Banana bread. It’s one of life’s most perfect pleasures. 

Actually, it’s not. But it is really, really good. What is it about the combination of banana and bread that’s just so comforting? I always remember my mom making it for me as an only child growing up, and it was always a treat worth looking forward to. I never really cared for the nuts, but the deliciousness of everything else – paired up with a thin layer of butter on top – was enough to overpower my dislike of the dry, crunchy walnuts. 

One sniff is already enough to tell me that this isn’t going to challenge Aldi’s version in any way whatsoever. It smells like it was made with banana oil, rather than actual bananas. And knowing Walmart, that very well may be the case. Beyond the weird, not completely natural banana aroma, there’s also a chemical undertone added in. This clearly ain’t your grandma’s banana bread, just in case you were ever expecting it to be. 

The texture is also a little bit too dry for my liking. The delicious banana-heavy top crust – always my favorite part – does get that extra “moisture” boost. But the middle “cake” part feels a little bit more like sand than I was expecting. It’s not that dry, but it’s also got a grainy feel that’s more pronounced than other brands.

Okay, okay, I get it. Perhaps it’s unfair of me to compare this to another store’s vastly superior version. Product reviews should be based on their own merits, rather than in comparison to similar items. In that case, even if I’d never had Aldi’s version, this would still be a letdown. There’s just not enough of the things that make banana bread so good. It’s not just that it doesn’t smell good, or that its texture is off or that it just doesn’t taste very good. It’s that all three of those things apply. 

One thing it has going for it is the package quantity: You get ten slices. That’s the only area where other brands (there we go with the comparisons again) falter: They typically only have eight. That’s only enough to cover my son and I for about two days. It’s not that an additional two pieces would last us much longer; it’s just the principle of it. Ten is a perfect, round number. It’s the amount you would expect to get in a sliced “loaf”, or “cake”, or “bread”, or whatever the hell this is. It should be a standard amount.

Price is also decent, with said 10-slice package retailing for $3.48. It’s not a mind-blowing price, especially since it pretty much sucks, but it’s cheaper than other store’s “faux bakery” brands. And I have to give it some credit because, as bad as it was, I still forced down the entire loaf after everyone else in the household refused to touch it again. 

Now that the package is gone, I’m with them. 

Overall: 3/10. An all around disappointment. It tastes like someone winging a banana bread recipe after having tried it only once. There’s none of the benchmarks of a classic recipe, offering up a dry texture, an artificial banana scent and a taste that’s just all-around bad. I did force down almost the entire loaf after everyone else in my household refused to touch it, so I guess it’s not completely terrible. And the $3.48 asking price is pretty decent for a “faux bakery” item. But otherwise, this is pretty much rock bottom in terms of supermarket banana breads. 

NOTE: I thought “Freshness Guaranteed” was just a statement, or a promise, or you know, the bare minimum you should expect when buying a food product from a store. As it turns out, I’m pretty sure that’s the goddamned brand name. That would be like me naming a store “There Are No Rats in Here”, or some shit.