7 Of The Best Aldi Food Deals That Put Costco To Shame

Aldi and Costco are both absolute treasure troves for shoppers looking to get great deals. Aldi offers consistently low prices on all of its items, while Costco is paradise for anyone looking to buy in bulk. It can be easy to conflate buying in bulk with getting a better deal, but that's not always the case. Yes, Costco has great deals, but there are some times when bulk can be a burden, as the large product sizes don't always make sense for many households.

So what gives? Has Costco been duping us this whole time? Well, no. It's just that Aldi has some deals that outshine the big warehouse. It should go without saying that prices fluctuate and vary from place to place. In this article, we compared prices between an Aldi and Costco in the same city, and found a number of ways to get more bang for your buck. 

For many of their products, both Aldi and Costco use private label brands. This is a huge reason why Aldi's meat is so cheap, since it allows the chain to have meat butchered to company specifications. Sure, that means Aldi doesn't have a butcher in-store. However, thanks to using private label meat products, Aldi is able to buy from local farms almost everywhere. This also leads to savings that Aldi is happy to pass on to customers, since private label brands don't have to worry about pesky things like marketing.

Costco is more mechanized in its butchering processes, blade-tenderizing its beef. Blade-tenderizing is a term for a mechanical process that uses blades or needles to poke tiny holes in the meat, thus, well, tenderizing it. That might seem like it is saving you, the home cook, a step. Sure, but take note: Blade-tenderizing can pose health risks, since it can sometimes drive the dreaded E. coli bacteria deeper into the meat. If your meat is not cooked to proper temperatures — say, if you like a cut of medium-rare steak — then you can run into some problems. Fans of rarer beef will definitely want to opt for Aldi. Not just steak fans, either. In a time when more consumers are looking for less processed foods, Aldi meat beats Costco.

Pizza from Costco's food court is rightly praised for its quality and affordability. If you walk into the food court for a slice of pepperoni or cheese, or grab a full-size pizza and feed all your friends for cheap, it's hard to go wrong. But don't sleep on Mama Cozzi's — Aldi's private brand for take-and-bake and frozen pizzas — which offers a great deal and even more pizza. 

Now, Aldi doesn't have a food court. Therefore, we are focusing on take-and-bake pizzas — those magical discs of bread, sauce, cheese, and toppings that have the added bonus of making your house smell good while they cook without wafting pizza aroma all over your car or bus ride home. At Aldi, a 45.59-ounce Supreme pizza is $8.79. On the other hand, the 28-ounce Kirkland Signature Combo pizza is $19.88. Talk about putting the other deal to shame! Mama Cozzi, like any good mother, must be worrying that you're not eating enough.

Oftentimes, people associate inexpensive products with low quality. This is a mistake. In 2024, Aldi's Priano ravioli took home a Product Of The Year award. Product Of The Year was established more than 30 years ago, and operates in many countries around the globe. The awards are voted on entirely by consumers, and are meant to showcase the best packaged goods developed within the last year. You can kind of think of the awards as a summary of what all of your neighbors are eating. And when it comes to ravioli, who doesn't get a little FOMO from time to time?

Of course, this article isn't here to tell you things you already know, like ravioli is delicious. This article is here to tell you who has the best deal. Costco also offers private label packaged ravioli as well, so we compared the spinach and cheese variety. The Kirkland Signature spinach and cheese ravioli ran $14.03 for a 22-ounce bag, whereas Aldi's Priano ravioli only runs $3.85 for a 9-ounce bag. That's a difference of $.21 per ounce. It's definitely worth it to save some coins on pasta night. 

Non-perishables — like canned black beans — are often great to buy in bulk. They last a long time, and they're a great ingredient for easy, no-cook meals. If you know how to season canned black beans, they are incredibly tasty; they're also an especially nutritious source of protein. If you have the space to store it, buying canned black beans in bulk seems like an easy call. But is the price worth hauling a case of cans from the trunk of your car to your pantry?

As far as black beans go, Aldi's got the edge. At the Costco we checked, a case of eight 15-ounce cans of organic black beans is $9.93. At Aldi, one can of organic black beans is $1.09, coming out to $8.72 for the same amount of cans. If you're not so concerned about organic vs non-organic? Well, the Costco we checked did not offer a non-organic option, meaning there are potentially more savings to be had at Aldi. Prices and options can vary from place to place, but in our comparison, Aldi comes out on top.

Unless you're on a low-carb diet, you're probably picking up a loaf of bread on your grocery run. Bread is wonderful in all of its many forms: wheat, white, flat, roll, what have you. So when you're trawling the aisles for your favorite sandwich cushions, which store should you be looking at?

As we said, bread, like a great deal, comes in many different forms. So for the sake of price comparison, we will keep things simple, and compare basic loaves. L'Oven is Aldi's private-label bread and it's perfect for toast or sandwiches. At the store we checked, a loaf of split-top wheat bread is $1.49. At Costco, the cheapest comparable product is the Brownberry Italian loaf, which is $5.37 for two loaves. Even if you're confident you'll go through two loaves of bread before mold starts to creep in, Aldi is still the better deal.

The emergence of creative salad kits in recent years has been a boon for home cooks looking for a convenient way to add veggies to a meal. You can serve them as they come, or you can upgrade bagged salads with a few simple tricks. Bagged salads can also be a way to save money — maybe you don't want to buy a whole bag of dried cranberries or shelled sunflower seeds, but you still want a salad with those flavors. Just buy a salad kit and call it a day.

Since every grocery store has its own set of bagged salads — Aldi has a delicious one called Sunflower chopped salad and Costco has a wonderful apple pecan salad — we decided to compare a classic: the Caesar salad. It's a simple, tasty dish with few ingredients, and can be found in kit form in most supermarkets. A Caesar salad kit at Costco is $10.52 for a 24-ounce bag. At Aldi, a 10-ounce bag of Caesar salad is $3.29. Buy two of these and you're still saving more money than you would at Costco. Without getting into a full item-by-item breakdown, we also found that prices are comparable for other varieties of salad kits at the stores.

Fresh produce, like bread, is something else most of us can't leave the grocery store without. Purchasing produce in large quantities is a great way to save money, but as we've mentioned, sometimes, buying in bulk can be overwhelming. Maybe you don't have enough storage. Maybe the number of people eating in your household can't get through all of what was brought home before it spoils. This can especially come into play with apples. There's a famous saying about what one bad one will do to the whole bunch. That said, buying apples in bags instead of individually is a great way to make sure you have an apple a day. There's a famous saying about that, too.

So where can you can get maximum food for minimum money? Once again, at the Costco we checked, non-organic Gala apples weren't an option. Regular Gala apples came in at $5.14 for a 3-pound bag, whereas Aldi charges $4.65 for the same amount. Costco doesn't even have the edge in quantity here, which should really settle things. Not only is bulk not necessarily a better deal, sometimes, Aldi can even compete with Costco's bulk.