Aldi sign

Aldi has topped a list compiling levels of compliance by the UK's ten biggest supermarkets' with the Groceries Supply Code of Practice (GSCoP).

A survey of 1,145 suppliers conducted by YouGov for today (22 June)'s second-ever Groceries Code Adjudicator (GCA) conference found that 40 per cent of suppliers said Aldi complied with the code 'consistently well'. Fifty-four per cent of respondents said Aldi 'mostly' complied with the code, with none of the 1,145 suppliers surveyed answering that Aldi was 'never' compliant with GSCoP.

A separate section of the survey, asking how well specific retailer's buyers comply with the code, also saw Aldi top the charts.

By way of comparison, only 11 per cent of those surveyed said Tesco complied with the code 'consistently well', with the aforementioned second survey on buyers showing a marginally better score of 15 per cent of Tesco buyers complying 'consistently well' with GSCoP.

Despite this, GCA Christine Tacon said she'd witnessed a 'big improvement' since Dave Lewis took over from Philip Clarke as Tesco's CEO.

Iceland, meanwhile, came bottom of the pile on both of these parts of the survey. Only 8 per cent of those surveyed said that Iceland complied with GSCoP 'consistently well', down from 14 per cent last year. Added to that, a mere 6 per cent of respondents claimed that Iceland's buyers complied with the code 'consistently well'.

However, Tacon said that she's yet to have a supplier who has come to her with a complaint about Iceland, a point that tallies with one she made earlier today about the helpfulness of the survey:'Not enough people have approached me,' she said. 'That's why this survey has been so useful to me - it's a dipstick, or a way of people telling me about what is really going on.'

Tacon launched the GCA's first investigation in February of this yearinto Tesco's supplier relations. Shesaid at the time that it would be six to nine months before she revealed her findings, and confirmed today that we can expect to find out what she unearthed towards the latter end of that timescale.

ALSO FROM THE 2015 GCA CONFERENCE

- Suppliers see GSCoP as 'long road to failure'

- Tacon to close one of her 'top five' issues

- Suppliers suffering 'fewer problems' with supermarkets