Aldi, part 3: The ugly (or, Why'd you mess with the fake Cheerios?!)

In milk, bad fake Cheerios grow to the size of donuts.  Grrr!

Heading my list of Top 10 reasons why ALDI rocks is that their fake Cheerios ("Crispy Oats") are practically free at $1.59/box.  I walk in there every few weeks and shlep home a case of 12 boxes at a go.  [We eat a LOT of fake Cheerios.]  And they appear to be made by General Mills, as I can discern no difference in quality from real Cheerios.  So who wouldn't want to save, like, three bucks a box?

...until two days ago, when I purchased a case, only to discover the old-style subpar fake Cheerios, the very porous ones (right) with visible holes that look obviously punched out of a big sheet of Cheerio dough.  These would, I knew, swell up unacceptably as they sogged and softened in the milk.  I wanted to pull a full-bore Howard Beale moment, but had no one for an audience but the kids, who were already a bit annoyed at having to continue eating not just fake Cheerios from now on, but crappy fake Cheerios at that.

Not really this angry, at least not now.

Aldi, I thought we had an understanding.  Can't we just go back to the way things were?

Seriously, though, I understand and respect that the reason for Aldi's success is that they keep costs low and quality reasonably high.  But somebody made a bad quality decision here by changing their private-label manufacturer.  I'd rather pay a bit more for fake Cheerios than the same low price for crappy ones.