Aldi doubles down on food waste

Excess stock from Aldi’s network of Regional Distribution Centres is to be made available to Community Shop stores across the UK after the supermarket extended its partnership with Company Shop Group.

The supermarket has today (5 January) confirmed that all its Regional Distribution Centres will now help redistribute surplus food that cannot be sold in its stores.

Company Shop Group is the UK’s leading redistributor of surplus food and household products and is working with Aldi to manage surplus stock from its Regional Distribution Centres. This will then be redistributed to the Group’s Community Shops across the country, where items will be sold at discounted prices as a way to help those in need.

Since first collaborating in 2015, Company Shop Group has helped Aldi prevent over 14,700 tonnes of food going to waste, with this new national roll out estimated to prevent a further 2,860 tonnes of food from going to waste each year.

Liz Fox, corporate responsibility director at Aldi UK, said: “Reducing food waste is incredibly important to us, and we know that by rolling this scheme out nationally, it will make a huge difference to communities across the UK.

“The work that Community Shop does is vital to so many people and, sadly, the demand it is seeing for surplus food is currently higher than ever. By extending our partnership with them, we can make a positive difference together.”

Gary Stott, executive chairman, Community Shop, added: “We’ve worked with Aldi for a long time now and are incredibly excited to be able to extend our partnership with them.

“The surplus stock that we redistribute through Community Shop is a lifeline for so many people, and by rolling out the partnership nationally, we can deliver positive impacts for people and communities on a much greater scale.”