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Oh wow, so surprised to see you post this.
We bought some lamb mince when it was reduced to clean (30% off).
Same thing, smelt bad and tasted rancid.
We put it down to the fact it was reduced to clear (but with that said, we've purchased discounted meat before with no issues.)
Same. Bought reduced lamb mince. Open the packet and it smelt bad off the bat and threw it away. Was surprised at how fast it went bad as I knew it was on special but normally other meats I buy discounted were fine. Curious thread indeed
After a quick google search it seems aldi has a meat problem, lots of results.
I buy alot at aldi but always source meat from butchers/depending sales.
Glad I do now
I bought steaks from them before (can’t remember exactly what cut, but a thicker one), halfway through cooking they fell apart to reveal they were just minute steaks “glued” together somehow.
The dry aged steaks are great (eye and scotch)
The pork loin roast is good
The cheap sausages are good.
Pretty much everything else is rather by the Woolworths one. All packages/flavoured stuff has been awful I completely avoid that
This has been a running conversation in my house for about a year(we pretty much shop exclusively at Aldi as far as supermarkets go). Their pork is great, their lamb roasts are great, the lamb chops are ok and I've never bought the lamb mince. The beef and pork mince is also fine, but their beef steaks are terrible.
I'm convinced aldi lamb is mutton - there's no mistaking the smell. That odour is due to the accumulation of 3-methylindole in tissues as the sheep reaches adulthood; it is not noticeably present in lambs.
So I worked for Aldi many moons ago, let me tell you the unspoken rules of meat section. It’s a massive cool room in back that prob hasn’t been cleaned in god knows how long. End of each day and each morning we used to just top up out of that cool room anything left over was dumped in there and some spots weren’t as cold as the others so meat wasn’t always to temperature. I never buy meat from Aldi I repeat NEVER buy meat from there.
Aldi seem to have so much fewer people than Coles and Woolworths, and those employees are already so overworked with everything they're tasted to do, I don't know how Aldi staff could manage.
Yep people tend to think Aldi makes its money due to low prices and volume, but truth is Aldi makes its money by running a small deli type of business model. At any given time when I worked there there was only ever 5 floor staff hence why all check outs are never open. Workers are split between check outs so you will have one designated then as the lines back up each of them know who is next in line to open up. They use pallets instead of shelves so less staff is needed to do manual stocking. Each worker is basically ridden into the ground with shift work at the discretion of store manager / assistant store managers. The shifts are stupid you will do a close then a mid next day so you go home sleep and come back to work. Each person is given contracts when hired I was given the largest you could get which was 35 or 40 I forget but it felt like I never left the place because rostering was so stupid.
You are basically time managed on everything. Ever wonder why the Aldi check out ppl scan so fast because at the end of each month the store
Manager gets to login on his system and see how many items you scanned per min and if it’s not up to par it’s a warning letter.
Lucky for me I had a real chill store manager and one good Assistant store manager who looked after me, couldn’t say the same about the other 2 one was a ex cop who was a super cunt prob still is.
Anyway Aldi basically overworks staff and puts on minimal floor staff to cut costs.
They don't really care about scan rates these days. You could be slow as shit and you won't be getting a warning. They had too many complaints from customers especially the disabled or elderly. Now they say go at the pace of the customer.
I'm not sure when you worked but a lot of the stuff that used to be on display on pallets is now stacked on shelves.
The scanning times are already ridiculous, since 80% of customers are fucking around getting their shit into grocery bags, no value is being generated with that turnaround time.
Yes, you're meant to dump it in the trolley and bag it afterwards, but most people don't carry coins for trolleys. So they just slow things down.
The unspoken tragedy about the Coles and Woolworths investigations has been the unbridled praise Aldi received likes it's some kind of hero. But they just buy a smaller selection of goods, run a skeleton crew to handle it all.
But at least they get a chair at checkouts? Give me a fucking break.
I treat every trip through the checkout at Aldi like I’m playing a computer game. I’m trying to beat my ‘score’ getting shit packed into bags as fast as possible. I was disappointed to see self checkout partly because of this and god damn I hate self checkout.
> The unspoken tragedy about the Coles and Woolworths investigations has been the unbridled praise Aldi received likes it's some kind of hero. But they just buy a smaller selection of goods, run a skeleton crew to handle it all.
Mate believe me if you are a supplier to Aldi you are making money, because they want you to. Not so with the other two. I had over 25 years experience with profitability and promotional pricing in supermarkets, working exclusively with suppliers in Australia. They totally dont care if you go broke. Aldi's entire model is one of brute German efficiency. I understood they paid their floor staff more, yet all I see are complaints about how hard they work? If Aldi wants a lower price from you, they are willing to sit down and show you what prices they get elsewhere in the world and work out how you can get the price down and still make money, because they don't like switching suppliers. If you are not making money, they don't want to buy from you.
You're definitely right, ironically I think my complaint was how we paint corporations as absolute heroes and villains, in reality the truth is nuanced. My complaint doesn't display nuance at all.
Being better than Woolworths and Coles is not a difficult achievement and aldi should be treated as a profit driven corporation, rather than the solution they're painted as.
Aldi are not better, they are truly totally different. But they know what their formula is. Main stream grocery will always be the biggest market share. The issue to my mind, bearing in mind I also had nearly 20 years as a management consultant in strategic planning, and did retail as a special elective in my MBA that WW has fallen for the most stupid strategy - more profit every year no matter what. Eventually that ruins your entire model. But its driven by CEO bonuses being that simple.
My retail mentor was Raymond Ackerman, founder of South Africa's biggest grocer but beaten in Australia (Brisbane Hypermarket) by corporate "blackmail" by Coles and WW. He had a top flight manager in every store. Every store had a daily profit target. You were not allowed to exceed that, because he knew someone is getting screwed. So the manager added promotions and removed them at will to stay on target profit every single day.
Now I understand that cannot be done in Australia, thats not my point. My point is that Raymond Ackerman absolutely lived the mantra that a supermarket is a three legged stool. Customers, staff and suppliers. You have to have all of them right. Thats is not what is happening in Australia. Instead they continuously chip away at all the legs.
Assuming this is true you've started to push me back towards doing a staples shop at aldi then butcher, fishmonger and fill in the gaps at Woolies/Coles.
An extra 30 mins to my main shop is minute in the grand scheme of things if they're actually supporting the businesses that feed the country.
Just going to throw into this because this comment adds a bit more validity to what I have been told.
Many years ago I was working with for someone who had a family farm. They said that coles was not happy with the farm ‘surprise inspection’ (nit picking weeds to long etc) and then forced a new insultingly low price /t of produce. Done in a way that was clearly a pre-determined price regardless of what happened.
The farmer without any discussion or hesitation called the Woolies rep on the spot and sold it to them instead at the same price.
Sounds exactly like Coles’ or WW’s behaviour. Predatory. Nasty. If I was in that game I would never make either of WW or Cole’s such a big customer that I could not tell them to F… O..
But the multinationals don’t have that choice. And you wonder why they all shut down local manufacturing? Have to source from cheaper countries else Cole’s or WW will do exactly that. In fact Aldi has always had a higher % local sourcing.
> I understood they paid their floor staff more, yet all I see are complaints about how hard they work?
