LIDL UK ACHIEVES RECORD FESTIVE SALES

• 10% YoY increase in sales
• Sales of ‘Pick of the Week’ carrots, parsnips, Brussels sprouts and potatoes increased by 60%
• Turkey sales increase by 40% following bold advertising campaign
• Over 40,000 MSC certified Lobster sold in one day following innovative social media campaign
• Sales of Prosecco doubled
• Focus on saving customers money and ongoing expansion plans in 2017

Christian Härtnagel, Lidl UK CEO, said: “It’s incredibly encouraging that, during this highly competitive time, we have achieved our most successful festive trading period ever, following a year-on-year sales increase of 10%.

In the year that we were awarded Good Housekeeping’s ‘Best Supermarket 2016’, it’s clear that customers are continuing to be enticed by our resolute commitment to provide them with the best quality products at the lowest prices, particularly during the festive period.

Customers were once again won over by the quality and freshness of our fruit and vegetables this year, with sales of our festive ‘Pick of the Week’ products, including carrots, parsnips, Brussels sprouts and potatoes increasing by 60%.

With nearly three quarters of British households tucking into turkeys on Christmas day, our turkeys also proved particularly popular, with sales increasing by 40%. This followed our boldest advertising campaign to date, which truly shone a light on the quality of our products by inviting real customers to visit our suppliers and see the farms for themselves. As a result, research conducted by Kantar Millward Brown revealed that Lidl topped the list of adverts most likely to persuade people to purchase, which is a fantastic achievement and ultimately the key objective of any retailer during such a key trading period, demonstrating a clear translation to sales.

We are unwaveringly committed to helping customers save as much money as possible, and became the first supermarket to use our social media channels to put our prices into the public’s hands. Powered purely by Twitter chatter, customers were able to drive down the price of key Christmas products, including our MSC certified Lobster, which dropped to £2.99 and resulted in 40,000 sales in just one day.

We were thrilled to have been awarded ‘Own Brand Spirits Retailer of the Year’ at the 2016 International Spirits Challenge for the second year running, which is testament to our innovative spirits selection that included new offerings for Christmas, such as our Spiced Hortus Gin and our Ignis French Grain Vodka. Our Prosecco was another hero product this year, with sales more than doubling that of last year.

Our colleagues across the business continue to do a phenomenal job as we experience unparalleled demand, and we were proud to have once again become the first supermarket to announce an increase in salaries, matching the Living Wage Foundation’s recommended rate.

Going into 2017 we are absolutely focused on saving our customers more money than ever before, which we will be demonstrating through our brand new ‘Big on Quality, Lidl on Price’ campaign. We also remain fully committed to our ongoing expansion plans, which will see the opening of up to 50 new stores next year, along with two new Regional Distribution Centres, creating thousands of new jobs up and down the country.”

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