Thursday, January 13, 2022
Discounters are converting
Supermarkets also focus on animal welfare when it comes to milk
After the introduction of husbandry labeling for milk, too, the large retail chains in Germany are now committed to removing milk from poor animal husbandry from their range in the future. The reason for this is the increasing demand for animal welfare products.
More and more large retail chains in Germany want to gradually ban milk from their refrigerated shelves from unsuitable animal husbandry. After the Edeka group, the discounter Aldi Nord and Aldi Süd also announced that they intend to completely dispense with their own brands of milk in the foreseeable future, the production of which only meets the minimum legal requirements for animal husbandry. The changeover should take place by 2024.
Germany’s largest grocer Edeka and its discount chain Netto have even set themselves the goal of taking this step this year, as they announced at the beginning of the week. Further milk and dairy products are to follow.
The background: In the past few weeks, all of the major grocery retailers in Germany have announced that they will also introduce the four-stage husbandry label, which will only be used for meat and meat products by the end of the year, for dairy and dairy products in 2022. With its four levels – 1: stable housing, 2: stable housing plus, 3: outside climate, 4: premium – it enables consumers to see at first glance how high the animal welfare level is when keeping livestock .
The Aldi-Nord manager Tanja Hacker stated: “The development of the last few years shows: The demand for animal welfare products is growing steadily.” According to her, all of Aldi’s own-brand milk should come from husbandry forms 3 and 4 by 2030 at the latest.