Aldi announces 800,000 Christmas donations

German supermarket Aldi has revealed that they donated almost 800,000 meals worth of food across the UK on Christmas Eve in a huge initiative for the festive season.

Aldi ended up donating 335 tonnes of unsold food from their stores, teaming up with local charities across the country to distribute food to those that needed it. Over 500 charities paired up with the supermarket to receive fruit, vegetables, meat, fish and bread that hadn’t sold to customers before the store closed for Christmas Day.

The Christmas campaign was part of Aldi’s existing food partnerships. The supermarket work with FareShare and Company Shop throughout the year. Fritz Walleczek, managing director of corporate responsibility, hailed the initiative a success, saying that the feedback had been overwhelming.

“We’re delighted that we’ve been able to go above and beyond with our donations this year and reach so many people in the communities we work in across the UK,” Walleczek said. “By donating a range of fresh food we’ve been able to support charities in providing warm and healthy festive meals this festive season.”

Aldi was by no means the only supermarket to get in the charitable spirit over Christmas. Reports of Tesco shoppers donating thousands of meals to hunger charities surfaced over the festive period, while Lidl donated 700 Christmas dinners to charities in Scotland.