You Need To Stop Believing A Serious Myth About Aldi's Meat

Aldi is a popular, fast-growing grocery chain with a legion of devotees. Strangely, however, rumors persist about the chain's meat products. While it is true that Aldi's meat is downright cheap compared to competing grocers, it's very definitely not true that it's horse meat on the shelf, despite an isolated incident of fraud in the U.K. over a decade ago. Still, rumors persist regarding Aldi meat, like the (very unproven) one about Aldi growing its bacon in a lab. 

Perhaps the most pernicious myth about Aldi meat, however, is that it is sold after passing its expiration date. For some reason, folks keep claiming that one way Aldi keeps prices low is by selling beef, chicken, and fish that are past their sell-by dates. Yet this is only a damaging rumor. In the U.S., the USDA governs the labeling of meat with best-by dates to ensure quality and safety, and you can bet that a major chain like Aldi does not want to risk falling afoul of the government. Like all grocers, it must promptly expired packs from the shelf. 

Why, then, do people believe the hype about Aldi selling bad meat? Perhaps it's because they've had mixed results with the freshness of the store's meat products, as many online shoppers have complained about. But that's more a matter of quality and customer satisfaction than strictly a food safety violation.

There's a reason that meat falls on the list of the worst products to buy from Aldi. Since Aldi does not have butchers in-store, all its meat is shipped packaged. Variety can be lacking among cuts and types of meat, and you won't find brand name meat products (which is a cost-saving measure by design). But, most damaging is the fact that a lot of Aldi shoppers have gone online to complain about the quality of the meat they buy from the discount giant.

On Threads, a heated discussion erupted when a user complained about meat having become inedible prematurely. On the Frugal Village forums, many claimed the store's ground beef was malodorous and its ground turkey had bad texture. A commenter on MumsNet echoed the gripe, complaining that the chicken smelled bad. On Reddit, on a thread titled "sick of bad meat!," a Redditor claimed that unsavory Aldi proteins were so common that "I swore I would never buy again but I did this time, telling myself we would eat it quickly and it would be fine." Unfortunately, they said they were proven wrong yet again.

Why does Aldi meat taste or smell bad if it's not actually expired? That's the unanswered question here, but it may have more to do with cheap sourcing than anything else. Keep in mind that Aldi offers a "Twice as Nice Guarantee" that says, if you don't like your product, the grocer will both replace it and refund your money (provided you kept your receipt). This shows that Aldi is willing to stand by its products, at least.