Review of the Aldi food parcel

Contents from the Aldi website

Find out what I got when I ordered an Aldi food parcel – and whether it’s a good deal!

Normally, you can only buy Aldi food in store, rather than ordering online. 

However, Aldi has joined several other supermarkets, including Morrisons and M&S, in selling pre-packed food parcels that are delivered by courier. 

With so much demand for normal supermarket delivery slots, it’s an extra way to get food where it’s needed, fast.

The Aldi food parcel costs £24.99 including delivery and contains 22 items, including essential food, a few treats and a couple of household items. 

Who can buy an Aldi Food Parcel?

In theory, anyone could buy an Aldi food parcel.

In practice, Aldi highlights that the boxes are intended for vulnerable customers or self-isolators, and asks people to be considerate.

Stocks are limited and may not be available all day, so it’s worth checking early each morning. Aldi also restricts orders to one purchase a week per person. The food parcels can only be ordered online and not in store.

What is supposed to be in an Aldi Food Parcel?

Check out the photo from the Aldi website at the top of this post to see what might be inside your Aldi Food Parcel.

Must admit, at first glance I quite fancied snacks like biscuits and chocolate, and the chance (finally!) to get some loo roll. It had loads of stuff I buy often, like rice, pasta, tuna and tinned tomatoes, alongside prepared food I normally wouldn’t (anyone for tinned chilli con carne?).

However, the website is quite clear that ‘the contents of the food box may vary slightly depending on the supply and availability’. If you scroll down the list of items, they do list potential substitutes. So there was a sense of excitement when our box arrived. What would we actually get?

Beaten up box, as delivered

What was delivery like?

The £24.99 for an Aldi Food Parcel includes delivery, rather than having to pay extra.

I ordered at 11.44am on a Saturday morning, and the box was delivered by Hermes at 12.15pm on the Tuesday. So three days, including a Sunday, which felt super quick to me. The delivery driver put the box on our door step, rang the bell and stepped away, so we could collect it while still socially distancing. 

However, do bear in mind that the boxes are heavy due to all the tins and packaged goods – a whopping 14kg.

So an older or more vulnerable person might need to carry the contents inside in stages, rather than lugging the entire lead weight.

Ripped, squashed or dented packaging

The only problem was that the box itself was open and a bit bashed up. Several of the packages and tins were squashed, ripped or dented. Nothing was so damaged as to be inedible – but Aldi might want to invest in some more robust boxes, or a bit of protective packaging!

Here’s what we actually got

Here’s what I got in my Aldi food parcel

Ta da, the 22 items in full:

1. Cucina fusilli pasta x 500g
2. Worldwide Foods ‘ready in 2 minutes’ classic basmati rice, 2 x 250g pouches
3. Brown bake at home bread rolls x 6
4. The Fishmonger tuna chunks in brine 4 x 160g
5. Four Seasons sweetcorn 4 x 200g
6. Everyday essentials chopped tomatoes x 400g
7. Four Seasons sliced carrots in water x 300g
8. Corale baked beans in tomato sauce x 420g
9. Cucina Bolognese pasta sauce x 500g
10. Bramwells medium chilli con carne x 400g
11. Bramwells Classic minestrone soup x 400g
12. Bramwells Classic cream of tomato soup x 400g
13. Bramwells Creations chicken & noodle soup x 400g
14. Dessert Menu rice pudding x 400g
15. Snackrite salted peanuts x 400g
16. Choceur white chocolate x 200g
17. Belmont biscuit assortment x 700g (nice biscuits, custard creams, bourbon creams and shortcake) 
18. British semi-skimmed long-life milk x 1 litre
19. Diplomat Red Label everyday tea x 160 bags
20. Alcafe Gold Roast coffee x 200g
21. Lacura antibacterial handwash, sensitive x 500ml
22. Saxon Softest aloe vera toilet tissue x 4 rolls 

Compared to the photos on the Aldi website, only four things were different:

• more, cheaper teabags, as I got 160 everyday teabags, rather than 80 ‘gold blend’ teabags
• cheaper version of tinned tomatoes – everyday essentials rather than ‘premium’ cucina peeled plum tomatoes
• white chocolate rather than milk chocolate, dashing my hopes for my favourite brownie recipe
• 500g microwave basmati rice rather than 500g ordinary basmati rice.  A bag of ordinary rice would have stretched much further.