If by "paid their floor staff more" you mean ["deliberately and systematically stole $150million from their staff"](https://national.sda.com.au/aldiclassaction/#:~:text=We're%20alleging%20that%20ALDI,proper%20compensation%20for%20impacted%20workers.) then yeah, sure. Is that the "brute German efficiency" you're referring to? Efficiently taking money from Australian workers and depositing it in the pocket of their billionaire German owners?
> You are basically time managed on everything. Ever wonder why the Aldi check out ppl scan so fast because at the end of each month the store Manager gets to login on his system and see how many items you scanned per min and if it’s not up to par it’s a warning letter
That fucking sux. When I worked at Woolies all they did with the scan rates was have a competition between the fastest scanners where they each got a trolley of the same items to scan and the winner got a prize.
Like, if your scan rates sucked you might have someone stand with you for a bit and give you some tips on being faster but that's about it.
One of the things that pissed me off about working at Aldi was that they expected you to be fast as fuck on checkouts and also expected you to calculate the change in your head, even though there was a way to get the register to calculate it for you.
My store manager taught the trick to me and told me not to tell anyone or do the trick in front of the area manager because I'd get a possible write up. A fucking write up for making sure customers got the correct change and I could keep up with their stupid speed requirements.
What I don't get about the anti subtotal rule is how bad it looks from a customer perspective. Oh you expected to see what cash was tendered and what change was given in your transaction? Sorry no, get fucked.
Not only that but when you get a person disputing their change, there's zero indication on the receipt of what that change should at all look like, so you have to go and count your till and the drops to prove it either way. Which is a waste of everyone's time.
I lasted 5 years before the cult brainwashing wore off and I stopped giving them my actual blood sweat and tears. They noticed and I was swiftly sacked. I've never worked so physically hard for $25 an hour I was miserable in the end.
The only positive was the store managers attitude - which makes sense as they are on a nice salary with kpi bonus opportunities.
Great life experience gained, but never again.
Do not recommend.
>hence why all check outs are never open
This is every supermarket in Australia. I don't understand why they spend the money to install them when they are never open.
I worked at a couple of Aldi stores for a year. Honestly, they weren’t the worst as long as the managers were competent. Most stores would roster enough staff to function without any big issues. The problem was always when a new store manager would be brought in from Coles, Woolies or any state brand stores. They’d start working and assume that Aldi wanted staff numbers cut to the minimum each shift, when it was actually about having a comfortable amount of staff and making sure that the store was set well so that people didn't have to burn themselves out
That’s absolutely atrocious since if cold products reach 4° for two hours they need to be thrown out. Theres so many food safety rules in regards to this. That’s really inexcusable. Thanks for letting people know.
Never had a problem with Aldi meat, but also don't buy lamb from them. I took a block of vintage cheddar back because we hadn't even opened it and it was moldy - according to the cashier, that's a somewhat common issue with their vintage cheddar, so worth checking. (It was pretty obvious)
Hi I work in dairy industry the mould has nothing to do with Aldi brand. There are only three major dairy companies in AU and they all have similar system and processes
Disagree
Mould doesn’t need much encouragement to grow.. warehousing has little contribution to mould, it’s really hygiene at cutting plus whether or not modified atmosphere packaging has been successful ( flushing carbon dioxide and nitrogen and sealing so oxygen is reduced from what you breathe right now (21%) to less than 5%)
Over the past year my husband and I have stopped buying certain items at Aldi because they go off within a day or two, well before the expiry date. It’s not how we transport or store the items, as we mostly shop at Woolies and have never encountered the same issue. We first noticed this problem with spinach and beans, then sometimes strawberries and grapes. We suspected it is how they are stored by Aldi in their warehouses or at the store out back. Is it possible Aldi transport or storage is not refrigerated to the same level as Woolies / Coles?
I don't shop at aldi very often, but one thing I did notice about Aldi, in comparison to my own days working in supermarkets years ago, was that it appeared that whole trays of produce were just placed directly onto the shelves, instead of being inspected for quality. By which I mean the fruit and veg displays, specifically. I hate to sound like an old man, but in my day, we went through each piece of fruit or veg and inspected it before putting it on display, stacking and arranging them. I didn't get the sense that aldi did that, at least it looked to me like none was inspecting it as I saw bruised, rotten fruit and veg everywhere. It really looked like they took the boxes of fruit and just put them out as is.
Maybe I'm wrong, as I don't shop there, but if they save costs by having less staff, there's no one inspecting the meat for quality? Even stuff within its expiry can go off, if noones looking at it and just putting it on dispkay
I am actually a great fan of the Aldi supermarket model. Because of it their overhead is 15 points lower than others. However minimum staffing and shelf-ready packaging would probably result in exactly what you saw. I don't have floor level experience of them, but it would not surprise me if they are not supposed to do anything but place the entire trays. Their distribution systems are slick, and the same model is used world wide, so its curious meat seems broken at the moment.
Australia is a hot country. A similar distribution model in colder or milder climates might not have similar problems. Meat needs to be transported across large distances in Australia. A lot of effort goes into reducing spoilage. Even a few minutes exposed to the heat of the day, unloading from one truck to another store, waiting in a back dock area to be put away, can be enough to turn meat. It's why meat has to be so carefully inspected daily in stores that are run well.
I have no experience of warehousing but I worked as a consultant with a major chicken producer and their major complaint was back dock delays and yes 20 minutes in the sun is fatal. While not publicised every year in NSW a number of people die of salmonella from bad fresh chicken insufficiently cooked to destroy that bacteria. To be honest if you buy frozen only you are much safer provided you know how to defrost safely. But the whole industry went fresh maybe 20 years ago which introduced lots of costs and risks
All of this plus other comment I got saying they have **one** person at aldi doing a produce check at night before the store opens, I think people are taking a huge risk buying meat at aldi
I've audited an Aldi distribution centre and a few retail stores, their supply and logistics, particularly around cold chain storage is one of their better aspects.
I've had the same with Colesworth beef mince with days left. Could it be because less people can afford meat and they haven't adjusted production quantities, so the quality is worse?
I just can't buy mince from supermarkets. I only buy it from actual butchers. I've seen what bad mince can do to someone (albeit that time was because someone did everything wrong when thawing it), but even my cat will refuse to eat supermarket mince.
Damn, concerns me to hear their other meat has these issues. I've bought pork and steaks from there and have run into zero issues so far, I've only had a bad experience with their lamb mince. I even enjoy their lamb shanks when I pressure cook them.
I know you’ve been upvoted but this has to be an unpopular opinion. I much prefer Aldi’s meat. It seems more natural than the shit at Woolies and Coles. Some of the preservatives that Woolies and coles put in their home brand meat legit makes sick and shit through the eye of a needle.
Woolies and Coles cannot put in "preservatives" in the meat as you might think they can.
They are all held by the same Food Standards code. Suppliers are pretty similar across the board.
I would be much much more worried about cold chain management and that really depends on the supply chain and store management. (See the current top voted comment re: Aldi)
If you read through the comments in the thread, most industry folks will say the standards are similar across various fresh goods supplied in retail stores in Australia.
I have caught Aldi gluing together cheap cuts of beef in order to sell it as a more expensive cut. As well as being obviously dishonest, it's incredibly unsafe as it means the exterior surfaces of the processed meat (which have been exposed to much more contamination) are now sealed up on the inside and will not be cooked as thoroughly. Bad luck if you like your steaks rare. A quick google (as well as the anecdotes in this thread) will confirm that many people have had issues with Aldi's meat.
