Lidl ( ) is a trademark used by two international discount supermarket chains from Germany.
Lidl is the chief competitor of the German discount chain Aldi in several markets.
History
In 1930, Josef Schwarz became a partner in a Heilbronn-based company named The company had been established by Anton Lidl since at least 1858 under the name , and specialised in the sale of exotic fruit. Schwarz renamed the company and expanded it into a food wholesaler.
In 1977, under his son Dieter Schwarz, the Schwarz Group began to focus on discount markets, larger supermarkets, and cash and carry wholesale markets. Dieter did not want to use the name () and wanted to use the name of his father's former business partner, A. Lidl, but legal reasons prevented him from using that name for his discount stores. When he discovered a newspaper article about a painter and retired schoolteacher Ludwig Lidl, he bought the rights to the name from him for 1,000 German marks.
The trademark and the two sister companies are part of the Schwarz Group, the fifth-largest retailer in the world with sales of €104.3 billion (2018).
The first Lidl discount store was opened in 1973, copying the Aldi concept. Schwarz rigorously removed merchandise that did not sell from the shelves, and cut costs by keeping the size of the retail outlets as small as possible. By 1977, the Lidl chain comprised 33 discount stores.
Lidl opened its first UK store in 1994. Its grocery market share in the UK was 8.1% in June 2025. In May 2026, Lidl overtook Morrisons to become the fifth largest supermarket chain in Great Britain, with an 8.6% market share, behind fellow German discount-focused chain Aldi.
Sven Seidel was appointed CEO of the company in March 2014, after the previous CEO Karl-Heinz Holland stepped down. Holland had been chief executive since 2008 but left due to undisclosed "unbridgeable" differences over future strategy. Seidel stepped down from his position in February 2017 after Manager Magazin reported he had fallen out of favour with Klaus Gehrig, who has headed the Schwarz Group since 2004. Seidel was succeeded as CEO by Danish businessman Jesper Højer, previously head of Lidl's international buying operation.
In June 2015, the company announced it would establish a United States headquarters in Arlington, Virginia. Lidl has major distribution centers in Mebane, North Carolina, and Spotsylvania County, Virginia. The company initially focused on opening locations in East Coast states, between Pennsylvania and Georgia,Thomasson, Emma. "German discounter Lidl starts hiring for U.S. stores launch". Reuters. Yahoo! News. 13 December 2016. and as far west as Ohio. In June 2017, Lidl opened its first stores in the United States in Virginia Beach, Virginia, and other mid-Atlantic cities. The company planned to open a total of one hundred U.S. stores by the summer of 2018. In November 2018, Lidl announced plans to acquire 27 Best Market stores in New York and New Jersey. In December 2018, Lidl opened its first location in New York City, in the Staten Island Mall. The company continued to expand throughout the eastern U.S., with over 100 stores by the end of 2020. In August 2020, Lidl announced that it planned to open another 50 stores in the U.S. by the end of 2021. As of 2024 there were 173 stores in the US.
In 2021, Lidl planned to phase out the selling of cigarettes in all its Dutch stores by 2024 as part of the "smoke-free generation".
In April 2022, Lidl postponed its expansion in Ukraine due to Russia's invasion of the country.
In 2025, Lidl committed to increase the proportion of sales of plant-based foods by 20 percent from a 2023 baseline by 2030.
Corporate affairs
Business trends (Financial year ending February 28):
in Euro billions 2012/13 2013/14 2014/15 2015/16 2016/17 2017/18 2018/19 2019/20 Revenue worldwide 48,9 54.0 59.0 64.6 67.9 74.6 81.2 89.0 Revenue Germany 18.0 20.4 21.2 21.6
in Euro billions 2020/21 2021/22 2022/23 2023/24 2024/25 2025/26 Revenue worldwide 96.3 100.8 114.8 125.5 132.1 140.2 Revenue Germany 28.3 29.7 30.1 33.4 31.9
Business model
Like fellow German discounter Aldi, Lidl has a zero waste, no-frills, "pass-the-savings-to-the-consumer" approach of displaying most products in their original delivery cartons, allowing the customers to take the product directly from the carton. When the carton is empty, it is simply replaced with a full one. Staffing is minimal. Stores typically only have a team of between 17 and 25, depending on store size, and everyone from management to customer assistants is multiskilled, from working delivery at 5 a.m., jumping on the tills or baking and completing the promotional changeovers for the middle of Lidl. Lidl operate with a strict efficiency and speed approach to all tasks; some shifts only have five members of staff to complete tasks. Staff are expected to be fast and multitask, with most tasks on strict metric timings. Typically staff must have pallets completed within 20 minutes, and staff are also timed on the tills with the target of scanning at least 30 items per minute. One of Lidl's key targets is to get customers through the tills as fast as possible. Stores normally only have one checkout open, with customers expected to load the shopping back into their trolley and move away to pack at the window, allowing staff to get more people through the tills at a high speed and so removing the need to open more tills. Staff often work between 8- and 11-hour shifts.
The Lidl operation in the United Kingdom took a different approach from Germany, with a focus on marketing and public relations, and providing employee benefits not required by law, including paying the independently verified living wage and offering a staff discount. Upmarket products were introduced, especially in the lead-up to Christmas. This required significant investment in marketing to produce sales growth, but it affected Lidl's logistical operation and put pressure on profits. Ronny Gottschlich, who had run Lidl GB for the six years to 2016, was responsible for this approach, which led to friction with the head office, due to the cost involved. In September 2016, Gottschlich unexpectedly left, and was replaced by the Austrian sales and operations director, German national Christian Härtnagel.
Stores
LD Stiftung operates the stores in Germany and Lidl Stiftung GmbH & Co. KG for international stores. Lidl is present with stores in around 32 countries.
