Aldi Ireland has confirmed that it is extending its temporary shorter payment terms initiative for small and medium suppliers to the end of the year.

The payment terms, which were introduced in March, due to Covid-19, apply to around 200 food and drink customers. The payment terms were introduced for suppliers that transact up to €1 million annually with Aldi.

The move from Aldi was welcomed by Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine, Dara Calleary, who said: “I have met many farmer representatives in recent days and it is clear we need to do more to ease the burden on the producers and suppliers of our essential products.

Getting payments flowing back to farmers in a prompt fashion is vital and I hope we can see more work being done on this in the period ahead.

“As minister, I will continue to support initiatives such as this and I encourage everyone along the food producing, processing and supply chain to look at new and creative ways to get payments flowing back through the system as efficiently as possible,” Minister Calleary added.

As well as announcing the extension of the the ‘fast-track’ initiative, Aldi also said that it had increased its spend on Irish-produced products by around 24% since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic, and also experienced its highest customer demand during the lockdown.

Commenting on the these two announcements on Wednesday, July 30, John Curtain, Aldi Ireland’s group buying director, said:

The last few months have been a huge challenge for our society and economy, including Ireland’s food and drink sector.

“The feedback from our supply base has been that the shorter payment terms…have made a difference.”