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Aldi versus Bumble Bee?  Right down to the little plastic spoons, it’s hard to find any differences in these lunch “kits”.

Chances are you’ve had one or both of these box kits.  They’re a convenient snack stored in a small box containing a small bag of crackers and a can of tuna or chicken salad.  Included is a miniature plastic spoon to spread the salad mixture on the crackers.  A peel-off  lid on the can makes it easy to open.  Quick, self-contained, all-inclusive makes them handy to have around when you have the munchies and don’t want to eat a sugary snack.  They’re fairly tasty and produce no major complaints.  They’re certainly nowhere near as good as a deli tuna or chicken salad, or even one you make at home.

But that’s not what we’re here to talk about.  We’re here to talk about the differences between the Bumble Bee branded kits and the Aldi branded kits (Northern Catch for the tuna and Brookdale for the chicken).  To get to the point, the USDA seal on both cans of chicken salad sealed the comparison for me.  Both brands of the chicken salad kit contain the same USDA company code, P-169.  This combined with the lists of identical ingredients,  other wording on the package, the cans, the taste of both the crackers and the chicken salad, and, of course, the miniature plastic spoons leads me to conclude, there is no difference between the brands.

The tuna salad kits seem to be the same also.  The lack of a USDA seal on the cans of tuna, is the only piece of evidence missing.  I guess tuna is still caught from the sea and not grown on a farm where the USDA inspects it?  That does leave open the question, who inspects fish?

How about the price?  The everyday Aldi price for both products is 99 cents.  The Bumble Bee kits were on sale in a big box supermarket for $1.00.  Even the vending machine at work sells the kits for $1.00.  So even the price is virtually identical.

Calories  Chicken Salad,  220 per kit   –  Tuna Salad, 300 per kit

Price – about a dollar per kit

Tags: aldi, brookdale, bumble bee, calories, comparison, differences, food, northern catch, p-169, price, review, reviews, snack, usda

This entry was posted on 05/21/2011 at 15:39 and is filed under ALDI, Recipes, food, cooking and related items. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.