Aldi is the latest retailer to incur the wrath of the Real Bread Campaign over sourdough labelling claims.
The campaign has lodged a complaint with Trading Standards over Aldi’s Specially Selected Signature Bake Dark Rye Sourdough loaf, claiming the name inaccurately represents the ingredients listed on the back of pack.
The complaint argues consumers would associate ‘dark rye’ with wholemeal rye flour, which is not listed in the legal declaration on the back. Instead, wheat flour is listed as the main ingredient, with rye flour second, and no mention of the latter being a wholemeal variety.
“If you see a ‘dark rye’ loaf, you think that’s something special, a rye bread – not everybody flips the loaf over to read the ingredients list,” Real Bread Campaign co-ordinator Chris Young told The Grocer. “The main ingredient is non-wholemeal wheat flour and they don’t give a quantitative ingredient declaration that is legally required to tell you how much or how little wholemeal rye – as in dark rye – there is in this particular loaf.
“So we believe they’ve breached regulations.”
The campaign initially raised its complaint directly with Aldi via Instagram in January, and received a response from the discounter on 10 February saying: “The legislation also provides exemptions, including where the name of the food is a customary or established name that consumers would commonly understand without the need for a quantitative declaration.
“In the case of Specially Selected Dark Rye Sourdough, we considered the product name to be a customary description of this style of bread rather than an emphasis on a particular ingredient for promotional purposes. The rye is declared appropriately within the ingredients list in line with legal requirements, and on this basis, a separate quantitative ingredient declaration was not originally included.”
The Real Bread Campaign claims no such exemption exists and that even it if did it would not apply, since consumers would associate ‘dark rye’ with wholemeal rye flour rather than wheat flour, the product’s main ingredient.
A Trading Standards officer at London Borough of Tower Hamlets told the campaign on 12 February that the matter was being looked into.
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Aldi was approached for comment.
In 2023, the Real Bread Campaign complained to Trading Standards about a Lidl Sourdough Rye Crusty Bloomer made predominantly from wheat flour, and Lidl subsequently renamed the product Crusty Wheat & Rye Bloomer.
As reported by The Grocer last week, M&S is in the process of changing the labelling of bakery products that claim to contain fewer ingredients on the front of pack than they list on the back, after the Real Bread Campaign complained to Trading Standards.
The Real Bread Campaign, run by charity Sustain, has been battling for a decade for ‘real bread’ to be legally defined as meaning baked without chemical raising agents, processing aids or other additives. The campaign stages the annual Real Bread Week to celebrate additive-free bread, with this year’s event due to take place from 21 February to 1 March.
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