Latin American banana producers have strongly condemned Aldi‘s decision to pay a lower price for the fruit from next year.
“Double standards”
According to Fruitnet, Aldi, the second-largest buyer of bananas in Europe, would pay banana producers 6 cents per kilo less from the beginning of next year. The retailer would only pay 11.33 euro per box. Since Aldi Nord and Süd have been buying the fruit together, in 2019, they have already unilaterally reduced the purchase price twice.
In an unequivocal statement, banana producers and exporters from Ecuador, Colombia, Guatemala, Honduras, Panama and Costa Rica accuse the retailer of applying ‘double standards’, which will have serious consequences for producers. “Aldi’s public discourse embraces sustainability, and yet there is a great discrepancy between its imago towards consumers and its actions with producers,” said a joint press release.
Sustainability throughout the chain
Producers also point out that sustainable production entails costs and that these are now almost exclusively borne by them, while the other actors in the value chain do not, or do not sufficiently, assume their responsibilities. “We therefore denounce that supermarkets like Aldi do not assume their share of responsibility and maintaining an opaque negotiating position that endangers the subsistence of the producers.”
For producers, it is essential that the whole value chain is economically, socially and environmentally sustainable. “To this end it is necessary to implement an effective shared responsibility that redistributes the costs associated with sustainability among all the actors along the value chain”, they conclude.
