Fairtrade Women's Empowerment

Aldi UK and Ireland is a signatory of the United Nations Women’s Empowerment Principles, a set of principles that promote gender equality and women’s empowerment in their workplaces and communities. Training, professional development, measuring and publicly reporting on progress all help to achieve gender equality. The Women’s Empowerment Principles align with Aldi’s position that all businesses have a responsibility for gender equality and women’s empowerment and for addressing any form of discrimination, as expressed here in the Aldi South Group’s International Policy on Gender Equality in Aldi’s Supply Chains.    

Creating fairer conditions for our flower growers

Did you know that Aldi is one of the UK’s largest retailers of Fairtrade flowers? Over the past five years, Aldi UK has sold more than 100 million Fairtrade flowers, equivalent to over 10 million bouquets.

Many of these flowers are sourced from Herburg Roses in Ethiopia, where Aldi buys more Fairtrade flowers than any other UK retailer. Established in 1974, Herburg Roses exports over 50 million Fairtrade stems each year, and Aldi has been proudly sourcing Fairtrade flowers from the farm since 2014.

Women’s Empowerment

Herburg Roses also currently employs 1,200 workers, 53% of whom are women. Since 2019, Aldi has been working in partnership with Fairtrade, investing £500,000 in programmes to improve the working lives of women Fairtrade flower workers in the Ethiopian flower sector. This has included the Dignity for All programme (2019-2021) and the Improved Workers’ Rights in Ethiopian Flowers programme (2022-2025).

Building on this progress, Aldi and Fairtrade have launched the Rights in Bloom programme, supporting continued efforts to strengthen workers’ rights, workplace dialogue and worker wellbeing, while helping advance gender equality and disability inclusion within Ethiopian flower supply chains.

Fairtrade Premium

Aldi Fairtrade flowers from Herburg Roses also generate a Fairtrade Premium, a communal fund that supports social, economic and environmental projects. In 2025, producers in Aldi’s Fairtrade flowers supply chain invested 50% of their Fairtrade Premium in projects such as scholarships for children, medical facilities and improving workers housing.