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Wednesday, December 30, 2020
Aldi and Lidl promise improvements
Farmers achieve stage victory against low prices
The fact that supermarkets win on butter and milk while producers are left empty-handed is increasingly drawing ire from farmers. After tractor lockdowns in front of several central warehouses, Aldi and Lidl are now making concessions. In the future, only German farmers will buy individual products.
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, farmers ended roadblocks to warehouses with tractors after discount stores Aldi Nord and Süd made concessions. Like Aldi, the Lidl group wants to start conversations with farmer representatives. “With Aldi we made progress in the negotiations, at least with regard to butter prices,” said Anthony Lee, spokesman for the protest movement in Lower Saxony.
An Aldi-Nord spokesperson announced that the company had assured farmers that it would implement further measures to improve the situation in German agriculture on short notice. According to this, Aldi Nord and Aldi Süd want to source conventional and organic fresh milk only from Germany. The company is targeting long-term contracts to give farmers better planning certainty. 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 of Schleswig-Holstein, according to police, farmers blocked a central Lidl warehouse with around 70 tractors on Wednesday night. In recent days, farmers had blocked an Aldi warehouse in Hesel, in the Lower Saxony district of Leer, with hundreds of tractors.
“End the game of black peter”
The peasant movement “The land creates connection” (LsV) agreed with the management level of Lidl joint discussions until January 11. So said the president of the LsV of Schleswig-Holstein, Uta von Schmidt-Kühl. The Federal Ministry of Agriculture, the retail chains Rewe, Aldi and Edeka, as well as dairies and slaughterhouses will also participate.
“We insisted that processing companies come to the table because now we are tired of the fact that the ball is always being pushed to the next one,” said Schmidt-Kühl. These are rules that guarantee fair conditions for all members of the supply chain. The farmers wanted the price increases to catch up with them and they wanted fresh food bought as agreed in the contract.