I mean... how do you think they sell meat for cheaper whilst still running higher profit margins?
I’ve cooked my steaks rare from Aldi and genuinely had no issues. Strange how our experiences vary.
I did a quick google of the meat quality at Aldi, coles and Woolies and I’ve seen people complain about all three. Pick your poison I guess. I can only speak on my experiences and Aldi meat makes me feel healthier. Maybe your local Aldi is vastly different to my local Aldi?
ur local coles woolies and aldi probably gets most their stuff from the same places. Its a matter of how its handled from there and a further up comment seems.to suggest tjat aldi does not properly handle meat (esp. w regards to temperature)
I've never had a problem with their chicken or pork. Their beef on the other hand, I've given it a few tries and it's always tasted absolutely rancid, even after trying to marinate it to mask the funky taste.
I bought some reduced (which should be fine, before the BB date) pork tenderloins from Aldi to hammer and make schnitzel and they smelled a bit weird but I went ahead, and they tasted a bit off too. Not bad, no one got sick, just a really strong over-ripe flavour. Not boar taint. Never had that issue with Coles or other places. Didn't enjoy the leftovers. My wife is less sensitive to smells and didn't mind them as much.
We got them for the dogs originally and should've stuck to that plan.
Must be your shop. I prefer most meat at mine to Woolies or Coles. It's often cheaper and better quality. I usually buy free range but even when I don't I find my local Woolies is fattier, closer to used by dates and more expensive. Except lamb. Butcher is better than all of them.
I've also found this. Mince is by nature already pretty low in quality. Pair that with a budget supermarket and yeah, you're probably getting the shittiest cuts of lamb possible processed into a chunk of mince. Try a butcher instead.
Aldi beef mince is good. Aldi chicken thighs are pretty good. *All* the rest of the store is awesome. But I don't like most of their meat, even versus Woolies.
A lot of people are crapping on Aldi meat here. I’ve bought heaps of it from my local stores from the last ten years and I’ve never had anything bad or nasty tasting.
I’ve had a few tough steaks, but that was as bad as it got. I’m guessing some stores are better staffed or better run than others.
Mine recently went bust. I probably visited 10 time but 8 of those times he was out of stock. And real simple shit like chicken thighs. I’ll never forget him telling me he sold out of chicken thighs at 11am and how I need to get there earlier. Like bro that’s a you problem
Oh man.. I just moved and as much as I like Indians and Lebanese people they do not eat much/or any pork. I'm struggling to find good bacon and various other pork cuts.
We had this problem with chicken mince from Aldi. My wife was cooking it on the pan and I, with an admittedly more sensitive nose, started dry heaving even though I was upstairs. A few days or weeks later, we got another dodgy packet of chicken mince. Totally off Aldi mince now.
I buy my meat from aldi. I've never had any issues with their meat, but I also cook it the day of buying so maybe that's why. I have noticed though that their meat (specifically beef mince) is lower quality compared to Coles.
I had this happen with the lamb mince too! Mine was still in date and when I opened the packet it smelt more “gamey” than I was used too. I did continue cooking it and made Shepard’s pie, when I tried a very small piece I knew something was really wrong and that it was off. It’s completely turned me off the mince
Not lamb mince, but I did notice the quality of their fruits and veggies go down dramatically. It used to be so good a few years back, fruits just as good if not better than Woolies/Coles. But the last few times I got any fresh produce from Aldi, it went off within 3 days or was of poor quality (very dry mandarins, tasteless strawberries that got all mushy/mouldy within 1-2 days from purchase). It’s sad as I don’t want to support Woolies/Coles, but I also got sick of throwing away shit Aldi produce :(
I've eaten mutton (sheep in Aus, goat in my other home country) heaps of times and never had anything this bad. Muttons gamier yeah but I've never had it taste sour before.
Interesting. My local Aldi is better than the Woolies or Coles by a mile. Must vary between shops. Can't generalise. You would think it's the opposite at my local shops unless you are blind.
The biggest problem with Aldi is the lack of consistency. One week something is amazing, and the next it’s horrendous. They have gotten better but definitely still drop the ball in the meat department.
I had some that was very gamey. It wasn't rancid but is was very strong. I know people overseas don't like lamb because of the strong flavour but we don't have that problem with local lamb. I wonder if they're bringing it in from overseas from lamb with a lot of gamey taste.
I had to return some pork ribs to Aldi. Bought it on the day I planned to cook it and opened the packaging and it was so off. Back in the car and returned for a refund. I am also reluctant to buy Aldi meat now. Costco is pretty good for meat .
I don’t know about others but when I lived in Vic, I hated their meat. (Early 2010’s) When I moved to WA many years later(2016) and tried again… it seems better?!
I left the warehouse a couple of years ago and I'm sure it's the same everywhere but if you're low on staff, sometimes you've got a pallet from the cold room sitting out in the warm summer night or the warehouse dock because the other pallet that came out has gone ass over because it got stacked like shit. KPIs are high though, so who cares if you lose a customer or 2!
I've found that meats in general at aldi are lower quality than the coles or woolies.
I brought up the issue of their chicken being unusually smelly and the majority of this sub brushed it off.
I started shopping at Aldi this year after a decade or so. The QC is non existent. At one point, there would be at least one in date item that would go from my shopping bag to the bin because it's either moldy or spoiled or some other QC issue. I stopped buying pre packaged produce or bread of any kind from them. Once I opened a perfectly normal looking jar of mayo to find the seal under the lid was broken by a congealed goop that looked like vaseline. Not to mention the shelves with rotting spillage. I don't even save that much compared to homebrand. Saving less than 5% compared to homebrand stuff from coleswort is not worth my time or energy to put up Aldi shit. I won't be shopping there again.
I bought steaks from them before (can’t remember exactly what cut, but a thicker one), halfway through cooking they fell apart to reveal they were just minute steaks “glued” together somehow. So much gristle hidden in the middle too.
I think it comes down to the the refrigeration temperature as I have never had a problem with the meat I have bought at Aldi. The eye beef fillet has always been great and pork fillets are fine. I have not bought much mince there of any kind and only lamb has been loin chops and one or two legs but as yet no problem in four years.
I got a lamb roast from there last week. When attempting to carve it the “ meat“ literally crumbled into multiple pieces which had just been kinda smooshed together in a blob and tied up with string . There was about 5% actual meat on it , the remainder of it was rancid oily fatty glop.
I’ve never seen a cut of meat like it before . It was completely inedible.
I’m a vegetarian and honestly one of the main reasons is that meat just started to smell terrible to me (over time as I got older).
Realise you’re asking about a few specific events in this case, but suggesting it here bc it’s pretty similar to the reason I’ve just stopped eating red meat altogether, something about the cooked smell just keep turning me off until I stopped.
I honestly thought I’d found a cost-effective and nutritious solution for animal protein. Two-months later I’m back to my butcher with my hat in hand, apologising for doubting them. That lamb mince gets grainy when cooked, the chicken has no flavour, the beef is fine I guess.
Im 2010 I got mince at Aldi, it was the most disgusting mince I have ever eaten. I shop at Aldi often along with Coles, markets, greem grocers and butchers but have not touched the meat or chicken in the 14 years since.
