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Hands holding brazil nuts

Nuts

Our Approach

Each nut type and its value chain is unique and comes with its own social and environmental challenges. Nut origins and production systems vary significantly and range from the wild collection from pristine rainforests in the Amazon (Brazil nuts), over smallholder farming in Türkiye (hazelnuts) and West Africa (cashews), to industrial plantations in California (almonds).

The ALDI SOUTH Group has identified nut supply chains as a high-priority focus area. There are eleven nut types sold in the ALDI SOUTH Group’s countries, with Brazil nuts, cashews and hazelnuts being of particular importance. We are committed to fostering fair working conditions and environmentally friendly production in the cultivation and processing of nuts. We will continue to increase our efforts in ensuring transparency and traceability throughout our nut supply chains and support our business partners to improve their corporate responsibility performance.

Our Actions

Nut Strategy

In line with our CR Roadmap to our Vision 2030, we have defined a long-term strategy for our nut supply chains to increase traceability of raw materials as well as improve the livelihoods and working conditions for workers along our high-priority supply chains.

We are working collaboratively with our suppliers, multi-stakeholder initiatives, certification bodies and industry experts to strengthen our requirements for our nut products, focusing on addressing issues related to, for example, sustainability management, transparency and traceability, human rights and food safety.

By establishing an impact-led approach and partnering for change, we strive to become a driving force for collaboration and sector transformation.

Transparency & Traceability

Supply chain transparency is the foundation for all our sustainability measures.  However, nut supply chains are highly complex and the production process for each nut type can vary significantly. For example, global cashew supply chains can often span from cultivation in West and East African countries to processing in Vietnam. This not only makes it challenging to achieve traceability and transparency in general, but can also hinder our efforts to increase our stakeholder engagement and capacity building within our supply chains.

Together with our business partners and other industry actors, we are working towards increased transparency through targeted supplier interviews, participation in relevant multi-stakeholder initiatives, projects on the ground, and crop-specific human rights impact assessments. This helps us to ensure compliance with our requirements in the cultivation and processing of nuts for our products.

Nut traceability enquiry

In 2022, we successfully completed our nut traceability review for the second time to help us understand where our nut products come from and the techniques with which they are grown and processed. With the help from our suppliers, we were able to retrieve data on almost 85% of our buying volume for our nut snacking products, revealing key insights of each nut type’s individual supply chain. We are aware that without this knowledge, we cannot ensure compliance with our requirements, analyse risks, or implement projects on the ground.

ALDI’s main sourcing countries for nuts

Almonds, Peanuts, Pecans, Pistachios, Walnuts

USA

Almonds, Peanuts, Pecans, Pistachios, Walnuts

Chestnuts, Pine nuts

China

Chestnuts, Pine nuts

Cashews

Vietnam

Cashews

Our recent traceability enquiry confirmed that Vietnam is the main processing hub (i.e. cracking) for our cashew products while around 50% of our raw cashew nuts are grown in West and East Africa.

Raw cashew nuts

West & East Africa

Raw Cashew Nuts

Our recent traceability enquiry confirmed that Vietnam is the main processing hub (i.e. cracking) for our cashew products while around 50% of our raw cashew nuts are grown in West and East Africa.

Macadamia

Australia

Macadamia

Brazil nuts

Bolivia

Brazil nuts

Hazelnuts

Turkey

Hazelnuts

Transparency in the Nut Supply Chain

We attach great importance to sustainable production conditions in the manufacturing of food and non-food products. Supply chain transparency is the foundation for all our sustainability measures. Without the knowledge where our products come from, we cannot ensure compliance with our requirements, analyse risks, monitor or implement projects. We work with our business partners to increase the transparency of our supply chains so that we have a better understanding of the  origins of the products we sell and the raw materials we use in our products.

In 2023, we published the names and addresses of our direct business partners (tier 1 suppliers) for nuts.

Supply Chain

Visits and Assessments

We are also working towards extending our Corporate Responsibility Supplier Evaluation (CRSE) to our nut supply chains along with capacity building measures for our lowest ranking suppliers at the latest by 2027.

Visits and assessments

Human Rights

We respect human rights and do our part to improve living and working conditions throughout our supply chains.

Stakeholder Dialogue & Capacity Building

We believe the best way to protect people and planet is through joint initiatives and partnerships. For this reason, we engage in multi-stakeholder initiatives.

Sustainable Development Goals

1 No poverty 5 Gender equality 8 Decent work and economic growth 10 Reduced inequalities 12 Responsible consumption and production 13 Climate action 15 Life on land 17 Partnerships for the goals

UNGC

Human Rights

Principle 1

Support and respect the protection of human rights

Principle 2

Not complicit in human rights abuses

Labour

Principle 3

Uphold freedom of association and recognition of right to collective bargaining

Principle 4

Elimination of forced and compulsory labour

Principle 5

Abolition of child labour

Principle 6

Elimination of discrimination in respect of employment and occupation

Environment

Principle 7

Precautionary approach to environmental challenges

Principle 8

Promote environmental responsibility

GRI references

GRI 103: Management approach 2016

Global Reporting Initiative 103-1 Global Reporting Initiative 103-2 Global Reporting Initiative 103-3