QUESTION:
ALDI grocery stores giving left over food to the homeless on Christmas Eve?
ANSWER:
ALDI U.S. locations are not doing this but some international store locations are.
SOURCES:
ALDI spokesperson
PROCESS:
The holiday season is all about generosity and thoughtfulness. And a new viral post says a popular grocery store chain is giving back with a free offer to help feed the needy, but is it true?
The WUSA9 Verify team got to work tracking down the truth.
One of the latest viral memes circulating this holiday season claims at 4 p.m. on Christmas Eve, Aldi grocery stores will be giving away their leftover food to the homeless and please share. We all love random acts of kindness, but never everyone's convinced it's legit so our Verify team is getting answers.
Our researchers went straight to an Aldi spokesperson who sent us the following statement:
"ALDI USA operates independently from ALDI in other countries. We aren’t currently implementing a nationwide Christmas Eve food donation, but we do give back to our communities in partnership with Feeding America. All of our stores work with local food banks in the Feeding America network to donate overstocked food products, short-dated items or products with lightly damaged packaging that are still safe for consumption.
In fact, we just completed an effort to bring more food to people this holiday season by teaming up with Instacart and Feeding America. On #GivingTuesday, every ALDI purchase made via Instacart was matched by ALDI with a donation to Feeding America, totaling up to 1 million meals. Instacart also waived the delivery fee for all ALDI orders of $35 or more, donating the value of each waived fee to Feeding America."
They operate independently from international ALDI locations, such as in the UK, where Christmas Eve food surplus donation does exist.
So we can verify, no, this viral claim of ALDI grocery stores giving away left over food to the homeless on Christmas Eve does not apply to the U.S.