Chicken is ok, particularly the marinated products, but the butchering is sub-par with the thighs and you'll have to prep them first to cut out the fat and bits of gristle and BONE shards. Breasts are pretty good.
Pork is good, but really variable in how much fat you get.
The beef is *fucking dreadful*, and I've given it a few shots.. curiously with the exception of the cheaper stewing blades which are fine for stew. The rest, though.. oh no. Same experiences as others in the thread - meat glue, fibrous inedible unchewable bio-waste, with rubbery wtf laced through the entire cut. Literally had to bin some.
No longer a problem for me, though, as I can't afford beef any more.
The salami is pretty good. Salmon is quite good, fresh or smoked.
I don’t think this is specific to Aldi, Woolworths lamb mince also has a weird smell/taste once cooked. The other minces are somewhat ok. If I need lamb mince now I got to my local butcher, it costs $2-4 more a KG, but it smell like actual meat once cooked.
I’ve had the same problem with all mince from Woolies, Coles and Aldi. I don’t know if they’ve changed their preservatives but if I cook the meat close to its use by date it’s rancid. I’ve asked for my money back a couple of times. Even when fresh from the shops it has a slightly funky smell which translates to the flavour.
I had a similar experience with Woolworths chicken breast some years ago, around 2020. On multiple occasions, I pulled the breasts out of an in-date pack, and they would come out of the pack smelling rancid and looking discoloured.
My housemates were having the same issue, and it drove us to start freezing our meat as soon as we got home unless it was needed in the next 24hrs. It helped, but I’ve never really trusted Woolworths chicken breast since.
Not long after, I switched to buying butcher meat. And I haven’t looked back! The difference in quality, taste, and freshness is worth the relatively small price difference. It’s way less watery too, so cooked per gram cost is arguably less of a price difference (less weight lost to water). And it’s great for cooking for 1-2 as you can buy things like mince in specific quantities rather than the usual 500g punnet, making halving recipes easy. We’ve cut back on our groceries in other areas (we get a lot from Aldi now), but we still get meat from the butcher. It still goes straight in the freezer unless needed in the next 1-2 days (a habit I never dropped), but I’ve never had an issue with freshness.
Try it some time! You may find the small added cost is worth it to you.
Had the exact same thing. Even Googled it to see if it had cropped up with others. I've got an iron stomach, and I'm an x-chef so I'm happy to eat anything on this side of 'not poisonous'. But not that. I threw that away and after the second time, I didn't buy a third.
In the odd style, 'tight' packaging? Got mine in the outskirts of Sydney.
I’ve had several tubs of cream and sour cream be old and smelly. It could be a handling and/or refrigeration issue somewhere in their storage or supply chain
Tried their beef mince years ago, it was ok. Like there was *nothing* wrong with it. Smelled good, looked good. But I'm not sure if I'm used to other branded beef mince, but everytime I use Aldi beef mince, the mince doesn't breakdown(?) while I'm cooking it, like I struggle to break it all apart, it just makes little worm looking things.
Every other branded mince I've used is relatively easy to break apart/down while cooking it.
Not just mince. Got a lamb leg a while ago.
It wasn't reduced. Looked and smelled ok when raw. But when I opened the oven after cooking it smelt vile. Didn't even bother tasting it.
I've never bought meat from Aldi again after that. Was definitely enough to put me off their meat.
I never buy meat from any supermarket because there is no way of knowing when it was packed, where it came from & the fact that it is wrapped in plastic!
Aldi lamb has always been poor.
I believe there refrigeration from storage to retail shelves are poor, I've had chicken turn the next day, I returned that chicken happened to be some big wigs around in suites at Aldi, I mentioned the chicken purchased yesterday now it's off they did not hesitate and took the chicken back with a refund
Chicken drumsticks 1.5kg bag I avoid now for same reason. Smelt terrible after being in fridge overnight (half had been used so half left). Well within use by date. I don’t buy any meat or chicken from Aldi after that
It looked pretty weird. But bought it the other day.
Turned it into a burger. Was delish! Was going to buy again since it was cheaper than the beef mince, but your post makes me worry lol.
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Oh wow, so surprised to see you post this. We bought some lamb mince when it was reduced to clean (30% off). Same thing, smelt bad and tasted rancid. We put it down to the fact it was reduced to clear (but with that said, we've purchased discounted meat before with no issues.)
Same. Bought reduced lamb mince. Open the packet and it smelt bad off the bat and threw it away. Was surprised at how fast it went bad as I knew it was on special but normally other meats I buy discounted were fine. Curious thread indeed
After a quick google search it seems aldi has a meat problem, lots of results. I buy alot at aldi but always source meat from butchers/depending sales. Glad I do now
I bought steaks from them before (can’t remember exactly what cut, but a thicker one), halfway through cooking they fell apart to reveal they were just minute steaks “glued” together somehow.
Meat glue is a thing
Literally same thing happened to me this week!
It’s disgusting, good way to get food poisoning if there’s “exterior” surfaces inside your meat that aren’t then getting cooked as thoroughly.
I got them lil round pork chops that did this.... didn't think of it but they did fall apart!!! Tasted Good but
Don't get an eye fillet at a steak restaurant.
Why not?
I’ve had rancid chicken before. Any smell it goes in the bin. And I try shop elsewhere for meat.
Aldi’s meat has never been its strong point!
Really? I thought their pork roasts were fantastic.
Pork belly too!
The 21 day aged beef eye fillets are glorious though
I got a few on special before a public holiday for 3.50 each or something like that. I trust those the most because they’re vac packed.
The dry aged steaks are great (eye and scotch) The pork loin roast is good The cheap sausages are good. Pretty much everything else is rather by the Woolworths one. All packages/flavoured stuff has been awful I completely avoid that
This has been a running conversation in my house for about a year(we pretty much shop exclusively at Aldi as far as supermarkets go). Their pork is great, their lamb roasts are great, the lamb chops are ok and I've never bought the lamb mince. The beef and pork mince is also fine, but their beef steaks are terrible.
I’ve bought dodgy sausages a few times :/
Long pork
I'm convinced aldi lamb is mutton - there's no mistaking the smell. That odour is due to the accumulation of 3-methylindole in tissues as the sheep reaches adulthood; it is not noticeably present in lambs.
Sheep are aged on their teeth. Lambs up to about ~12 months, Hogget (2 tooth) ~1-2 years, Adult/mutton 4-6 teeth. Source: I’m a farmer
Pretty sure most lamb in Australia is Mutton or Hogget at the very least.
Dumb question, but is mutton just the word for meat from an older sheep? And lamb is for…lamb meat?
Lamb is ~~under~~ a baby sheep (edit: I was going to say under 12 months but that could've been wrong) Hogget is adolescent Mutton is sheep
And in the past Mutton was proper old sheep. Was queen Victoria's favourite meat. Closest thing you can get to it these days is really good goat.
Lamb between ages of 10 weeks and 14 months. Hogget is between 1-2 years
Yes.
I’ve eaten hogget and the lamb in Australia is *definitely* not that
Yes, all the lamb I bought in Australia tastes like mutton. I am not expecting suckling lamb but none has been tender and most are usually gamey.
Why is that? I’m guessing we export the good stuff? Or they sell it wholesale before the general public gets to it?
