Is Aldi giving homeless free leftover food on Christmas Eve? Fact Check

ByCraig Haley

Claims online say that supermarket Aldi is giving the homeless free food on Christmas eve.

Claims such as the one below have been spreading via social media in the run up to Christmas 2018 –

Christmas eve, at 4 pm Aldi will be giving away their leftover food to the homeless.
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While Aldi really does get involved with charitable giveaways on Christmas Eve, many of the messages such as the one above are too vague to be of any use and are likely to give the wrong impression as to the nature of the charitable donations.

Firstly, the message – which actually originally began to spread just before Christmas 2017 – refers specifically to Aldi UK, which does give away food on Christmas Eve.


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Secondly, while the message above seems to suggest or imply that Aldi stores will simply give away food on Christmas Even to homeless people who show up, this is not the case. In order to quality for charitable donations on Christmas Eve, you must represent a charitable organisation, which must have been signed up before November 18th (a deadline that passed before these online rumours began picking up steam.)

This is similar to what Aldi UK did in 2017.

As such the rumours like the one above are likely to be misleading and confusing, and we don’t recommend spreading such messages out of context.

Aldi confirmed that the deadline for organisations to register in order to receive the donations in a tweet in early November here.