Aldi and workers’ rights
Aldi has clear room for improvement when it comes to workers’ rights.
While the company has a policy outlining its expectations for suppliers on workers’ rights, the policy omits key areas like payment of a living wage and limitations to working hours.
It has published its immediate suppliers for certain high risk foods: namely pineapples, coffee, fish and seafood. This is a positive step toward ensuring workers’ rights, as it enables workers’ unions and civil society groups to hold it to account. However, Ethical Consumer expects companies to go further – publishing their suppliers for all products.
In March 2023 Ethical Consumer published the report Produce of Exploitation. It found that fruit and vegetable companies in southern Spain, believed to be supplying to all major UK supermarkets, were committing major labour rights abuses – such as wage theft, unsafe conditions, sexual harassment and forced labour. UK supermarkets, including Aldi, had failed to take adequate action, the report found.
The British Retail Consortium responded to the report on behalf of Aldi and other supermarkets. It stated that it was “not in a position to comment on the claims made”, as it had not seen the report in full prior to publication.
Plastic packaging, palm oil and greenwashing
Aldi also receives middling scores on environmental issues such as packaging and palm oil.
The retailer has cut packaging across its operations, reducing it by 21% between 2015 and 2022, and states that 24% of its packaging is made from recycled plastic. However, the company could go further, including doing more to tackle packaging in its supply chain.
Aldi also achieved an average score for its use of palm oil. Demand for palm oil in food, cleaning and cosmetic products has driven massive deforestation in Indonesia, Malaysia and other countries. Almost all of Aldi’s palm oil is certified by the Roundtable for Sustainable Palm Oil – the largest certification for the product in the world.
However, less than half of the palm oil that Aldi bought through the certification in 2022 was ‘segregated’ or ‘identity preserved’ – practices that see the certified palm oil physically segregated by suppliers from uncertified palm oil, and considered best practice for ensuring sustainability.
Aldi and animal welfare
Aldi has taken limited action on animal welfare and animal rights, despite selling a huge range of animal products in its stores.
Most milk supplied to Aldi is from the dairy company Arla Foods, which has repeatedly been criticised over animal welfare concerns. Each year, the Business Benchmark for Animal Welfare report rates and ranks companies on their animal welfare approach. In its 2023 report, Arla was placed in Tier 5; the second lowest tier in the report.
Arla has also been criticised for greenwashing its image. In April 2023, an article in the Guardian stated, "Arla Foods has promoted its Cravendale milk brand and its Care welfare and environmental programme with farmer suppliers singing ‘everybody’s free’ in fields. [Arla] has confirmed that its supply chain for other products includes milk from zero-grazing units”, under which the animals never go outside. According to the article, animal rights organisation Viva! had therefore complained to the regulator, the Advertising Standards Authority.
Aldi doesn’t fare much better when it comes to the treatment of chickens, although it ended use of caged hen eggs for the first time in 2024. The retailer’s animal welfare policy does not appear to prohibit some of the worst practices, such as beak trimming – where hens’ beaks are cut to prevent them pecking one another due to overcrowding and stress.
Tax conduct and executive pay
The company owns several subsidiaries in tax havens such as Ireland, Hong Kong and Hungary – which do not seem to be serving local populations and are high risk company types for use for tax avoidance.
In 2022, Aldi paid its highest earning director £2.2 million, a figure considered to be excessive. It was not paying the living wage throughout its operations.
The text above was written October 2024, and most research was conducted in June 2024.
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