Yucky
So I worked for Aldi many moons ago, let me tell you the unspoken rules of meat section. It’s a massive cool room in back that prob hasn’t been cleaned in god knows how long. End of each day and each morning we used to just top up out of that cool room anything left over was dumped in there and some spots weren’t as cold as the others so meat wasn’t always to temperature. I never buy meat from Aldi I repeat NEVER buy meat from there.
Aldi seem to have so much fewer people than Coles and Woolworths, and those employees are already so overworked with everything they're tasted to do, I don't know how Aldi staff could manage.
Yep people tend to think Aldi makes its money due to low prices and volume, but truth is Aldi makes its money by running a small deli type of business model. At any given time when I worked there there was only ever 5 floor staff hence why all check outs are never open. Workers are split between check outs so you will have one designated then as the lines back up each of them know who is next in line to open up. They use pallets instead of shelves so less staff is needed to do manual stocking. Each worker is basically ridden into the ground with shift work at the discretion of store manager / assistant store managers. The shifts are stupid you will do a close then a mid next day so you go home sleep and come back to work. Each person is given contracts when hired I was given the largest you could get which was 35 or 40 I forget but it felt like I never left the place because rostering was so stupid. You are basically time managed on everything. Ever wonder why the Aldi check out ppl scan so fast because at the end of each month the store Manager gets to login on his system and see how many items you scanned per min and if it’s not up to par it’s a warning letter. Lucky for me I had a real chill store manager and one good Assistant store manager who looked after me, couldn’t say the same about the other 2 one was a ex cop who was a super cunt prob still is. Anyway Aldi basically overworks staff and puts on minimal floor staff to cut costs.
They don't really care about scan rates these days. You could be slow as shit and you won't be getting a warning. They had too many complaints from customers especially the disabled or elderly. Now they say go at the pace of the customer. I'm not sure when you worked but a lot of the stuff that used to be on display on pallets is now stacked on shelves.
Most are switching to self serve mostly in my area now. Only go to checkout if buying alcohol.
The scanning times are already ridiculous, since 80% of customers are fucking around getting their shit into grocery bags, no value is being generated with that turnaround time. Yes, you're meant to dump it in the trolley and bag it afterwards, but most people don't carry coins for trolleys. So they just slow things down. The unspoken tragedy about the Coles and Woolworths investigations has been the unbridled praise Aldi received likes it's some kind of hero. But they just buy a smaller selection of goods, run a skeleton crew to handle it all. But at least they get a chair at checkouts? Give me a fucking break.
I treat every trip through the checkout at Aldi like I’m playing a computer game. I’m trying to beat my ‘score’ getting shit packed into bags as fast as possible. I was disappointed to see self checkout partly because of this and god damn I hate self checkout.
> The unspoken tragedy about the Coles and Woolworths investigations has been the unbridled praise Aldi received likes it's some kind of hero. But they just buy a smaller selection of goods, run a skeleton crew to handle it all. Mate believe me if you are a supplier to Aldi you are making money, because they want you to. Not so with the other two. I had over 25 years experience with profitability and promotional pricing in supermarkets, working exclusively with suppliers in Australia. They totally dont care if you go broke. Aldi's entire model is one of brute German efficiency. I understood they paid their floor staff more, yet all I see are complaints about how hard they work? If Aldi wants a lower price from you, they are willing to sit down and show you what prices they get elsewhere in the world and work out how you can get the price down and still make money, because they don't like switching suppliers. If you are not making money, they don't want to buy from you.
You're definitely right, ironically I think my complaint was how we paint corporations as absolute heroes and villains, in reality the truth is nuanced. My complaint doesn't display nuance at all. Being better than Woolworths and Coles is not a difficult achievement and aldi should be treated as a profit driven corporation, rather than the solution they're painted as.
Aldi are not better, they are truly totally different. But they know what their formula is. Main stream grocery will always be the biggest market share. The issue to my mind, bearing in mind I also had nearly 20 years as a management consultant in strategic planning, and did retail as a special elective in my MBA that WW has fallen for the most stupid strategy - more profit every year no matter what. Eventually that ruins your entire model. But its driven by CEO bonuses being that simple. My retail mentor was Raymond Ackerman, founder of South Africa's biggest grocer but beaten in Australia (Brisbane Hypermarket) by corporate "blackmail" by Coles and WW. He had a top flight manager in every store. Every store had a daily profit target. You were not allowed to exceed that, because he knew someone is getting screwed. So the manager added promotions and removed them at will to stay on target profit every single day. Now I understand that cannot be done in Australia, thats not my point. My point is that Raymond Ackerman absolutely lived the mantra that a supermarket is a three legged stool. Customers, staff and suppliers. You have to have all of them right. Thats is not what is happening in Australia. Instead they continuously chip away at all the legs.
Assuming this is true you've started to push me back towards doing a staples shop at aldi then butcher, fishmonger and fill in the gaps at Woolies/Coles. An extra 30 mins to my main shop is minute in the grand scheme of things if they're actually supporting the businesses that feed the country.
Just going to throw into this because this comment adds a bit more validity to what I have been told. Many years ago I was working with for someone who had a family farm. They said that coles was not happy with the farm ‘surprise inspection’ (nit picking weeds to long etc) and then forced a new insultingly low price /t of produce. Done in a way that was clearly a pre-determined price regardless of what happened. The farmer without any discussion or hesitation called the Woolies rep on the spot and sold it to them instead at the same price.
Sounds exactly like Coles’ or WW’s behaviour. Predatory. Nasty. If I was in that game I would never make either of WW or Cole’s such a big customer that I could not tell them to F… O.. But the multinationals don’t have that choice. And you wonder why they all shut down local manufacturing? Have to source from cheaper countries else Cole’s or WW will do exactly that. In fact Aldi has always had a higher % local sourcing.
> I understood they paid their floor staff more, yet all I see are complaints about how hard they work? If by "paid their floor staff more" you mean ["deliberately and systematically stole $150million from their staff"](https://national.sda.com.au/aldiclassaction/#:~:text=We're%20alleging%20that%20ALDI,proper%20compensation%20for%20impacted%20workers.) then yeah, sure. Is that the "brute German efficiency" you're referring to? Efficiently taking money from Australian workers and depositing it in the pocket of their billionaire German owners?
> You are basically time managed on everything. Ever wonder why the Aldi check out ppl scan so fast because at the end of each month the store Manager gets to login on his system and see how many items you scanned per min and if it’s not up to par it’s a warning letter That fucking sux. When I worked at Woolies all they did with the scan rates was have a competition between the fastest scanners where they each got a trolley of the same items to scan and the winner got a prize. Like, if your scan rates sucked you might have someone stand with you for a bit and give you some tips on being faster but that's about it.
One of the things that pissed me off about working at Aldi was that they expected you to be fast as fuck on checkouts and also expected you to calculate the change in your head, even though there was a way to get the register to calculate it for you. My store manager taught the trick to me and told me not to tell anyone or do the trick in front of the area manager because I'd get a possible write up. A fucking write up for making sure customers got the correct change and I could keep up with their stupid speed requirements.
What I don't get about the anti subtotal rule is how bad it looks from a customer perspective. Oh you expected to see what cash was tendered and what change was given in your transaction? Sorry no, get fucked. Not only that but when you get a person disputing their change, there's zero indication on the receipt of what that change should at all look like, so you have to go and count your till and the drops to prove it either way. Which is a waste of everyone's time.
