Aldi Private Label Products
Feeding your family healthy, safe foods and sticking to a strict grocery budget is no easy task. Luckily for the over 30 million shoppers who use Aldi food stores, doing both just got a whole lot easier. Aldi’s CEO Jason Hart announced last Thursday that Aldi had successfully removed all certified synthetic colors, partially hydrogenated oils, and added MSG from all of its private labeled food products beginning last year and that, by this year’s end, all of those products would be off of Aldi’s U.S. shelves.
How They Did It
Aldi has long been loved by the budget-conscious shopper for its low prices and variety of foods. Unlike major retail bargain chains like Walmart, Target, and even ShopRite, Aldi maintains 90 percent of its products under its own private labels. This has given it unprecedented control over not only what it on its shelves, but what’s inside each package. As a result, the nearly-universal lack of these ingredients in their foods positions Aldi alongside much more expensive food co-ops and health food stores despite its low prices.
Their first move to offer consumers healthier, more natural options was the launch of their SimplyNature line of products which is already free of all those ingredients plus more than 125 more including artificial flavors, nitrates, rBGH, and more. They have also made ingredient and nutritional information more accessible to users by placing it on the front of their packages.
However, they took it one step further in 2104 when, in response to overwhelming public concern over specific ingredients in all food, Aldi began eliminating its “Big 3.” In the same vein as other nationally-recognized brands such as Panera and Campbell’s Soup, Aldi bucked trends by waiting until the process was essentially complete to announce the change. This gives shoppers an immediate outlet for discount-priced, but safer foods.
What It Means
The trend towards more natural, whole ingredients in foods has come a long way in a short time and for good reason. Everything from ADHD symptoms to cancer have been linked to chemical additives and preservatives often found in food and many people, especially parents are understandably concerned. In fact, people are spending more and more of their time at the store reading food labels and trying to decipher what it is they are really feeding their family. By making this move to eliminate some of the most offensive food ingredients, Aldi has saved its over 30 million shoppers time as well as money.