With one year to go until the start of the Rio 2016 Olympic Games, supermarket Aldi has unveiled that its British suppliers will be central to an integrated 18 month partnership campaign with Team GB. This announcement follows news that Aldi has become the first retailer to sign up to the NFU’s Fruit and Veg pledge, showing a commitment to UK growers which could change the face of retailer and supplier relations across the country.
Aldi is Team GB’s first official supermarket partner and will support all of Team GB’s athletes in the build up to and during the Rio 2016 Olympic Games. Its partnership will see Aldi promoting its long standing relationships across its British supplier network which is an essential part in ensuring the high quality and reliability of products that the supermarket provides to its customers.
The Atherstone-based supermarket, which opened its first store in Birmingham in 1990, prides itself on offering its customers 100% fresh British meat across its entire core range all year round. The retailer has championed this since 2011 and has no current future plans to deviate from this.
In 2014, around 40% of Aldi’s fresh produce was British, a number that increases significantly during the summer months.
Six talented athletes will represent Team GB as they become the faces of Aldi’s campaign, promoting Aldi’s Great British product offering.
The six athletes are:
•The world’s first female boxing Olympic champion, Nicola Adams MBE
•2013 UCI BMX World Champion, BMX cyclist Liam Phillips
•Olympic silver medallist, modern pentathlete Samantha Murray
•Double World Championship bronze medallist, diver Jack Laugher
•Olympic gold medallist, taekwondo athlete Jade Jones MBE
•London 2012 Olympic bronze medallist, gymnast Dan Purvis
Aldi’s commitment to providing its customers with the best of British produce is reflected in its partnership with Team GB. The company credits its success to the relationship with its suppliers, as well as its delivery of only the highest quality products at everyday low prices.
Tony Baines, Joint Managing Director of Corporate Buying, commented: “Since we opened our doors in the UK in April 1990, we’ve worked hard to establish British roots, sourcing locally where possible
and building long-term relationships with British suppliers. The partnership with Team GB celebrates this and epitomises the spirit of teamwork that is at the heart of how we give customers what they want and respect what matters most to them.”
Priding itself on close-working, fair relationships with suppliers, Aldi meets and often exceeds current GSCOP guidelines as demonstrated by Aldi being placed first in the 2015 Groceries Code Adjudicator follow-up survey.
Aldi will be supporting the British Olympic Association (BOA) and Get Set, the BOA’s schools education programme, with a new initiative – Get Set to Eat Fresh. The initiative will champion healthy eating among 25,000 schools nationwide, providing pupils with all the materials they need to learn about nutritious foods.
The supermarket is also launching an online TV platform, The Taste Kitchen, which will share the healthy affordable diets of its six athlete ambassadors and show how people can eat like an athlete to help improve mental and physical health.
Bill Sweeney, CEO of the British Olympic Association, added: “As we reach one year to go until the Rio 2016 Olympic Games, the support of Aldi is vital in ensuring that our athletes heading to Rio are as best prepared for the Games as they can be and feel a great wave of support knowing that the nation is with them, inspiring them to achieve great performances at Rio 2016.”
Other activity involves Aldi supporting Team GB’s Homegrown Heroes initiative, which aims to encourage the public to get behind their local Olympic hopefuls as they train hard for the chance to represent Team GB at the Rio 2016 Olympic Games. The programme will enable the public to search via an online platform for their local Homegrown Hero, leave a message of support and find out more about their favourite things to eat.
Tune in to The Taste Kitchen from Aldi launching later this month, the Homegrown Heroes programme goes live in late September and Get Set to Eat Fresh launches in October.
