Aldi and Lidl promise improvement: farmers succeed in stage victory against low prices

Wednesday December 30th 2020

Aldi and Lidl promise improvement
Farmers succeed in stage victory against low prices

The fact that supermarkets earn on butter and milk while producers go empty-handed is increasingly arousing the anger of farmers. After tractor blockades in front of several central warehouses, Aldi and Lidl are now making concessions. In the future, individual products will only be bought by German farmers.

After several days of protests by farmers in front of the central warehouses of large supermarket chains, there is movement in the conflict over food prices. For the time being, the farmers ended the blockades of the warehouse access roads with tractors after the discounters Aldi Nord and Süd had made concessions. Like Aldi, the Lidl Group wants to start talks with representatives of the farmers. "With Aldi we made progress in the negotiations, at least as far as butter prices are concerned," said the spokesman for the protest movement in Lower Saxony, Anthony Lee.

A spokesman for Aldi-Nord announced that the company had assured farmers that it would implement further measures to improve the situation in German agriculture at short notice. According to this, Aldi Nord and Aldi Süd want to obtain conventional and organic fresh milk only from Germany. The company is aiming for long-term contracts to give farmers better planning security. The background to the protests was a reduction in butter prices announced by Aldi. In several federal states, farmers used their vehicles to draw attention to their situation. They demanded fair prices for their products.

In Siek in the Stormarn district in Schleswig-Holstein, according to the police, farmers blocked a Lidl central warehouse with around 70 tractors on Wednesday night. In the past few days, farmers with hundreds of tractors had blocked an Aldi warehouse in Hesel in the Leer district in Lower Saxony.

"Put an end to the black peter game"

The peasant movement "Land creates connection" (LsV) agreed with the Lidl management level on joint talks until January 11th. That said Schleswig-Holstein's LsV chairwoman Uta von Schmidt-Kühl. The Federal Ministry of Agriculture, the retail chains Rewe, Aldi and Edeka as well as dairies and slaughterhouses are also to take part.

"We insisted that the processing companies be brought to the table because we are now tired of the fact that the buck is always pushed back to the next," said Schmidt-Kühl. It is about rules that ensure fair conditions for all members of the supply chain. The farmers wanted the price increases to reach them and that fresh food would be purchased as contractually agreed.