Is Bacon Sold at Indiana Aldi Locations Actually Pork… or Something Else?

Every now and then I encounter a post on social media that leaves me so perplexed that I rush to Google to try to get to the bottom of things. Meet my latest internet deep-dive: Bacon sold at Aldi.

The Facebook Post in Question: Cellular Agriculture and Bacon

The post that I saw on Facebook was shared publicly and was credited to "Rebbeca Rogowski," despite it not showing up in my feed from Rebbeca. The social media status featured an image of a package of Appleton Farms Premium Sliced Bacon sitting in the seat-portion of a shopping cart. The text of the post made the claim that the product pictured was not, in fact, made of pork from a real pig. Instead, the post claimed that the bacon product was manufactured from "a growing cell."

Lab-Grown Meat on Aldi's Shelves?

Obviously, the notion that something so nefarious as a lab grown meat product that could be sitting on the shelf of my nearest Aldi's location piqued my interest. I mean, the post [linked below] even included a quote from the supposed founder of Appleton Meats.

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So Is Aldi Selling Bacon Grown in a Lab?

When I looked into things, I quickly noted that the company referred to in the post as manufacturing lab-grown meats (and cat treats) is called Appleton Meats. However, the product in the photo is from a brand called Appleton Farms. A bit of a deeper dive showed me that Appleton Farms is a brand name owned and trademarked by Aldi, according to Trademarks.Justia.com. But that's all it is: a trademarked name. Aldi does not raise or butcher hogs to make their bacon. They just label it with their own brand name.

Where Does Aldi's Appleton Farms Bacon Come From?

As I slid even further into the internet rabbit hole of bacon, I learned that the bacon that wears the name Appleton Farms is actually produced in Elkhart, Indiana. According to the website VeryMeaty, the bacon sold in Aldi stores is produced by a company called Swift Prepared Foods. VeryMeaty adds that Appleton Farms bacon is made by "traditional methods and high-quality ingredients," and says that the pork is sourced from "small family farms that prioritize animal welfare and sustainability."

So What About Appleton Meats

Now that we've established that Aldi is selling real, farm-raised pork products under it's Appleton Farms brand, where does that leave us with the references in the social media post about Appleton Meats, cell-generated meat, and its founder,  Sid Deen? It turns out that Appleton Meats is a Canadian-based company founded in 2016, that does actually deal in "cell based tech," according to the company's website. However, according to CrunchBase, the company is no longer in operation.

READ MORE: Happy Hour Returning to Indiana Under New Law

Bottom Line on Bacon

While the names are similar, they are two completely different brands, and Aldi is most definitely not celling lab-grown bacon. So go ahead and grab some Appleton Farms bacon and fry it up to go with your eggs, toss it on a BLT, or crumble it over your salad with the knowledge that it did not grow in a petri dish in a Canadian laboratory.

Want to see the Facebook post that started this pork rabbit hole in the first place? Find it here.