In a bid to help enhance the range and volume of nutritious food they can stock, the supermarket is repurposing fridges from its stores to provide extra storage for organisations that support those in need.
Organisations such as FareShare, Neighbourly and City harvest are working with Aldi to distribute fridges to charities in the UK, with further fridges to be donated in the new year.
Busy period
Luke Emery, national sustainability director at Aldi UK, noted that winter was a busy period for foodbanks and other charitable organisations that support those most in need.
“At Aldi, our aim is for fresh, healthy food to be accessible to all, and we know that food storage can often be an issue for these charitable organisations,” said Emery.
“We’re proud to be working on this initiative with our redistribution partners, which runs alongside our ongoing surplus food donation programme in stores across the UK.”
The donation followed new research from Neighbourly that found 64% of the food redistribution charities and causes it supported would benefit from additional fridges or freezers for food storage.
Donating meals
Aldi will also be supporting those in need over the festive period as it expects to donate more than one million meals to local charities, community groups and foodbanks across the UK.
In other charity news, the UK’s first social supermarket Community Shop has published a new white paper aimed at addressing the urgent issue of food insecurity.
Inspired by Sir William Beveridge’s 1942 report which led to the establishment of the welfare state, Community Shop’s new report calls on the UK Government to take a holistic, person-centred approach to tackle food insecurity at its root and end dependence on emergency food parcels.
Meanwhile, Around Noon, Tesco and Network Rail all made donations across the festive season aimed at addressing food insecurity.
