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DeutschlandLindt employees destroyed their own chocolate in shops
Lindt employees destroyed their own chocolate with pointed pens in Edeka branches. The accusation: The company wanted to prevent discount campaigns. Lindt fights back.
In this way, Lindt wants to prevent Edeka from doing discount campaigns with Lindt chocolate, says Ehrenfried Schorn, the manager of sixteen Edeka branches in northern Hesse.
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Lindt is said to have damaged more than 25 products in one of its stores, says Schorn.
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That’s what it’s regarding
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A manager from Edeka accuses Lindt of intentionally destroying its own products in the stores.
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The Zurich company wants to prevent Edeka from offering discount campaigns with Lindt chocolate, the retailer claims.
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Lindt defends herself: You only reject chocolate that is no longer edible or salable.
Lindt & Sprüngli employees are supposed to destroy their own goods in German supermarkets in order to avoid discount campaigns shortly before the sell-by date. There may be isolated cases, but Lindt wants to keep sales up at full price, writes “T-Online”.
“They slashed all the chocolates and pralines with a cardboard knife or a pen in such a way that not only the packaging but also the goods were destroyed,” says Ehrenfried Schorn, the manager of sixteen Edeka branches in northern Hesse, to the news portal.
Lindt is said to have damaged over 25 products
Lindt is said to have damaged more than 25 products in one of his stores, says Schorn. He had heard of similar campaigns from other branches. This behavior makes him “extremely angry,” says Schorn. So far, Edeka has sold the products at a greatly reduced price or donated them shortly before the best-before date.
Lindt’s field staff had told him that the company did not want Edeka to sell its goods until the best before date or following. According to “T-Online”, the sales representatives take over the management of the shelves themselves and have left the sorted chocolate intact so far. Now that has changed.
According to Schorn, the last time it happened was shortly before Christmas: Lindt employees destroyed goods with pointed pens – especially boxes of chocolates with a best-before date of January 2023.
Does Lindt want to prevent discounts?
Schorn assumes that the practice is intended to prevent customers from being able to buy Lindt chocolate with discounts. Lindt can deliver fresh goods the sooner the old ones are taken out of circulation. In front of the Edeka branches there are people “with a can in their hand because they can’t buy bread,” says Schorn. At the same time, the industry dictates that impeccable food should be disposed of. “This is nonsense.”
After all, Lindt reimburses the dealers for the value of the unsold goods. That is unusual in the industry. Nevertheless, Schorn says: “It’s just a cheek towards the end consumer.”
“Ultimately, this is property damage”
The lawyer Ina Gerstberger points out that in her opinion, Lindt’s goods in the branches belong to Edeka – the branches finally bought the chocolate. “Nobody can come and just say: I’m going to destroy the goods now.”
“Ultimately, this is property damage,” says the lawyer – unless Edeka has concluded contracts with Lindt that prohibit the resale of the products following the best-before date. According to Schorn, however, this is not the case.
This is what Lindt & Sprüngli says regarding the allegations
Lindt says regarding 20 minutes: You take goods that are regarding to expire from the trade to ensure freshness and quality for consumers. These goods are paid for in full by retailers, and they are also sold in Lindt’s “Factory Outlets”. The fact that employees work directly on the retailer’s sales shelf is a widespread process in the German retail landscape. In Switzerland, Lindt does not do that, but the retail trade does it independently.
Food destruction is far from Lindt. The sales only mark a small part of the goods as unsellable. The aim is to prevent “goods from being sold by mistake that are close to their expiry date.” In addition, Lindt makes it possible for retailers to give away the goods to charitable organizations. The form of identification that the article from T-Online represents – with a cardboard knife instead of a felt-tip pen – does not correspond to the usual procedure.
“We very much regret this individual case and it has already been discussed in detail with the employee,” Lindt continued. In order to be able to rule out this practice in the future, the employees were once more informed of the regular procedure, from which they should not deviate.