Lidl dives into dumped food mystery

“HELP US wrap up the mystery wrap dumper”, Charvil’s ward councillor has pleaded, after food waste was discarded in the village for the second time last month.

At the end of August, a mountain of out-of-date bread, crumpets and wraps was fly-tipped behind the bottle bank on Park Lane.

Sam Akhtar, ward councillor for Charvil and leader of litter-picking group Charvil Matters, said it has since been “a sore point” for the community.

“[Charvil Matters] specialises in litter-picking across the village and have made it an example of one the cleanest, tidiest villages in Wokingham borough,” he said.

“It was very sad and upsetting for a lot of us because we work so hard on our monthly litter picks.”

According to Cllr Akhtar, the food waste always consists of out-ofdate Lidl products, but is not being dumped by the supermarket.

“It seems someone somewhere is using a common supply chain and bought a bulk lot of short-dated supply and didn’t manage to sell it,” he explained.

“They decided for some reason rather than to put it in a bin bag or take it to re3, to just dump it on the side of the road.”

Now, the councillor is working with Wokingham Borough Council officers and Lidl to find out who Charvil’s repeat rubbish-dumper is.

“I’ve spoken to the team in Woodley Lidl who said Lidl is really concerned about this,” he added. “They get paid to send waste food back so there’s nothing for them to gain by dumping it apart from a bad rep.

“Once we know who it is, we will be closer to finding out how it happened and holding someone accountable because good Samaritans don’t want this on their doorstep.”

A spokesperson for Lidl said: “We can confirm that we are aware of this issue and take matters such as this very seriously.

“A thorough investigation has been launched and we are currently liaising directly with our supplier to ensure this does not happen again.

“Although our teams were not responsible for the fly-tipping, colleagues from a local store took the time to clear the area as soon as they were notified.”

Anybody with information on the fly-tipping can contact Cllr Akhtar by emailing charvilmatters@gmail.com