For every 2 tonnes of food we eat in the UK, another tonne is wasted. That’s around £19 million of food waste a year. As the nation’s fastest growing supermarket, Aldi has a responsibility to tackle this major issue and to help fight food poverty and minimise environmental impact.
The fight against food waste is a big task. That’s why it’s important to work together with suppliers, customers and fellow businesses to help achieve our goals. Learn more about the people we’ve partnered with and the pledges we’ve taken below.
Aldi is one of the founding signatories to Courtauld 2025, a voluntary commitment that brings food businesses together to make food production and consumption more sustainable. Under the agreement, we have pledged to reduce food waste and its associated environmental impacts by 20% by 2025. By using research, tools and guidance from Wrap, we can save costs and make food more sustainable for our suppliers through to our customers. We have since signed up to Courtauld 2030; we have committed to reduce food waste by 20% by 2025, and halve it by 2030 (relative to 2017 baseline), in line with the Courtauld 2030 and UN SDG Champions 12.3 commitments.
In September 2017, we signed up to the ‘Friends of Champions 12.3’ network. As part of the network, we’ve pledged to halve our operational food waste by 2030 (2017 baseline), and assist our customers and suppliers to reduce their food waste.
In 2019 we strengthened our commitment to achieving Target 12.3 by signing up to the UK Government’s Step up to the Plate campaign. Under this campaign, we have pledged to:
• Target, measure and act on our operational food waste, while adopting the WRAP and IGD Food Waste Reduction Roadmap
• Collaborate on tackling citizen food waste by piloting behavioural interventions, and supporting WRAP’s Love Food Hate Waste campaign
Since 2012, we have donated food to vulnerable people. In 2019, we announced an exciting new partnership with Neighbourly to enable our stores in the UK to donate surplus food to the local community. Via this programme, food that is near its expiration date is collected by local charitable organisations such as homeless shelters, school clubs and refuges to make into nutritious meals for those in need. Over 95% of our UK stores are regularly donating under the programme, and we’re working on the rest.
Want to know how much food your local store has donated to local charities? Click here.
Are you a local organisation that would like to collect surplus food from one of our stores? Contact Neighbourly either via aldi@neighbourly.com or 0117 422 0860.
In 2017 we launched our Christmas Eve Donation Scheme, which invites charities and foodbanks to register their interest and receive donations from their local stores on a first come, first served basis.
We have an agreement with our suppliers to redistribute any surplus Aldi stock to Company Shop, the UK’s largest distributor of surplus food and fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG). They purchase surplus stock from retailers and manufacturers and sell them at a discounted price to those in need to prevent food going to waste.
They also make a huge impact on communities through their Community Shops. These social supermarkets offer food at low prices in areas of acute deprivation, whilst also providing a social hub for members to seek welfare advice, mentoring and support services, including employment coaching, counselling and family support.
