The Next Round: What happens after you change your drinking?
The Next Round: What happens after you change your drinking?
In this week’s installment of our supermarket series, we’re shopping for alcohol-free drinks in Aldi. We’re looking at the customer experience when finding non-alcoholic drinks, thinking about how easy products are to find and how varied the range is, both in store and online. We visited a city centre store in Leeds and also checked out the website. Here’s what we found in Aldi in July 2022.
The shopping experience in Aldi is a little different to other big supermarkets as 90% of their products are private label. This means they are able to price items more competitively. Most of the alcohol-free products are quite difficult to find as they are not in a section of their own, shoppers need to search through the alcoholic drinks to find products mixed in with their full-strength counterparts. There are also some adult soft drinks which are located on end of aisle pallets rather than in the soft drinks aisle. The selection is small, and sadly there were no wine or sparkling alternatives available. Aldi had previously launched two alcohol-free sparkling wines, but we couldn’t find these in store and they are no longer available online. They also launched an alcohol-free cucumber and mint gin-style spirit in 2021, which we also couldn’t find in store or online. Aldi is known for being a more affordable retailer, and it’s great to see a few products at a more accessible price point, but we hope they will continue to work on their alcohol-free range in coming years. It’s good to see some options at the lower end of the ABV scale, with a lager, ginger beer, and shandy from The Hop Foundry all weighing in at 2.8%. There is definitely room for improvment in terms of making products easier to find, rather than nestling them amongst the full-strength products.
Heineken 0.0
Sainte Etienne Lager
Älska Nordic Berries
Haysmith’s Rhubarb & Ginger
Vive (various sodas)
The Infusionist (various mocktails)
Ridge Valley (various tonics)
Vive (Various tonics and mixers)
Small selection of big brands
The online shopping experience with Aldi is somewhat challenging. Unlike most supermarket websites, there is no specific section for alcohol-free drinks or adult soft drinks. We found the alcohol-free beers and ciders by clicking on ‘drinks’ and then choosing ‘beers & ciders’ and scrolling through all the products to find what we were looking for. There is an option within the ‘beers & ciders’ category called ‘beer alternates’ that we thought may lead to alcohol-free options, but it only displayed 4 products, 3 of them were the 2.8% drinks from The Hop Foundry (mentioned above) and the other was a tequila beer at 5.9%. The categories are quite confusing and there is certainly room for improvement. Searches for key terms such as ‘alcohol-free’, ‘non-alcoholic’, ‘0.0’, ‘0.5%’ etc only returned a couple of results, and not all drinks that fit the search criteria showed up. In the end, googling ‘alcohol free spirits Aldi’ etc is what lead us to a number of the product pages. Here’s what we managed to find at the time of visiting the website:
Heineken 0.0
Sainte Etienne Lager
Rheinbacher Premium Pilsner 0%
Älska Nordic Berries
Älska Strawberry & Lime
The Infusionist Mocktails Piña Colada Juice Drink
The Infusionist Mocktails Strawberry Daiquiri Juice Drink
The Infusionist Mocktails Mojito Juice Drink
Ridge Valley Arancia Italian Style Soda
Vive Sparking Blood Orange Italian Style Soda
Vive Limone & Menta Italian Style Soda
Vive Sparkling White Grape Juice
Vive Sparkling Red Grape Juice
A small selection of big brand mixers as well as:
Ridge Valley Elderflower Tonic Water
Ridge Valley Aromatic Tonic Water
Ridge Valley Tonic Water
Ridge Valley Premium Tonic Water
Ridge Valley Light Mediterranean Tonic Water
Ridge Valley Premium Indian Tonic Water
Ridge Valley Light Indian Tonic Water
Remember, if you live somewhere more remote and don’t have the option of shopping for alcohol-free drinks in Aldi, Wise Bartender has a fantastic selection of alcohol-free options to delight any drinker.
Your feedback really helps us to shape the work that we do. If your local supermarket has a fantastic range of alcohol-free drinks, or if you have any feedback about what makes for a great shopping experience either in-store or online, we’d love to hear from you.
Interested in shopping for alcohol-free drinks in supermarkets? Check out our findings from Morrisons.
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