Lidl

A Lidl store in Launceston, United Kingdom

Lidl (pronounced leed'l as in German, but commonly liddell in the United Kingdom due to translation) is a European discount supermarket chain of German origin that operates 5,000 stores. In Germany it is the most important competitor of Aldi. The full name of the company is Lidl Stiftung & Co KG. It belongs to the holding group Schwarz, which also owns the store chains Handelshof and Kaufland.

Lidl is the fifth largest supermarket chain in Germany (2004) , and has established itself in over 17 countries around the world.

It was founded in the 1930s by a member of the Schwarz family, then called Schwarz Lebensmittel-Sortimentsgroßhandlung. In the 1970s the first Lidl stores of today's incarnation opened.

Lidl is not an abbreviation, but the last name of Ludwig Lidl, a retired teacher. In 1930, Josef Schwarz became a partner in Südfrüchte Grosshandel Lidl & Co., a fruit wholesaler and he developed the company into a general food wholesaler. In 1977, under his son Dieter Schwarz, Lidl&Schwarz began to focus on discount markets, larger supermarkets, and cash and carry wholesale markets. The first Lidl discount store was opened in 1973, copying the Aldi concept. In 1977, the Lidl chain comprised 30 discount stores. Dieter Schwarz' problem was that he could not just start using the Lidl name. As Schwarz Markt (Black Market) did not seem as a good idea, he bought the right to use the Lidl name from Ludwig for 1000 marks).