Adding baked beans to the chilli, to stretch into a meal for 4, plus green beans we already had

What meals can you make with an Aldi Food Parcel?

Looking at the contents, I’d say a couple could eke out maybe five main meals and a few lunches:

• pasta with half the bolognese sauce
• tuna pasta bake, using the rest of the bolognese sauce and a tin of tuna
• chilli with rice and possibly the tinned carrots
• rice salad with tuna and sweetcorn
• a veggie chilli / stew, using the tinned tomatoes, a tin of sweetcorn and tin of baked beans, served with any remaining rice or pasta
• lunch of tuna rolls, or tuna and sweetcorn rolls, or baked beans and rolls if you haven’t used the beans in a veggie chilli.
• lunch of a couple of rolls and a couple of tins of soup

All washed down with lashings of milky tea and coffee with biscuits! Plus rice pudding, chocolate and peanuts as treats.

If you already had other ingredients at home, it would obviously stretch for longer, or could be used for more interesting meals.  We’ve mixed up some of the tuna and sweetcorn with mayonnaise as a topping for baked potatoes, and added bacon to make the bolognese sauce with pasta. I’m also eyeing up the peanuts to stir fry with chopped veg and soy sauce, and eat with rice.

What was good about the Aldi Food Parcel?

The massive advantage: the Aldi Food Parcel was super quick to order and deliver, at a time when supermarket delivery slots are rarer than hen’s teeth.

It contained a good mix of store cupboard basics, some ready prepared food if you don’t feel like cooking, and a couple of other hard-to-get essentials with the loo roll and hand wash. The biscuits, chocolate and peanuts help lift the spirits and certainly raised the biggest cheers from my children.

I wouldn’t normally buy tins of soup and stew/chilli, but can see they’d be a godsend for anyone who’d like something hot with minimal cooking.

At. £24.99 including delivery, I also think it’s pretty good value. I had a go at pricing up the contents based on own brands from Morrisons, it totted up to nearly £27.50, so would have spent more getting the same stuff elsewhere with any delivery costs on top.

So it could be extremely useful whether you’re ordering for yourself, or ordering for a friend or family member elsewhere. 

What’s not so good about the Aldi Food Parcel?

The major disadvantage is that it’s pre-packed. You cannot choose your own shopping. This means you can’t leave out stuff you don’t like, can’t eat or already have in huge quantities. The contents are pretty inoffensive but you’re bound to end up with something you would never normally use. Plus, even if you like the look of the stuff on the website, you may end up with some substitutes in your own parcel. (Yes, I’m still mourning the milk chocolate).

I reckon about half the value is stuff I would genuinely buy myself. We’ll happily eat most of the rest (suggestions for tinned carrots, anyone?), but will be donating the tea and coffee to our local food bank, if they’ll accept the tea bags in a damaged box.

Much like a parcel from a food bank, the contents is entirely tins and packets without any fresh food.

On its own, the box doesn’t provide a balanced diet. No fruit, and token tins of carrots and tomatoes for veg, although there are some veg in the soups and pasta sauce. Nothing really for breakfast either, unless you only ever start the day with just a cup of tea or coffee. I’m guessing part bake rolls were included as a loaf of bread wouldn’t have a long enough shelf life, but otherwise bread and jam would have been welcome.

I reckon the food might stretch over four or five days for a couple – although the tea and coffee should last much longer. As a one off, it could work well, but as a repeat purchase, your meals would be come very repetitive.

Brace yourself for a damaged box and contents. Reading reviews on the Aldi website, I’m not the only recipient of dented tins and broken biscuits. 

And so?

I reckon the Aldi Food Parcel is good value and really useful for anyone needing food in a hurry when they can’t get to the shops. I suspect it’s particularly targeted at older shoppers, with the tinned soup and rice pudding.  Additional items such as jam, tinned fruit and cereal would be particularly welcome.

I hope Aldi invests in some stronger packaging, and introduces a range of different Food Parcels for those needing repeat orders. 

Otherwise, living on tuna week after week would quickly become very monotonous – even if you do have coffee and tea coming out of your ears!

Now – over to you. What do think of the Aldi Food Parcel? What meals would you make? And would you ever order one for yourself or someone else?

No, not a sponsored post. I genuinely bought an Aldi Food Parcel myself while we’ve been self-isolating.