10 Frequent Complaints Customers Make About Aldi

There is a lot to love about shopping at Aldi. First up, there's the savings. According to Aldi's 2025 Price Leadership Report, a family of four can save almost $4,000 a year by choosing to shop at the chain. There's also a huge number of products on offer, albeit mostly from its private labels. But none of us are perfect, and Aldi is no exception. Sometimes, the budget-friendly chain can really irritate its customers.

Shoppers often take to social media platforms like Reddit to air their gripes with Aldi. For many, it's a love-hate relationship, though. While they love to complain, they still haven't given up on shopping at the store. In fact, Aldi U.S. is thriving, and it's gaining customers every day. In 2026 alone, it's planning to open 180 new stores in 31 states.

Find out some of the most frequent complaints customers make about Aldi below. It probably won't put you off shopping there entirely, but spoiler alert: You might be slightly more wary of the broccoli next time you visit.

We'll cut to the chase: Aldi's produce section has a bad reputation. While the chain is adamant that it does everything it can to offer the best fruit and vegetables (like restocking daily and choosing locally grown options), customers are frequently disappointed. Aldi shoppers on Reddit, for example, frequently complain about the quality of the produce at the store. Observations include brown pineapples that are soft to the touch, wilted green onions, overripe clementines, and slimy cucumbers.

More than one person has even claimed that they brought broccoli home from Aldi, only to find it was infested with bugs. "I made broccoli last night from Aldi, and in the middle of dinner, my [four] year old said 'Ooooh look mommy, a caterpillar!' Sure enough, there was a green caterpillar crawling in her broccoli," wrote one Redditor.

We get it. One of our writers shared a list of which Aldi produce items to buy and which to skip and noted that, while some produce items were worth buying, others were a bit of a letdown. They didn't find bugs, but they did share that the snipped green beans often have brown spots and the baby carrots are usually bitter or have a strange texture.

Like most grocery stores, Aldi often discontinues products. These usually happen because a particular item isn't selling as well as the store hoped, and it needs to make room for different items. But when it happens to one of your favorites, it can be seriously disappointing. For that reason, Aldi's penchant for discontinuing items is a common customer gripe.

On social media, customers mourn a range of items, including Aldi's vegetarian hot dogs, its Balance cereal, its chocolate almond milk, and so much more. And when we say mourn, we mean it. There is an entire Reddit thread named "In Memoriam: everyday Aldi items we've lost this year."

Some customers feel so strongly about certain items that they even start petitions in an attempt to convince Aldi to bring them back. For example, at the time of writing, a petition to bring back Aldi's gluten-free mac and cheese has more than 1,180 signatures.

Have you noticed recently that bags of potato chips aren't as full, or maybe that your favorite cereal now comes in a smaller packet inside the box? You're not imagining things. Some of your favorite packaged foods have gotten smaller, and it's due to something called shrinkflation. It basically means that manufacturers reduce the quantity of a product without changing the price to increase profits. It's happening everywhere; from fast-food chains like Wendy's to warehouse chains like Costco. Aldi is no exception. In fact, shrinkflation is a common Aldi shopper complaint.

Items that customers believe might be victims of shrinkflation include Benton's Wafer Rolls (which, according to one user, have reduced in size by more than 20% with no difference in price), potato chips, cat food, pepperoni, and even guacamole. Some customers are more accepting of the issue. One Redditor wrote, for example, "Shrinkflation is happening with everything. Nothing we can do about it we can't not eat." Others, however, are more frustrated. Another user wrote, "Corporate greed, not inflation."

Aldi is best known for two things: low prices and dupes. Its aisles are packed with cheaper versions of popular name-brand items, and some of them, arguably, taste even better than the original. When we investigated customers' feelings about certain Aldi dupes in 2025, for example, we found that many think its generic versions of products like Goldfish crackers, kettle chips, and Cheetos are hard to beat. But Aldi doesn't always get it right.

Customers might be quick to praise Aldi when it succeeds with a dupe, but they are also quick to complain when it doesn't hit the mark. A few examples of products that Aldi shoppers believe are far worse than the original include its takes on Doritos, Wheat Thins, and Cheez-Its.

In fact, Aldi's version of Cheez-Its, in particular, seems to get a lot of hate. Some compared them to oyster crackers, while others said they were inedible and had to be thrown away. Some said they were only good for using as filler in meatball recipes. Other Aldi dupes that have received a lot of negative attention include its take on microwave mac and cheese, its dairy-free coffee creamer, and its Rice Krispies Treat dupe.

