Here's Why You Should Never Buy Flour From Aldi
Don't worry; there hasn't been another E. coli outbreak recently, per Black Information Network, so although it's perfectly safe to buy flour from Aldi for your next batch of cookies or loaf of banana bread, it may not be the best choice for you.
Contamination isn't the only reason to refuse to purchase a specific food item from a particular store. Sometimes taste can be the deciding factor in what you buy, so you'll pay a little more for a certain brand over another. Other times, the ingredients make a major difference between which brand you buy and which you leave on the shelf, especially if you're on a special diet.
So if there's one flour brand that tastes better or has certain ingredients that you prefer over Aldi's flour brands, that might be your reason for never buying flour at Aldi. But there's another reason that has nothing to do with flavor or ingredients that could stop anyone from buying flour at Aldi, and that reason is cost.
Aldi doesn't offer large bags of flour
Although Aldi is known for its low prices, thanks to its "no-frill tactics" (via Insider), not everything is cheaper. According to The Krazy Coupon Lady, there are several items that are actually more expensive at Aldi than at other stores — one of the items being flour — which is one of the worst foods you can buy at Aldi.
Aldi sells 5-pound bags of Baker's Corner All Purpose Flour for about $2.35 at stores in Houston, Texas, but prices vary by location. The Krazy Coupon Lady claims it was priced at $2.12 at her local Aldi in October 2022. That's just 42 cents a pound for her local Aldi and 47 cents a pound for the Houston Aldi stores.
Seems like a reasonable price, right? The problem is that the 5-pound bag is your only option at Aldi. So if you do a lot of baking, you'll end up buying a lot of those little bags over time, which can cause a significant dent in your budget. Walmart, on the other hand, is one of many stores that offer 10-pound bags of all-purpose flour. The price? Three dollars and 64 cents, as of December 2022 — if purchased online. That equates to about 36 cents a pound.
Although the price-per-pound difference between Aldi's flour and Walmart's online flour is just a few cents, this can certainly add up over time. So if saving money is your primary goal when buying flour, and you buy a lot of it, you probably should think twice before you buy it from Aldi.