+Store numbers as of September 2026 Country Yearopened Stores Warehouses Number ofemployees Total 13,042 ▲186 + 3 (u.c.) 393,520 Germany 19733,287 ▲39 100,000 France 19891,655 ▲26 45,000 Great Britain 19941,021 ▲14 33,800 ; Poland 20021,009 ▲13 + 1 (u.c.) 29,000 Italy 1992818 ▲12 21,500 Spain 1994730 ▲5 19,000 ; Netherlands 1997441 ▬7 21,000 Romania 2011411 ▲6 12,000 Czech Republic 2003329 ▲5 + 1 13,900 Belgium 1995301 ▼5 10,000 Portugal 1995297 ▲4 + 1 (u.c.) 8,000 Austria 1998259 ▲3 5,800 Greece 1999234 ▬5 6,500 Hungary 2004221 ▲4 + 1 (u.c.) 8,500 Sweden 2003212 ▲3 5,600 Finland 2002210 ▲3 5,750 United States 2017203 ▲5 5,000 Switzerland 2009198 ▲3 4,500 Ireland 2000193 ▲36,000 Slovakia 2004184 ▲3 6,000 Denmark 2005171 ▲2 4,300 Bulgaria 2010146 ▲2 4,300 Croatia 2006116 ▲3 3,900 Lithuania 201687 ▲2 2,800 Serbia 201887 ▲2 3,250 Slovenia 200769 ▬2 2,000 Northern Ireland 199945 ▲1 1,200 Latvia 202139 ▲1 1,350 Cyprus 201022 ▲1 700 Estonia 202222 ▲0 650 Luxembourg 200113 ▬0 420 Malta 200812 ▲1 550
Future markets
CountryOpening yearNotesAndorraEnd of 2026Under constructionLiechtenstein2029Under constructionBosnia and Herzegovina(management through Lidl Serbia)Late 2026 or early 2027Under constructionAlbaniaLate 2026 or early 2027Under constructionKosovoTBDExpansion confirmed due to a launched careers page.Montenegro(management through Lidl SerbiaSupply through Lidl Bosnia and Herzegovina)2026Under constructionNorth Macedonia(management through Lidl Bulgaria)2026Under construction
Former markets
CountryYear openedYear closedNotesNorway20042008Closed due to poor sales and political issues.
Tailwind shipping - Gartner KG In July 2022 Lidl founded the "Tailwind Shipping Lines GmbH & Co. KG" which is headquartered in Hamburg. The shipping company operates a total of eleven container ships (6,864 - 1,200 TEU) to transport goods from Asia to Europe. Some of the ships are owned, others are chartered. In addition there are 33,000 containers, 1,000 of which are freezer containers. In June 2025 it was announced, that Tailwind had ordered five medium-sized container ships with up to 8,400 TEU. The contract to build the ships was awarded in early 2025 by the Hamburg shipping company "Peter Döhle" and the order was then taken over by Tailwind. Each ship will cost approximately €100 million. Delivery will take place in 2027 and 2028. In June 2026, Tailwind announced that all ships would sail under the German flag in the future. Heilbronn will be the home port.
In July 2024, it was announced that a Schwarz Group investment company had acquired a 35% stake in the Austrian freight forwarder Gartner. With 2200 trucks and 3600 trailers, Gartner is one of Europe's largest freight forwarders. There are 24 branches in 10 countries and 3900 employees.
Producing own brands
Lidl does not produce anything itself, but the sister company "Schwarz Produktion" produces private labels exclusively for Lidl and Kaufland. "MEG Weißenfels GmbH & Co. KG" a sister company of Schwarz Produktion operates five bottling plants in Germany and one in Great Britain. There, the returned plastic bottles are also recycled and new bottles are produced and filled. In March 2009, construction began on a factory for chocolate bars in Übach-Palenberg.
At the start of production in 2012, the hourly output was 1,050 chocolate bars. To date, the hourly output has been increased to 100,000 bars. The chocolate mass is not produced inhouse, but delivered by special trucks. At the same time as the chocolate factory, a plant for packing nuts, nut mixes and dried fruits was built and put into operation in 2010. Nuts and dried fruits are supplied by specialized processors. Parallel to the chocolate factory, a large bakery for frozen dough pieces was built in Übach-Palenberg. These are baked and sold in the bakery shops of the Lidl and Kaufland stores in Europe. The property area in Übach-Palenberg is approximately and almost completely built up. In addition, there is a plot on the other side of the street. Here is a truck parking area, which is connected to the main building area by a bridge.
A coffee roastery was put into operation in Rheine in March 2022. The annual capacity is 50,000 tons. A nut roastery was built on the same site in 2024. The annual capacity for packaging nuts and dried fruit is 47,000 metric tons. In total, a high-bay warehouse with 52,000 pallet spaces is available here.
In September 2022, it was announced that Papierfabrik Maxau, with 440 employees, would be acquired from Stora Enso for €210 million.
The company Erfurter Teigwaren GmbH (renamed to Bon Pasta GmbH) in Erfurt was acquired in October 2022. With 170 employees, 110,000 tons of durum wheat pasta are produced annually. In November 2023, it was announced that the bakery Artiback (renamed to Bonback Halle (Saale) GmbH) in Halle (Saale) had been purchased. Artiback produces frozen baked goods with 160 employees on two baking lines. Production was significantly expanded in 2025. The number of employees was increased to 400.
The Göbber Group, including companies Göbber GmbH, DHI GmbH, Eystruper Land GmbH and Friedrich Göbber GmbH, was acquired on October 1, 2025. Founded in 1888, the company employs 350 people and produces over 70,000 tons of jams, fruitsyrups, fruit fillings, fruit spreads, and honey products.
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