The Umami Additive You Won't Find In Any Of Aldi's Products

With the recent push to remove artificial ingredients from so many packaged goods in grocery stores, Aldi has also recently announced that it will be axing 44 additives and ingredients from its various house goods. One ingredient that Aldi hasn't had in its repertoire since 2015 is a seasoning that we all associate with the pure flavor of savoriness, oftentimes referred to umami: monosodium glutamate, or MSG. That's why you won't find it in the ingredient list of any Aldi brands of goods. (Name-brand items, however, aren't under Aldi's purview.) 

The removal of MSG from Aldi brands was part of a clean ingredients initiative launched more than a decade ago. Along with the MSG, Aldi also removed all uses of brominated vegetable oil, partially hydrogenated oils, and synthetic trans fatty acids, as well as a handful of artificial colorings. That list has grown much longer, and even more artificial ingredients will be gone by 2027. If you're a regular Aldi shopper, chances are you've probably never thought much about this, since Aldi's food has tasted pretty consistent over the years (at least in my opinion, barring any major recipe changes).

Monosodium glutamate often gets a bad rap, but it does add that unspoken savory flavor to packaged foods like chips or instant ramen. Manufacturers have some sneaky workarounds that produce the same effect, like yeast extract (if you've ever had nutritional yeast, it's very savory due to its high glutamic acid content), hydrolyzed vegetable protein, and disodium guanylate and disodium inosinate. These all add a similar flavor, so companies can say there's no MSG in their products even if the end result tastes identical.

MSG just happens to be the one ingredient that's spoken about most often. We recently conducted a taste test of Frito-Lay's NKD Doritos and Cheetos last year, which are artificial ingredient-free, and some of those products used yeast extract. It was nearly impossible to tell the difference between the original snacks with MSG versus the more natural ones, so that's not to say Aldi doesn't have some tricks up its sleeve. The company avoids using that one notorious seasoning with household recognition, but honestly — people eat it because it tastes appealing, and many households still cook with MSG at home because it can be incredibly useful.