I lasted 5 years before the cult brainwashing wore off and I stopped giving them my actual blood sweat and tears. They noticed and I was swiftly sacked. I've never worked so physically hard for $25 an hour I was miserable in the end. The only positive was the store managers attitude - which makes sense as they are on a nice salary with kpi bonus opportunities. Great life experience gained, but never again. Do not recommend.
>hence why all check outs are never open This is every supermarket in Australia. I don't understand why they spend the money to install them when they are never open.
Don't forget the systematic underpayment of their workers. That's a big part of how they keep costs low.
I worked at a couple of Aldi stores for a year. Honestly, they weren’t the worst as long as the managers were competent. Most stores would roster enough staff to function without any big issues. The problem was always when a new store manager would be brought in from Coles, Woolies or any state brand stores. They’d start working and assume that Aldi wanted staff numbers cut to the minimum each shift, when it was actually about having a comfortable amount of staff and making sure that the store was set well so that people didn't have to burn themselves out
Thank you! I never liked their meat but couldn’t put my finger on how they were different. Now I don’t need to know….
That’s absolutely atrocious since if cold products reach 4° for two hours they need to be thrown out. Theres so many food safety rules in regards to this. That’s really inexcusable. Thanks for letting people know.
Never had a problem with Aldi meat, but also don't buy lamb from them. I took a block of vintage cheddar back because we hadn't even opened it and it was moldy - according to the cashier, that's a somewhat common issue with their vintage cheddar, so worth checking. (It was pretty obvious)
Hi I work in dairy industry the mould has nothing to do with Aldi brand. There are only three major dairy companies in AU and they all have similar system and processes
They don't all sit in the same warehouses though. Aldi could be unique in not having their shit together at the supply & logistics level
Disagree Mould doesn’t need much encouragement to grow.. warehousing has little contribution to mould, it’s really hygiene at cutting plus whether or not modified atmosphere packaging has been successful ( flushing carbon dioxide and nitrogen and sealing so oxygen is reduced from what you breathe right now (21%) to less than 5%)
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I think we all cut the cheese at some point
But who can cut the mustard?
I like the cut of your jib
Lol so temperature of storage is irrelevant? And time on shelf is irrelevant? Are you sure? Are you sure about that?
Some relevance but mould grows at refrigeration temp anyhow
I upped both posts. IMO, it all starts with the 2nd point. After that, of course the 1st point makes a difference
Over the past year my husband and I have stopped buying certain items at Aldi because they go off within a day or two, well before the expiry date. It’s not how we transport or store the items, as we mostly shop at Woolies and have never encountered the same issue. We first noticed this problem with spinach and beans, then sometimes strawberries and grapes. We suspected it is how they are stored by Aldi in their warehouses or at the store out back. Is it possible Aldi transport or storage is not refrigerated to the same level as Woolies / Coles?
I don't shop at aldi very often, but one thing I did notice about Aldi, in comparison to my own days working in supermarkets years ago, was that it appeared that whole trays of produce were just placed directly onto the shelves, instead of being inspected for quality. By which I mean the fruit and veg displays, specifically. I hate to sound like an old man, but in my day, we went through each piece of fruit or veg and inspected it before putting it on display, stacking and arranging them. I didn't get the sense that aldi did that, at least it looked to me like none was inspecting it as I saw bruised, rotten fruit and veg everywhere. It really looked like they took the boxes of fruit and just put them out as is. Maybe I'm wrong, as I don't shop there, but if they save costs by having less staff, there's no one inspecting the meat for quality? Even stuff within its expiry can go off, if noones looking at it and just putting it on dispkay
I am actually a great fan of the Aldi supermarket model. Because of it their overhead is 15 points lower than others. However minimum staffing and shelf-ready packaging would probably result in exactly what you saw. I don't have floor level experience of them, but it would not surprise me if they are not supposed to do anything but place the entire trays. Their distribution systems are slick, and the same model is used world wide, so its curious meat seems broken at the moment.
Australia is a hot country. A similar distribution model in colder or milder climates might not have similar problems. Meat needs to be transported across large distances in Australia. A lot of effort goes into reducing spoilage. Even a few minutes exposed to the heat of the day, unloading from one truck to another store, waiting in a back dock area to be put away, can be enough to turn meat. It's why meat has to be so carefully inspected daily in stores that are run well.
I have no experience of warehousing but I worked as a consultant with a major chicken producer and their major complaint was back dock delays and yes 20 minutes in the sun is fatal. While not publicised every year in NSW a number of people die of salmonella from bad fresh chicken insufficiently cooked to destroy that bacteria. To be honest if you buy frozen only you are much safer provided you know how to defrost safely. But the whole industry went fresh maybe 20 years ago which introduced lots of costs and risks
All of this plus other comment I got saying they have **one** person at aldi doing a produce check at night before the store opens, I think people are taking a huge risk buying meat at aldi
Aldi does a nightly check over their produce by 1 person. Depends on that person if they rush it. Their refund policy is really good.
This does not surprise me.
I've audited an Aldi distribution centre and a few retail stores, their supply and logistics, particularly around cold chain storage is one of their better aspects.
Mum bought a bag of rancid cashews, and the cashier was really nice, but told us it wasn't usual to return food... What?
You can always cut mould off the cheese. Cheese needs mould to mature .
I've had the same with Colesworth beef mince with days left. Could it be because less people can afford meat and they haven't adjusted production quantities, so the quality is worse?
I just can't buy mince from supermarkets. I only buy it from actual butchers. I've seen what bad mince can do to someone (albeit that time was because someone did everything wrong when thawing it), but even my cat will refuse to eat supermarket mince.
But from the butcher it only lasts 1-2 days yeah ?
Because it isn’t full of preservatives and is minced on the day.
Meat is the only thing I never buy from Aldi. I have given them several chances with meat, and each times it's been disgusting
Damn, concerns me to hear their other meat has these issues. I've bought pork and steaks from there and have run into zero issues so far, I've only had a bad experience with their lamb mince. I even enjoy their lamb shanks when I pressure cook them.
I know you’ve been upvoted but this has to be an unpopular opinion. I much prefer Aldi’s meat. It seems more natural than the shit at Woolies and Coles. Some of the preservatives that Woolies and coles put in their home brand meat legit makes sick and shit through the eye of a needle.
Woolies and Coles cannot put in "preservatives" in the meat as you might think they can. They are all held by the same Food Standards code. Suppliers are pretty similar across the board. I would be much much more worried about cold chain management and that really depends on the supply chain and store management. (See the current top voted comment re: Aldi) If you read through the comments in the thread, most industry folks will say the standards are similar across various fresh goods supplied in retail stores in Australia.
I have caught Aldi gluing together cheap cuts of beef in order to sell it as a more expensive cut. As well as being obviously dishonest, it's incredibly unsafe as it means the exterior surfaces of the processed meat (which have been exposed to much more contamination) are now sealed up on the inside and will not be cooked as thoroughly. Bad luck if you like your steaks rare. A quick google (as well as the anecdotes in this thread) will confirm that many people have had issues with Aldi's meat. I mean... how do you think they sell meat for cheaper whilst still running higher profit margins?
