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How we are tackling food waste

Food waste is an urgent environmental and social issue. Retailers play an influential role in the supply chain, providing a link between producers and consumers. We participate with the Retail Action Group, an industry wide programme that guides businesses to measure and act upon food waste to deliver real change.

Together with our partners, we are committed to the UN Sustainable Development Goal 12.3 to halve per capita global food waste by 2030. This goal has vital importance to reduce the environmental impact of wasted food, and to help alleviate food poverty.

We have committed to reduce absolute operational food waste by 50% by 2030 (relative to 2017 baseline). To achieve these commitments, we are working hard to prevent waste in our operations and when waste does happen, we ensure we have partnerships to distribute surplus food to charities. We also work with our suppliers to minimise waste and support a range of industry initiatives.

Some of our progress so far…

  • We have reduced our wastage intensity from 0.98% in 2017, to 0.80% in 2022.
  • We have been working in partnership with FoodCloud since 2014 to redistribute large volumes, and a great variety of surplus food to charities through our stores.
  • Since 2017, we have redistributed over 1.3 million meals from surplus and donated food equating to 550 tonnes of food being saved from waste, the equivalent of saving 1762 tonnes of CO2 emissions.
  • We saw a huge surge in charity demand in 2020 due to the pandemic. ALDI Ireland was the first retail partner in Ireland to support FoodCloud with €50,000 donated as non-surplus stock to help meet this demand.
  • We have expanded our redistribution programme with FoodCloud to include weekends to donate even more food to local charities and community groups.
  • We help our customers to reduce food waste by promoting the STOP Food Waste programme, funded under the EPA National Waste Prevention Programme (NWPP) in stores, on our social media channels, and in our in-store leaflets and suggesting food waste saving tips to our customers.
  • Following a successful trial, we have rolled out 75%, 50% and 30% price reductions on fresh produce, bakery and chilled products that are near the end of their shelf life to reduce wastage.  
  • We have also rolled out 30% price reductions on ambient items that have damaged outer packaging.
  • We were the first Irish retailer to partner with Too Good To Go in February 2023.
  • We have monitored our food waste closely, engaging with the right teams to identify waste hotspots, and clear priority actions for the business.
  • Continue to monitor our food waste more closely through robust and more detailed reporting and engaging with the right teams to identify waste hotspots, and clear priority actions for the business.
  • To redistribute 200,000 meals with FoodCloud year on year.
  • Expect to save over 60 tonnes of food from going to waste annually.
  • Investigating additional food surplus redistribution routes.
  • Engaging with consumers to help drive waste reduction in the home.
  • Working with our suppliers to redistribute surplus stock when it occurs.
  • Investigating the removal of Best Before dates on certain produce lines.

Food waste data

Our food waste report includes data from all stores and regional distribution centres in Ireland. In 2017, we established our food waste intensity baseline as being 0.98%, meaning 0.98% of food handled ended up as food waste.

Since 2017, our food waste intensity has improved, and in 2022, 0.80% of our food handled ended up as food waste.

We have also reduced our Aldi IE’s overall food waste in our operations by 12.18% from 2017 to 2022 (please refer to ALDI GB&IE FOOD WASTE REPORTING METHODOLOGY STATEMENT for further details on reporting methodology).

Independent Limited Assurance – Deloitte LLP

Deloitte LLP has been engaged in 2022 to provide independent assurance over the food waste intensity metric in accordance with the International Standard for Assurance Engagements 3000 (“ISAE 3000”). Deloitte’s full qualified assurance opinion, which includes details of the selected information assured, can be found for years pertaining to 2017-2021  here, and  unqualified opinion for 2022  here.