ALDI shopper's fury after jaw-dropping find
An ALDI customer has spoken of her frustration after discovering large amounts of produce "dumped" in the supermarket skip bins at the back of her local store.
Taking to Facebook, shopper Danielle shared images that show bags of potatoes, tomatoes, bread and other fresh fruit and vegetables in the waste units.
She also took photos of meat, eggs, pet food, cheese, small goods and other popular buys taken in a household kitchen, but apparently ripped straight from the bins as well.
To the naked eye, most of the produce appears to be intact and fit to eat.
“How about you pay attention instead to what’s going out your back dock and into the bins. Look at this!” said Danielle in her post, tagging in ALDI Australia.
“Perfectly good food dumped by you EVERY SINGLE DAY. How much is that costing you?”
Danielle's post sparked furious reactions from commenters, with one saying she was "literally shocked".
An ALDI spokesperson has told 7NEWS.com.au that the supermarket “actively” donates to food rescue groups and only disposes of foods that are ‘inconsumable’ and pose a health risk.
“We have a number of processes and policies in place to ensure that very few products on our shelves end up as waste,” the spokesperson said.
“Every ALDI store in Australia is linked to one or more food rescue partners including OzHarvest, Foodbank and SecondBite and in 2020 alone, we donated over 10 million meals to charity partners and more than 66,000kg of non-food items.
“We will only discard product from our stores should it be unsuitable for sale or donation.
“While we actively donate to food rescue organisations, our partners have an obligation to provide their communities with food that is still of a high standard and, as such, are sometimes unable to take foods that are inconsumable or considered a high risk, such as meat, eggs and produce.”
One Facebook user had another environmentally-friendly suggestion to combat food waste.
“I guess that legislation, put in place to ensure our collective well-being, forces some of this supermarket behaviour (to change),” she wrote.
“Perhaps enrolment in a food to compost program might at least recycle that deemed unfit for human consumption.”