(CN) - Rat droppings, chewed-up food and filthy shelves inside Aldi stores across Belgium turned into a courtroom problem Wednesday as Europe's top court said supermarkets can still be liable under EU food safety law even if they claim they did everything possible to keep pests out.
Belgian inspectors say they repeatedly found rodent droppings, damaged food, dirt and contamination risks inside six Aldi stores and one warehouse between September 2020 and July 2022. Prosecutors treated the findings as criminal breaches of European food hygiene law and took the supermarket chain to court.
Aldi fought back, arguing EU hygiene rules require supermarkets to seriously manage contamination risks, not guarantee perfect conditions every second of the day. The company initially won. A Belgian criminal court cleared Aldi in 2023, and an appeals court later agreed, finding the law imposed obligations of effort rather than guaranteed results. Judges pointed to the food industry's standard safety system for identifying and managing risks, saying the focus should stay on prevention measures.
Belgium's highest court then turned to the Court of Justice of the European Union: If inspectors keep finding pest traces inside stores and warehouses, is that alone enough to show the law was broken?
For Europe's top court, the answer was mostly yes.
"The repeated finding of the presence of such traces suffices to demonstrate that the obligation to adopt those adequate procedures has been infringed," the judges wrote.
Judges in Luxembourg said European food safety law is built around keeping food actually safe for consumers, not simply proving a company had compliance plans and monitoring systems on paper. Under EU law, supermarkets themselves carry the main responsibility for protecting food throughout the supply chain, including products already sitting on shelves accessible to shoppers.
That mattered because inspectors were not dealing with one isolated issue hidden in a storage corner. According to the judges, contamination kept appearing around food that was actively stored, handled and offered for sale.
The court said repeated findings of rodent traces and droppings around food and food equipment can by themselves establish breaches of several EU hygiene obligations. Authorities do not also have to prove a supermarket failed to try hard enough or skipped possible preventive measures.
The judges did leave Aldi one narrow opening. For claims specifically tied to the physical design or condition of food premises, authorities still have to prove the premises themselves made proper hygiene practices impossible or ineffective. Finding pests alone is not automatically enough on that point.
Europe spent decades tightening food safety rules after crises ranging from the mad cow disease outbreak in the 1990s to later contamination scandals involving meat, eggs and pesticides, steadily pushing more responsibility onto supermarkets and food companies before unsafe products ever reach shoppers.
That pressure is back in focus as Brussels negotiates a wider overhaul of EU food and feed safety rules, including proposals touching inspections, pesticides and disease monitoring.
Kai Purnhagen, professor of food law at the University of Bayreuth and co-director of its Research Unit of German and European Food Law, said the judgment moves EU hygiene law much closer toward results for food safety violations involving pests and contamination.
"The court clearly leans toward a stricter, partially result-based hygiene obligation for substantive food safety outcomes," Purnhagen said.
He said the judges shifted the focus away from whether retailers merely had compliance systems and hazard-monitoring procedures in place and toward whether contamination was actually prevented. According to Purnhagen, the ruling could make inspections tougher across Europe by allowing authorities to rely more heavily on visible contamination itself as direct evidence of infringement.
"Retailers across the EU may face intensified inspections, stricter liability exposure, and increased pressure to maintain near-zero tolerance pest control systems," he said.
Samuele Tonello, senior food policy officer at the European Consumer Organisation, or BEUC, said the judgment reinforces that food safety law is ultimately about what consumers experience in stores, not just internal compliance systems.
"Consumers trust that the food they buy is safe," Tonello said. "This trust depends on retailers being accountable for actual storing conditions in their locations and warehouses."
He warned that ongoing negotiations over simplifying parts of EU food safety legislation will test whether regulators keep prioritizing real-world consumer protection over procedural box-checking.
"Food safety law exists to protect people, not to certify processes," Tonello said.
Aldi, meanwhile, stressed that the inspections behind the case date back several years and said it has taken corrective measures. "Since then, we have taken the necessary steps and have received positive assessments during inspections carried out by external bodies," spokesperson Jason Sevestre said. Belgian prosecutors did not immediately comment.
The case now heads back to Belgium's Court of Cassation, which must apply the EU court's interpretation in Aldi's criminal proceedings. The ruling from Luxembourg cannot be appealed, leaving supermarkets with far less room to argue that good paperwork and internal hygiene plans are enough once inspectors keep finding contamination on the ground.
Courthouse News reporter Eunseo Hong is based in the Netherlands.
Source: Courthouse News Service
