Why Aldi's Butter Wrappers Don't Match The Boxes

Butter is among the best products to buy at Aldi, as the prices are typically much better than at competing stores. Sure, the butter you get is not exactly the rich, artisanal-grade creamery product that you'd expect from the upscale butter service at a restaurant like New York City's Quality Bistro, but it works fine for everyday cooking, baking, and toast-spreading. There's something perplexing about Aldi's butter, however: The wrappers don't match the boxes in color scheme. Salted butter has blue-wrapped sticks in a red box, and unsalted butter has red sticks in a blue box. Oh, the humanity!

To witness the confusion this has caused, look no further than Reddit, where commenters on the Aldi subreddit shared bafflement and mystification over the mismatched colors. "Aldi, why ya gotta mess with my head?" reads the thread title.

There's no clear-cut answer on why red butter doesn't go in a matching red box and vice versa with blue, but there's a strong possibility: Aldi likely sources its butter from multiple manufacturers, and there is no consensus on colors in the industry. Or, as one Redditor in the above thread suggested, "I have a hunch that the wrapper is just whatever the vendor has on hand and then Aldi packs it in their carton."

Aldi's lack of brand-name products is by design and is meant to save shoppers money. What that also means is that there are a slew of names behind Aldi's private labels: Bimbo likely makes Aldi's L'Oven Fresh bakery foods, House of Flavors produces Sundae Shoppe ice cream, and ADM Milling Company is confirmed to be the manufacturer behind the Baker's Corner all-purpose flour.

The source of Aldi's butter isn't quite so clear-cut, although internet denizens have certainly broken their backs trying to crack the code. On Facebook, a discerning consumer swears that the Countryside Creamery salted butter tastes exactly the same as the parallel product from Land O'Lakes. There's a whole TikTok rabbit hole in which people compare Aldi's Irish Butter to Kerrygold. And, again on Reddit, a highly-upvoted comment alleges "Butter is massed produced and graded long before it is packaged for retail sale. Notice the lack of brand on the inner wrapper." 

In short, it appears likely — although, again, not officially confirmed by the grocer or any outside source — that Aldi's butter comes from multiple manufacturers and is not wrapped in conjunction with the production of its boxes, leading to the color confusion.