Aldi has transformed into a frontrunner on food waste in much the same radical way it rose from a supermarket straggler in the 1990s to the UK’s fifth-largest grocer today.
Until a few years ago, the discounter appeared to have little interest in bolstering its sustainability credentials. When Sainsbury’s was busy co-founding FareShare in 1994, Aldi had barely made a name for itself on the UK high street, and as Tesco revealed food waste data for the first time in 2013, it was still adopting a laser-like focus on doubling profits and driving forward an aggressive price war with the big four. Food waste was likely less than a footnote in its agenda.
But in the space of the past two to three years that’s all changed. From a standing start in 2012 it has redistributed 1,157 tonnes of surplus food to UK and Irish charities, the equivalent of over 2.8 million meals. By 2014, none of its waste was heading to landfill. In 2016, it became one of the first signatories to Courtauld 2025. Last year it provided on-pack tips for shoppers on how to waste less and began slashing prices at the tail end of shelf life in a bid to cut out store surplus. And today it announced a commitment to halve food waste by 2030, in line with the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals.
It’s an ambitious goal. One to which Aldi will be held scrupulously to account by the public as it reveals yearly insights into its progress. But as its record over the past few years shows, the discounter has opted for a no-holds barred strategy on tackling any waste tainting its notoriously lean operations, rolling out initiative after initiative to prove it’s not only on market share it can compete.
And with only Tesco among the major supermarkets currently committed to its own target to end edible surplus from stores by March 2018, let’s hope that – in much the same way Aldi’s rock-bottom prices spurred on rivals in 2008 – its radical approach to waste will provoke a ripple effect across UK grocery.
Because if we’re to stand a chance of toppling that 1.9 million-tonne food waste mountain, we need more radical thinking and stretching targets like this. Not only from the supermarkets, either. Or manufacturers, foodservice or QSR. This kind of approach must come from the top.
That’s why The Grocer is calling for the government to consider our proposal to turn £15m annual investment into 100,000 tonnes of rescued surplus – the equivalent to an additional 100 million meals for UK charities. It would be a big, brave step. But – as Aldi has shown on multiple fronts – you can achieve a lot in a short time when you set your mind to it.
To sign our petition and show you’re #seriousaboutsurplus go to petition.parliament.uk/petitions/204156.
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