Aldi staff told shopper to empty his trolley because he was spending too much money on tinned food for children in Syria

A shopper buying bulk tinned goods for starving children in Syria was left 'utterly embarrassed and confused' when he was stopped by Aldi supermarket staff and forced to empty his trolley.

Reiss Bawler, 37, had rattled up a £150 bill filling up his trolley twice in 24 hours when he was approached by a senior staff member who told him: 'I can’t have this - we have other customers to think about.'

She then emptied out Mr Bawler’s trolley of trays of bargain value baked beans, spaghetti, rice pudding and tinned potatoes and then put most of it back on the shelves.

Reiss Bawler was purchasing tinned baked beans, spaghetti, rice pudding and potatoes to send to starving children in Syria when Aldi staff stopped him and told him they had 'other customers to think about'

The keep fit instructor was buying the bulk canned goods to send to children in war-torn Syria, after he was horrified to hear stories about hungry locals eating cats.

Despite Mr Bawler’s protests he was told he could only buy £15 worth of good before

being asked to leave the supermarket in Blackburn, Lancashire.

It is thought the Aldi manageress feared Mr Bawler would snap up so many cheap items and other customers would not be able to get their weekly shop as the shelves would be empty.

'The woman said she had to look out for her other customers - but am I not a customer too? It sounds to me that Aldi were too lazy to re-stack their shelves even if it lost them money and meant that much needed food didn’t get sent to starving children.

Mr Bawler said he was 'absolutely godsmacked' and was something he would expect  'during war time rationing'.

'Regardless of whether the food is for charity or not, surely the point of a supermarket is to sell their goods and I was buying. I’m sure buying a few trays of tinned food is not going to clean a firm of the size Aldi.'

The bizarre incident occurred after Mr Bawler had already spent around £100 of his own money in the same Aldi 24 hours earlier and then £120 in a rival Lidl store.

Horrified to hear stories of starving children in war-torn Syria forced to eat cats, Mr Bawler decided he would help out by sending tinned goods to the country - he rattled up a £150 bill filling up his trolley twice

He said: 'I was buying stuff to send over to Syria. I am not from there and never really knew anything about the situation but two weeks ago I started seeing all this stuff about these poor children going without food and had to resort to eating cats.

'For me that was utterly shocking and I thought I would get as much cheap tinned food as I could to send it over there. It was nothing to do with religion.

'On the second occasion I was loading up my trolley with trays of tinned food when this woman comes running up the aisle in a store manager's uniform.

'She said: ‘I am not having this.' I said, "Excuse me?" She turned and said: "you have been spoken to before." I had come into this Aldi twice and never been spoken to. She said: "I have spoke to you lot before".'

'I had no idea what she meant but she started emptying my trolley and said I could leave with what she left in which was two trays of beans and two lots of new potatoes which wouldn’t even be worth £15.'

He said he left the store 'utterly embarrassed and confused'.

'I phoned the Aldi complaints line straight away and they said they were going to deal with it in-house but I’m still waiting for an apology.

Aldi declined to comment.

DM