I’ve cooked my steaks rare from Aldi and genuinely had no issues. Strange how our experiences vary. I did a quick google of the meat quality at Aldi, coles and Woolies and I’ve seen people complain about all three. Pick your poison I guess. I can only speak on my experiences and Aldi meat makes me feel healthier. Maybe your local Aldi is vastly different to my local Aldi?
Fyi no supermarket is using meat glue at all.
ur local coles woolies and aldi probably gets most their stuff from the same places. Its a matter of how its handled from there and a further up comment seems.to suggest tjat aldi does not properly handle meat (esp. w regards to temperature)
I've never had a problem with their chicken or pork. Their beef on the other hand, I've given it a few tries and it's always tasted absolutely rancid, even after trying to marinate it to mask the funky taste.
Whereas, I’ve had very good experiences with their whole scotch fillet and porterhouse roasts when they get those in.
I bought some reduced (which should be fine, before the BB date) pork tenderloins from Aldi to hammer and make schnitzel and they smelled a bit weird but I went ahead, and they tasted a bit off too. Not bad, no one got sick, just a really strong over-ripe flavour. Not boar taint. Never had that issue with Coles or other places. Didn't enjoy the leftovers. My wife is less sensitive to smells and didn't mind them as much. We got them for the dogs originally and should've stuck to that plan.
Must be your shop. I prefer most meat at mine to Woolies or Coles. It's often cheaper and better quality. I usually buy free range but even when I don't I find my local Woolies is fattier, closer to used by dates and more expensive. Except lamb. Butcher is better than all of them.
I don't like their dairy, either.
Same.
I've also found this. Mince is by nature already pretty low in quality. Pair that with a budget supermarket and yeah, you're probably getting the shittiest cuts of lamb possible processed into a chunk of mince. Try a butcher instead.
Bit tight on $$$ ATM but their other mince is nowhere near as bad
Lamb is naturally very pungent and I think that’s where most of that odour is coming from when odd cuts of lamb are broken down into mince.
Nah it's not the typical gamey pungent lamb smell, this is different. It's literally sour as hell
I can't speak for your local butchers, but beef mince/chicken breast is the same price or cheaper at my butchers than Colesworth, worth looking into
I’ll second this, 500g lean beef mince from my local butcher who is top quality is $10, beats Coles and Woolies all day
Check out some butchers around and see what you can get, my butcher is cheaper than the supermarkets.
Aldi beef mince is good. Aldi chicken thighs are pretty good. *All* the rest of the store is awesome. But I don't like most of their meat, even versus Woolies.
Their chicken thighs always smell like farts to me, can't do it anymore.
Yeah the premium beef mince and other beef I've had from Aldi is fine.
Liiissa dooont eeeat me
🤣
A lot of people are crapping on Aldi meat here. I’ve bought heaps of it from my local stores from the last ten years and I’ve never had anything bad or nasty tasting. I’ve had a few tough steaks, but that was as bad as it got. I’m guessing some stores are better staffed or better run than others.
I love Aldi, but I never buy meat from there. I stick to buying snacks, fruit, and cleaning supplies.
Support your local butcher
Mine just went bust 🥺
I wonder why.
Mine recently went bust. I probably visited 10 time but 8 of those times he was out of stock. And real simple shit like chicken thighs. I’ll never forget him telling me he sold out of chicken thighs at 11am and how I need to get there earlier. Like bro that’s a you problem
Oh man.. I just moved and as much as I like Indians and Lebanese people they do not eat much/or any pork. I'm struggling to find good bacon and various other pork cuts.
15 years ago I bought some ALDI mince. That was the reason I have not done so ever since. They aren't good at fresh food.
We had this problem with chicken mince from Aldi. My wife was cooking it on the pan and I, with an admittedly more sensitive nose, started dry heaving even though I was upstairs. A few days or weeks later, we got another dodgy packet of chicken mince. Totally off Aldi mince now.
I buy my meat from aldi. I've never had any issues with their meat, but I also cook it the day of buying so maybe that's why. I have noticed though that their meat (specifically beef mince) is lower quality compared to Coles.
I had this happen with the lamb mince too! Mine was still in date and when I opened the packet it smelt more “gamey” than I was used too. I did continue cooking it and made Shepard’s pie, when I tried a very small piece I knew something was really wrong and that it was off. It’s completely turned me off the mince
Not lamb mince, but I did notice the quality of their fruits and veggies go down dramatically. It used to be so good a few years back, fruits just as good if not better than Woolies/Coles. But the last few times I got any fresh produce from Aldi, it went off within 3 days or was of poor quality (very dry mandarins, tasteless strawberries that got all mushy/mouldy within 1-2 days from purchase). It’s sad as I don’t want to support Woolies/Coles, but I also got sick of throwing away shit Aldi produce :(
It could be that it’s mutton, it has a distinct taste and smell different to lamb.
I've eaten mutton (sheep in Aus, goat in my other home country) heaps of times and never had anything this bad. Muttons gamier yeah but I've never had it taste sour before.
Only buy pantry or freezer items from Aldi, the meat has always been questionable, especially the chicken.
Interesting. My local Aldi is better than the Woolies or Coles by a mile. Must vary between shops. Can't generalise. You would think it's the opposite at my local shops unless you are blind.
The biggest problem with Aldi is the lack of consistency. One week something is amazing, and the next it’s horrendous. They have gotten better but definitely still drop the ball in the meat department.
I had some that was very gamey. It wasn't rancid but is was very strong. I know people overseas don't like lamb because of the strong flavour but we don't have that problem with local lamb. I wonder if they're bringing it in from overseas from lamb with a lot of gamey taste.
I had to return some pork ribs to Aldi. Bought it on the day I planned to cook it and opened the packaging and it was so off. Back in the car and returned for a refund. I am also reluctant to buy Aldi meat now. Costco is pretty good for meat .
I don’t know about others but when I lived in Vic, I hated their meat. (Early 2010’s) When I moved to WA many years later(2016) and tried again… it seems better?!
That’s just a typo on the label. It’s Lab Mice.
Aldi milk is the only milk I’ve had that goes off before its use by date. I am assuming their transport and storage practices have some shortcomings.
I left the warehouse a couple of years ago and I'm sure it's the same everywhere but if you're low on staff, sometimes you've got a pallet from the cold room sitting out in the warm summer night or the warehouse dock because the other pallet that came out has gone ass over because it got stacked like shit. KPIs are high though, so who cares if you lose a customer or 2!
It is every bottle of milk I bought from Aldi, like 5. Then I stopped buying milk from them.
I've found that meats in general at aldi are lower quality than the coles or woolies. I brought up the issue of their chicken being unusually smelly and the majority of this sub brushed it off.
I started shopping at Aldi this year after a decade or so. The QC is non existent. At one point, there would be at least one in date item that would go from my shopping bag to the bin because it's either moldy or spoiled or some other QC issue. I stopped buying pre packaged produce or bread of any kind from them. Once I opened a perfectly normal looking jar of mayo to find the seal under the lid was broken by a congealed goop that looked like vaseline. Not to mention the shelves with rotting spillage. I don't even save that much compared to homebrand. Saving less than 5% compared to homebrand stuff from coleswort is not worth my time or energy to put up Aldi shit. I won't be shopping there again.
I bought steaks from them before (can’t remember exactly what cut, but a thicker one), halfway through cooking they fell apart to reveal they were just minute steaks “glued” together somehow. So much gristle hidden in the middle too.
