monitor, and later a Medion Laptop and Tablet. While Medion — a subsidiary of Chinese tech company Lenovo — continues to manufacture products for Aldi US, we haven’t seen a computer or tablet since then. Another electronic example: the Sempre Digital Weather Station, which was in stores for years, disappeared for good after 2017, possibly on the heels of problems with that year’s model. Same with the Easy Home Robotic Vacuum.

Food items can be demoted in one way or another. For example, Bake House Creations Pie Crusts went from being an everyday Regular Buy to a holiday Seasonal Item. Likewise, Lunch Mate Never Any! Lunch Meats disappeared entirely at some point several years ago. We’ve seen a few non-food Regular Buys meet the same fate: in 2020 Aldi dropped its line of Radiance cleaning sprays, never to be heard from again. 

We’ve also seen seen niche food Aldi Finds be a one-and-done sort of thing, like we did with the tasty Belmont Strawberry Piñata Cake back in 2016. And in 2023, Aldi stopped selling Season’s Choice Hash Brown Patties, replacing them with — for reasons unknown — the inferior Mydibel Hash Brown Patties. We don’t know yet if the Season’s Choice patties will make a return.

Final Thoughts:

One of the many things that’s interesting when it comes to writing about Aldi is just how much change the company engages in. There’s always something new, including on the shelves. While I like some of the changes more than others, Aldi continuing to tweak its lineup is an ever-present reality.

Time will tell what new product changes happen in the years to come.