The extremely efficient German company ALDI got back to me.  It was your standard customer complaint response.

Dear Marina

Thank you for your response over my disappointment with ALDI’s Garlic # 77203.

I note that there was no attached Aldi compensatory voucher to cover my said disappointment.  This disappointment is, I can fairly claim, to be on the profound level of disappointment.

I also note that you say “your experience with ALDI’s product has been documented and forwarded to the appropriate departments.” 

I am unsure what this actually means. You will remember from my first piece of correspondence I wanted to actually know how ALDI was going to ensure that no further profoundly disappointing produce would appear on their shelves again (read here sad brocollini and rotting garlic).  I assume that the appropriate departments are Quality Control and Customer Assurance, however I will be awaiting their fulsome response with great interest.

Marina, your suggestion of taking the receipt together with the rotting garlic back to the store of purchase is indeed an excellent one. Given that the place of purchase was Ballina and I actually reside in Balmain (Sydney) this could cause a minor problem – logistically that is.  I believe that is actually a distance of around 740.2 kilometres between the two.

Look Marina – I want to work on this logistically challenging issue with you.  I could fly up to Ballina as I note that Virgin Airlines are doing some great deals at the moment – can you believe $89 would get me up there tomorrow and the same amount for the return journey?

Now obviously there would be transfers to and from both airports but I’ll leave that up to you clever and efficient people at ALDI to work out whether it is worth you covering my travel costs to return to the scene of my profound disappointment. 

So I suppose where we are at now is I will wait a reasonable time to get my fulsome response (and hopefully an ALDI voucher).

Regards