Behind the Barcodes - Aldi

It’s the supermarket that prides itself on being #EverydayAmazing. And although that may be true for its quality and low prices, when Oxfam scored major UK supermarkets according to their public policies and practices that prevent human suffering, Aldi came bottom.

That means Aldi doesn’t disclose what it’s doing to protect the people who produce its food.

Without the right policies and practices in place, Oxfam research shows that people can be forced to work inhumanely long hours, women farmers are at risk, and people can be paid so little that they can’t afford to feed their families or escape poverty.

This has to change. We’ve created our own take on Aldi’s Everyday Amazing ads and now we need your help to get Aldi’s attention on Facebook and Twitter. Supermarkets have the power to push for safer, fairer working conditions. The more shares and retweets, the more pressure Aldi will be under to do something about it.

It’s time this well-loved family brand did more to protect the people who produce its food.

Find out more why is Oxfam campaigning against Aldi on our blog.

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Help persuade Aldi
to do better

The supermarket scorecard

Oxfam has analysed the human rights policies of these leading UK supermarkets and scored them on four carefully selected categories. How does your supermarket score? For our full report please click here.

	Overall score	Transparency	Workers	Farmers	Women
		We ask food retailers to be transparent about their policies and practices to encourage good practice in defending human rights in global supply chains.	The workers who produce our food are often trapped in poverty and unable to meet their basic living costs, due to low pay and power imbalances.	Large-scale agricultural investment in developing countries is driving monoculture expansion and displacing communities, undermining small-holder livelihoods and worsening local food security.	A large proportion of food producers are women; to meet labour rights standards special attention must be paid to their additional vulnerability to exploitation and abuse.
Tesco has the largest groceries market share in the UK. It also trades in nine countries in Europe and Asia, including Thailand where - trading as Tesco Lotus - it is the largest supermarket.	23	29	42	15	5
Sainsbury's is the second largest groceries retailer in the UK where it has 1,412 stores. It also owns a number of other businesses including banking and homeware which were not in the scope of this study.	18	8	38	17	10
Walmart is the largest supermarket chain in the USA. Walmart International has more than 6,200 retail units, operating under 63 banners in 27 countries outside the United States. One of these, Asda in the UK, has 650 stores.	17	0	25	17	29
Lidl has the largest network of discount grocery stores in Europe. The Schwarz Group (of which Lidl is the biggest part) represents 15% of the German market share and 4.4% of the market share in the UK, where it is also one of the fastest growing supermarkets in the UK.	5	8	2	8	0
Morrisons has seen a rapid increase in market share between 2015 and 2017, accounting for 10.7% of the groceries sector in the UK in November 2017and is the fourth largest supermarket in the UK.	5	4	17	0	0
The Aldi group is one of the biggest food discounters in Europe, comprising of Aldi Nord and Aldi Sud. Aldi South has more than 5700 branches in eleven countries, including the UK, where it is also one of the fastest growing supermarkets.	1	0	0	4	0

Key

1-10

11-20

21-30

31-50

51-70

71-90

91-100

Poor

Good

This scorecard is based on supermarkets' public policies, statements, and commitments.

Reported Human Rights Allegations in the supply chain of companies can be found here: www.business-humanrights.org/barcodes.

Please note, these scores are based on information available publicly up to 9th November 2017. Any relevant changes made by the companies after this date will be considered in the second annual scorecard assessment

Help persuade Aldi to do better

The supermarket scorecard

Key

Help persuade Aldi
to do better