In the U.S., it's common for cashiers to bag your groceries for you. But Aldi is a European store, and in Europe, this is not standard practice. That might be one reason why Aldi's American customers are actively encouraged to bring their own reusable bags and pack their own groceries at designated bagging counters. According to the chain, this also helps everything move along quickly and smoothly.

Not everyone likes this policy, however. Many people who work at Aldi say that this is a frequent sticking point for customers who aren't used to bagging their groceries. Some have even taken their frustration out on employees by yelling or using rude language. That said, some employees say they will occasionally bag for a customer in exceptional circumstances. If a person is elderly or struggling, for example, they will step in, but for most people, it's a blanket "no."

Aldi's stores aren't particularly large. Most are about 20,000 square feet, which is significantly smaller than competitors like Walmart. There is actually a very important reason why Aldi's stores are smaller than other grocery stores: More compact spaces are cheaper to run, and the cost savings help Aldi keep its prices low.

But unfortunately, the downside of Aldi's small size is that when it's busy, it can feel really crowded. Customers complain about carts frequently blocking the width of the small aisles, for example, or about their fellow customers standing in the way and not being aware of their surroundings. Sometimes, customers complain about employees getting in the way, too. While essential, shelf restocking can contribute to congestion in the store.

Some customers have sussed out that the key to avoiding this issue is to avoid the store at particularly busy times. Sunday mornings, for example, are usually pretty hectic, while weekday afternoons tend to be less overwhelming.

As we mentioned earlier, it's not uncommon for customers to head to Aldi in hopes of grabbing their favorite product, only to find it has been discontinued forever. Sometimes, though, products have vanished temporarily because they're out of stock, and this can be equally as frustrating for customers. In fact, some people find it arguably more annoying, especially when it's simple, everyday items.

On Reddit, Aldi customers say they often go to the store to stock up on items like cheese, rice, soda, chicken breast, and even vegetables, only to find that they're not available. Some say they have noticed this happening so frequently, they have even started timing their visits so that they arrive just after a truckload of stock has been unloaded.

Some customers have one particular theory about why basic items are always out of stock: Restaurant workers go in first thing and buy up all of their ingredients for cheap. "Aldi prices are lower than my local Sam's Club," wrote one Redditor. "I've been suspecting it's restaurant owners for a while."

So, as we've established, there isn't as much aisle space in Aldi as there is in other grocery stores. It can already be difficult to navigate the store at busy times because of this, but one thing that makes it even worse? Long lines at the checkout counter. Customers regularly complain that they have seen queues block entire aisles at the store. In fact, some have even seen the lines stretch out to the back of the store. "Not only are the people in line agitated, but people trying to shop around the people in line are agitated. Everyone is agitated," wrote one Redditor.

While the small store sizes make these inconvenient lines more likely, some note that the behavior of their fellow customers doesn't help either. For example, some have witnessed other customers run out to grab something when they get to the front of the queue, which forces everyone behind them to wait even longer. Aldi does try to alleviate the situation by encouraging people to form queues at multiple cashiers. However, to state the obvious, this is only possible if multiple cashiers are available.

Another common complaint from customers about Aldi is that there are never enough workers in the store. This is a major contributing factor to the long lines and delays that customers also report. Redditors have reported unintentionally holding up the line at the self-service checkout before because they had to wait for a worker to become available to assist them with their purchase.

Some customers have even claimed that they have failed to lay eyes on a single staff member during their entire shopping experience. Others say they have only seen one or two people working at a time. It's frustrating for workers, too. Employees have stated on Reddit that they are often in charge of multiple self-service checkouts, while also working as cashiers themselves.

Aldi has addressed this issue on its U.K. website. It claims that while employees may not always be visible to the public, they are there. If you can't see them, it might be that they are busy replenishing stock, for example. It says that training employees to do multiple jobs, as well as the checkout, helps it reduce costs and pass those savings on to its customers.

Sometimes, you're just not in the mood to browse. If you're in a rush, you may just want to whip around the store, grab everything you need, and get out as quickly as possible. One thing that is guaranteed to stop that from happening, though, is a store rearrangement. Suddenly, the cereal has been replaced by canned items, or the potato chips have been swapped to the other end of the aisle. 

One common reason why grocery stores change up their layouts is (shock) to get you to spend more money. When you go down aisles that you usually wouldn't visit, you spot new products and might spend more money. But while they may help increase spending, many customers find store rearrangements incredibly frustrating. People say that it makes it harder to find the items they need, and everything feels out of place and messy.

Some say it has the opposite effect of getting them to buy more things, as they get frustrated and simply leave without buying the things they need. "It put me in such a bad mood I barely bought anything," wrote one Redditor. "I just had the previous footprint ingrained in my brain. Now I don't go there as much, and instead go to another location near me."