In a second step, the working group is focusing on living incomes for smallholder farmers. Members of the group are currently collaborating towards a project to improve the income and living conditions of producers in their coffee supply chains. The pilot project is scheduled to start in Honduras and Peru at the end of 2024. Participating companies in the Living Income project are ALDI Nord, ALDI SÜD, dm-drogerie markt, Kaufland, Lidl and the REWE Group. To implement its project, the group continues to rely on pre-competitive cooperation rather than individual solutions. Like this, the project can enable long-term and broad-scale changes across the entire sector and reduce the additional workload for supply chain partners. 

Lidl also reaffirms its commitment within the working group:   

"Living wages and incomes are central topics of Lidl's sustainability strategy. As part of the German retailers working group, we support the overarching cooperation of various stakeholders along the entire coffee value chain in order to generate a broad impact." (Stefan Haensel, Member of the Management Board of Lidl Stiftung & Co. KG)  

By joining forces and coordinating their approaches - both within the working group and with existing initiatives - everyone works together with the greatest possible leverage to put living incomes and wages into practice.