Aldi is beloved for its low-priced offerings, but lately, the discount supermarket has alienated a portion of its regular customers with changes to some crowd-favorite offerings. Aldi shoppers were unhappy when the chain changed its organic ketchup recipe, which is understandable. When someone is used to the specific taste of a product or brand, change can be quite frustrating, especially because the older version — the one they’re used to — is generally taken out of rotation and not available anymore. The problem is compounded if it’s a budget item, since shoppers find it even more difficult to find a substitute that tastes the same and fits their budget. As one of America’s cheapest grocery store chains, Aldi, therefore, faced significant backlash when it switched up the recipe for one of its whipped dairy topping products.
On a Reddit thread where comments quickly snowballed, one buyer compared two cans of Aldi’s Friendly Farms Extra Creamy Dairy Whipped Topping. Both cans were almost identical, except for a few small (but significant) changes in the ingredients. Heavy cream seems to have been replaced with regular cream. More importantly, sugar has been replaced with corn syrup and high fructose corn syrup (HFCS). While HFCS is nearly identical to regular sugar in terms of health outcomes, the former is often criticised for being a cheap sugar substitute that doesn’t taste as good. Some buyers who noticed this substitution in Aldi’s Extra Creamy Whipped Topping stopped purchasing the product, and even considered returning it under the supermarket’s Twice as Nice Guarantee that allows buyers to return food products they aren’t satisfied with.
Aldi switched from sugar to corn syrup in its Extra Creamy Whipped Dairy Topping
The switch from sugar to corn syrup seems to be limited to the Extra Creamy version of Aldi’s Whipped Dairy Topping. Other flavors, like seasonal favorite Red Velvet, contain a mix of sugar and corn syrup. Even the regular Whipped Dairy Topping has both sugar and corn syrup. It seems that the Extra Creamy version was one of the few that contained sugar and not corn syrup, but that’s not the case anymore. However, it’s also worth noting that while the original didn’t contain corn syrup, it did have maltodextrin — a food additive that’s similar to corn syrup solids. The new version doesn’t seem to contain maltodextrin. There are also a few limited edition flavors, like Maple Vanilla, whose previous iterations contained sugar instead of corn syrup. It’s possible that these might get corn syrup in the future, too.
The change in sweetener doesn’t seem to have affected the nutritional profile of the Whipped Dairy Topping. Both the older and updated versions contain 1 gram of added sugar. Interestingly, the 1 gram of added sugar per serving now makes up 2% of the daily value instead of the earlier 1%.
Ultimately, it comes down to taste and dietary preferences. Someone who wants to avoid corn syrup will have to look for alternatives to Aldi’s Extra Creamy Whipped Dairy Topping. If you’ve enjoyed the product’s other flavors, you can continue to use them since they’ve always contained corn syrup. Or, if you want to avoid the additional additives that go into processed food, you can make simple and easy whipped cream at home.
