Competition watchdog initiates proceedings against Aldi

The Hungarian Economic Competition Authority has opened a competition supervision procedure against Aldi Hungary Food Trading Company, as it found that the company was unlikely to have developed its internal procedures for commercial communications based on the requirement of professional diligence.

The refrigerated counters in the stores, marked with "100% fresh and Hungarian meat in our permanent offer", "100% fresh and Hungarian" and "With love from Hungary", were

unlikely to have been stocked exclusively with products of Hungarian origin.

The GVH suspects that as of 25 November 2021, the company does not have a consistently applied internal control mechanism to ensure that consumers can only find products of Hungarian origin in the refrigerated counters labelled with the above claims.

The opening of competition proceedings does not mean that the company has committed the infringement. The procedure aims at clarifying the facts and thereby proving the suspected infringement. The time allowed for the procedure is three months, which may be extended twice, each time for a maximum of two months, if justified.

The Economic Competition Authority pointed out that under the Competition Act, the period from the date of the customer's request to provide the information necessary to clarify the facts until the date of its execution does not count towards the time limit for the administration of the case.

The GVH has warned businesses that the characteristics of certain products (e.g. origin, provenance, quality) can have a decisive influence on consumers' decisions. Therefore, in their communications, they should only make claims that they can fully and plausibly verify.

Aldi responds

By the time of publication of this article, Aldi Hungary had responded to the news in a statement.

According to a company statement (highlights by Portfolio):

"In November 2021, Aldi Hungary agreed to purchase all fresh poultry, pork and beef in its permanent range exclusively from Hungarian suppliers, who will only supply all stores of the chain with meat from domestic rearing, slaughtering and processing.

Since then, the supermarket chain has stuck to its commitment and continues to sell 100% Hungarian fresh meat in its permanent range.

The GVH's action is not directed at the commitment itself, but only at the fact that in some cases fresh meat refrigerators have displayed products from non-Hungarian sources alongside the Hungarian fresh meat products that are part of the permanent offer.

According to Aldi, its claims about its commitment to Hungarian fresh meat in its stores and other media are real, understandable, traceable and clear from the nature of the products and the packaging.

Aldi customers will be able to judge what is and is not fresh meat in the meat fridge, and which products are from Hungarian sources and which are not.

The company will of course strive to comply with the law and cooperate with the GVH, while trusting that consumers will continue to appreciate Aldi's commitment to Hungarian agricultural and food suppliers."

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