Here's Why You Should Buy Your Ground Beef At Aldi

If you're grocery shopping on a budget, Aldi is a great place to purchase everything from fresh produce to frozen dinners. This savings-oriented store is also one of the best places to buy ground beef. Aldi offers ground beef that's 100% grass-fed and completely free of antibiotics and growth hormones. Prices vary from store to store, but you can generally expect to pay between $4 to $6 per pound — which is a great deal for high-quality meat, especially given the rising price of groceries. 

Aldi's Simply Nature Organic 100% Grass Fed 85/15 Ground Beef is lean, so it's perfect for dishes like an easy ground beef stew or a simple bolognese sauce. It's sold in convenient, vacuum-sealed packages, so you can easily freeze it to have on hand whenever you want to cook ground beef. It's sourced from Australia, the U.S.A., or Uruguay, so you can feel good about knowing where your meat comes from.

Aldi takes extra steps like requiring a deposit for using a grocery cart and keeping decor to a minimum to help keep prices low. As a result, the grass-fed ground beef at Aldi is significantly cheaper than at other stores. To put it in perspective, according to the USDA, the national average cost for a pound of grass-fed ground beef is between $9 and $16.

Whole Foods offers a similar 85/15 ground beef option from a brand called Organic Rancher. Just like Aldi's offering, it's 100% organic, grass-fed, and antibiotic and growth hormone-free. However, it comes in at about $9 per pound, so shopping at Aldi means significant savings.

Of course, Whole Foods isn't known as a budget grocery store, but Aldi's beef is cheaper than other budget options, too. If you're wondering whether beef is cheaper at Aldi or Walmart, the answer is generally Aldi, although you can find grass-fed ground beef at Walmart for about $6 per pound, which is comparable.

Price aside, one of the best things about Aldi's ground beef is that it includes an organic, grass-fed option. It's important to understand what these terms mean so you can make the choice that's right for you when you're shopping for meat. Grass-fed beef comes from cows raised on a diet of grass rather than grain and given access to a pasture to feed. It tends to be leaner than conventional beef and is higher in certain heart-healthy nutrients like omega-3 fatty acids. 

Grass-fed beef is more expensive because it's costlier for farmers to raise cows on grass than it is to raise them on grain. It takes longer for cows to reach their full weight on a grass-fed diet, so the process costs more. The organic designation on Aldi's ground beef guarantees it comes from cows that were not given antibiotics or growth hormones, which is noted on Aldi's ground beef packaging.