Aldi renames loaf after Real Bread Campaign complaint

Aldi failed to declare 'dark rye' loaf is just 31% rye. Credit: www.realbreadcampaign.org CC-BY-SA-4.0

Published: Tuesday 12 May 2026

As the result of a trading standards complaint submitted by Real Bread Campaign, Aldi is relabelling a mainly wheat loaf marketed as 'dark rye'.

In early 2026, the Campaign complained first to the supermarket, and then to the trading standards service, that the product name was inaccurate and misleading because the main ingredient was refined wheat flour, and that Aldi had failed to show the legally-required quantitative ingredients declaration (QUID) of the rye flour.

The changes include declaring that the product contains just 31% rye flour, and renaming it from 'Rye Dark Sourdough' to 'Wheat & Rye Dark Sourdough'.

Real Bread Campaign coordinator Chris Young said: 'This is another case of a massive, multimillion pound corporation's failure creating extra work for a consumer protection body and a small charity. Both the trading standards service and we are underfunded and overstretched. Neither should have to pursue cases like this.'

On 11 May 2026, the acting team leader of the Public Protection and Integrated Enforcement Division of London Borough of Tower Hamlets wrote: 'I can confirm that amendments are already in progress on this line.'

Chris Young has coordinated the Real Bread Campaign since March 2009. In addition to lobbying for an Honest Crust Act of better loaf composition, labelling and marketing laws in the UK; he created and runs initiatives including: Sourdough September; Real Bread Week; Real Bread For All; Together We Rise, promoting therapeutic/social benefits of bread making; No Loaf Lost surplus reduction guidance; and Lessons in Loaf for schools. He’s the author of the Knead to Know…more microbakery handbook, Slow Dough: Real Bread recipe book and Bake Your Lawn grow-a-loaf guidebook; and edits True Loaf magazine.

From 2014-18, Chris also coordinated Sustain's London Food Link network, which included editing The Jellied Eel magazine and helping to launch and run the Urban Food Awards with the Mayor of London’s office. Chris has pulled on his judge’s wig for BOOM Awards, The Cateys, The Great Taste Awards, The Scottish Bread Championship and The World Bread Awards. In 2017, The School of Artisan Food honoured Chris with its first Fellowship, and in 2025 he was named joint Person of The Year by Slow Food in The UK.

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