Was Aldi playing fair with shock sprout supplier delisting?

Brussel sprouts have been making the news this week, as the discounters and their traditional supermarket rivals try to outdo each other on low prices for the festive season.

At last count, Asda and Aldi were leading the way in whose fare was the cheapest, with carrots, broccoli, parsnips and sprouts all selling for just 8p each.

The veg wars have reached new levels since Morrisons fired the opening shots last week, despite fears from farmers that the promotions were devaluing the products in the eyes of the consumer and would hurt farmers already struggling with brutal margins from the big retailers.

So the timing of an unprecedented High Court intervention by the Groceries Code Adjudicator against the German discounter, after it was accused of delisting one of its longest-serving suppliers in a move alleged to have forced the company to go under, is not good.

Late delisting

Documents were submitted at the High Court yesterday by Adjudicator Mark White, who is intervening in a case taken against the discounter by two farmers, John Clappison and Matthew Rawson, whose W Clappison Ltd’s (‘WCL’) business ran the last sprout/ brassica farm in Yorkshire and had supplied sprouts to supermarkets including Aldi, for more than 20 years. 

The case hinges around claims that Aldi terminated its supply agreement in February last year after the farm’s crop for the retailer had already been sown, leading to the collapse of the business and resulting in Aldi being sued for £3.7m.

This is not the first time a supplier has taken one of the discounters to court over GSCOP.

In 2022, Lidl was sued for £2.6m by a fruit & vegetable supplier who claimed it was wrongly cut out of deals by the discount chain in a move which “destroyed its business”.

Proctor & Associates, which once supplied Lidl with up to 57 different kinds of fruit & vegetable, claimed it had to stop trading after the discounter delisted a string of its products without notice and poached Proctor’s suppliers.

That case was settled in a confidential agreement, but this is the first time the GCA itself has become involved in such a case.

Was Aldi playing fair?

Understandably with court proceedings active, the GCA was short and to the point with its statement telling The Grocer:

“The GCA has applied to intervene in the proceedings to assist the court in resolving the Groceries Code matters in dispute between the parties.”

An Aldi spokesperson said the supermarket was ”disappointed” by the claims made by W Clappison as “we go to great lengths to follow the relevant codes of best practice for managing supplier relationships”.

“This is why we have consistently been ranked as one of the top supermarkets for conducting relationships fairly, in good faith and without duress in the GSCOP annual survey.”

But that will not be the last we hear of it. In light of this week’s developments, the grocery world will be watching the events unfold with great interest.