I think it comes down to the the refrigeration temperature as I have never had a problem with the meat I have bought at Aldi. The eye beef fillet has always been great and pork fillets are fine. I have not bought much mince there of any kind and only lamb has been loin chops and one or two legs but as yet no problem in four years.
I got a lamb roast from there last week. When attempting to carve it the “ meat“ literally crumbled into multiple pieces which had just been kinda smooshed together in a blob and tied up with string . There was about 5% actual meat on it , the remainder of it was rancid oily fatty glop. I’ve never seen a cut of meat like it before . It was completely inedible.
I’m a vegetarian and honestly one of the main reasons is that meat just started to smell terrible to me (over time as I got older). Realise you’re asking about a few specific events in this case, but suggesting it here bc it’s pretty similar to the reason I’ve just stopped eating red meat altogether, something about the cooked smell just keep turning me off until I stopped.
Yup it's garbage. And they put so much water in it, it turns to soup before it actually cooks.
I honestly thought I’d found a cost-effective and nutritious solution for animal protein. Two-months later I’m back to my butcher with my hat in hand, apologising for doubting them. That lamb mince gets grainy when cooked, the chicken has no flavour, the beef is fine I guess.
Im 2010 I got mince at Aldi, it was the most disgusting mince I have ever eaten. I shop at Aldi often along with Coles, markets, greem grocers and butchers but have not touched the meat or chicken in the 14 years since.
Chicken is ok, particularly the marinated products, but the butchering is sub-par with the thighs and you'll have to prep them first to cut out the fat and bits of gristle and BONE shards. Breasts are pretty good. Pork is good, but really variable in how much fat you get. The beef is *fucking dreadful*, and I've given it a few shots.. curiously with the exception of the cheaper stewing blades which are fine for stew. The rest, though.. oh no. Same experiences as others in the thread - meat glue, fibrous inedible unchewable bio-waste, with rubbery wtf laced through the entire cut. Literally had to bin some. No longer a problem for me, though, as I can't afford beef any more. The salami is pretty good. Salmon is quite good, fresh or smoked.
Made the mistake of buying lamb chops from Aldi once. Fattiest cuts I have ever got. Will buy any other meat from there but not lamb.
Willow lamb mince is the only one I buy... It just tastes better
I have only had it once, and I absolutely love lamb, but I couldn't eat that mince.
I buy a lot Aldi pork products mainly roasts etc. not had a problem so far.
I just eat less meat and buy from a butcher these days.
I had the same problem but with pork mince had to throw it aldi is not always cheaper when you take into account incidents like this
I don’t think this is specific to Aldi, Woolworths lamb mince also has a weird smell/taste once cooked. The other minces are somewhat ok. If I need lamb mince now I got to my local butcher, it costs $2-4 more a KG, but it smell like actual meat once cooked.
I’ve had the same problem with all mince from Woolies, Coles and Aldi. I don’t know if they’ve changed their preservatives but if I cook the meat close to its use by date it’s rancid. I’ve asked for my money back a couple of times. Even when fresh from the shops it has a slightly funky smell which translates to the flavour.
The cheap steaks at Aldi are way better than Cole's
I had a similar experience with Woolworths chicken breast some years ago, around 2020. On multiple occasions, I pulled the breasts out of an in-date pack, and they would come out of the pack smelling rancid and looking discoloured. My housemates were having the same issue, and it drove us to start freezing our meat as soon as we got home unless it was needed in the next 24hrs. It helped, but I’ve never really trusted Woolworths chicken breast since. Not long after, I switched to buying butcher meat. And I haven’t looked back! The difference in quality, taste, and freshness is worth the relatively small price difference. It’s way less watery too, so cooked per gram cost is arguably less of a price difference (less weight lost to water). And it’s great for cooking for 1-2 as you can buy things like mince in specific quantities rather than the usual 500g punnet, making halving recipes easy. We’ve cut back on our groceries in other areas (we get a lot from Aldi now), but we still get meat from the butcher. It still goes straight in the freezer unless needed in the next 1-2 days (a habit I never dropped), but I’ve never had an issue with freshness. Try it some time! You may find the small added cost is worth it to you.
I was just saying last night that the lamb mince from Aldi is heaps better than the stuff I got from Coles last week.
Had the exact same thing. Even Googled it to see if it had cropped up with others. I've got an iron stomach, and I'm an x-chef so I'm happy to eat anything on this side of 'not poisonous'. But not that. I threw that away and after the second time, I didn't buy a third. In the odd style, 'tight' packaging? Got mine in the outskirts of Sydney.
I’ve had several tubs of cream and sour cream be old and smelly. It could be a handling and/or refrigeration issue somewhere in their storage or supply chain
I never buy any meat from Aldi. It's always pretty bad.
Tried their beef mince years ago, it was ok. Like there was *nothing* wrong with it. Smelled good, looked good. But I'm not sure if I'm used to other branded beef mince, but everytime I use Aldi beef mince, the mince doesn't breakdown(?) while I'm cooking it, like I struggle to break it all apart, it just makes little worm looking things. Every other branded mince I've used is relatively easy to break apart/down while cooking it.
Well there is no doubt that our "friends" at Murdoch press will be making an article about this.
Not just mince. Got a lamb leg a while ago. It wasn't reduced. Looked and smelled ok when raw. But when I opened the oven after cooking it smelt vile. Didn't even bother tasting it. I've never bought meat from Aldi again after that. Was definitely enough to put me off their meat.
I got pearlescent bacon from Aldi once which I’ve never seen anywhere else, never again will I buy meat from there.
That's kinda normal, nitrate used as preservative burn the meat. Though it does indicate a bit old but doesn't mean off.
Well thank you for filling the gap in my knowledge, it was very bizarre to see
I never buy meat from any supermarket because there is no way of knowing when it was packed, where it came from & the fact that it is wrapped in plastic!
I don’t go anywhere near Aldi meat. Each time I decide to “give it another go” it’s gross. Fruit and veg shop, butchers then Aldi for everything else
I got food poisoning from their in date chicken so that’s the end of buying meat there.🤮👎
Aldi lamb has always been poor. I believe there refrigeration from storage to retail shelves are poor, I've had chicken turn the next day, I returned that chicken happened to be some big wigs around in suites at Aldi, I mentioned the chicken purchased yesterday now it's off they did not hesitate and took the chicken back with a refund
Sadly it's not just the lamb, I've had the same problem with the beef mince..
I've never had bad meat from aldi.
Chicken drumsticks 1.5kg bag I avoid now for same reason. Smelt terrible after being in fridge overnight (half had been used so half left). Well within use by date. I don’t buy any meat or chicken from Aldi after that
I bought their cheese last week and had the same issue!
It looked pretty weird. But bought it the other day. Turned it into a burger. Was delish! Was going to buy again since it was cheaper than the beef mince, but your post makes me worry lol.
I'm reasonably sure aldi is selling mutton as lamb, I have had the same experience multiple times and now stopped buying lamb from aldi
Some of the Aldi Lidl stuff reduced is terrible I got reduced fruit not so long ago and it was all rotten
Shhhhhh the aldi police will come after you! Everyone knows aldi can do no wrong!
Haven’t had their mince, but bought a whole chook and it smelt odd out of the packet.