This is interesting: it seems the Torygraph has been feeding us falsehoods.

After yesterday’s article commenting on claims that Aldi boss Giles Hurley had said the minimum wage was to blame for high inflation, information has come to This Site stating that it is not true.

This information seems persuasive, as Aldi has the lowest prices in the UK (according to Which? magazine) and the highest hourly wages of any supermarket. It is also the only supermarket to pay colleagues for the breaks in their shift.

Why would anyone blame the minimum wage for inflation when they actually pay more than that as a matter of course, while keeping their prices lower than anybody else? That would indeed seem strange to This Writer, and as the Telegraph can only say the comments were “understood” to have come from a roundtable event at 10 Downing Street earlier this month, we have no direct source for the claim.

The Telegraph went on to state that “sources close to Aldi, which markets itself as a cheaper option for British shoppers, insisted that they related to the wider food sector rather than supermarket pay”. Again, as this is not supported with a directly-attributable comment, we have no reason to believe it to be true. I can’t see how a boss who pays more than the minimum wage to his own employees would say it was too high for others.

It seems This Writer’s own claim that a 27 per cent sales rise means an increased operating profit may also be at fault. According to the supermarket’s most recent published financial results, pre-tax profits for the year 2021 were £35.7 million – a drop of £229.1 million (86.5 per cent) on the previous year.

Aldi has attributed this to “investment in prices, people and pandemic-related expenses”.

Figures for the year 2022 are not yet available so we can’t yet see how profits were affected in that year.

So, unless anyone else can produce more convincingly-damning evidence, it seems Aldi and Mr Hurley are in the clear.

This does not, of course, change the facts about the other supermarket chains.

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