Luxury mince pies and Christmas jumpers help Lidl beat Tesco with record festive sales surge

Bumper sales of luxury mince pies have helped Lidl, the discount supermarket chain, notch up record festive trading.

Lidl launched its first ever branded Christmas Jumper with its traditional festive design and corporate colours of blue, yellow and red. One was sold every minute during the festive rush.

The retailer, which has some 800 stores across the UK, including a growing presence in Scotland, said total sales leapt 17.9 per cent in the four weeks to December 27, compared with the same period last year.

It has laid claim to be the fastest growing retailer when compared to the big four supermarkets – Tesco, Asda, Sainsbury’s and Morrisons – and its other main competitors.

Lidl said the sharp rise in sales was partly driven by customers buying more items during their shopping trips, with the average basket size increasing by 24.8 per cent during the period.

Festive favourites proved to be popular with more than 2.7 million servings of panettone sold over the Christmas period. The equivalent of 7,000 glasses of mulled wine and almost 17,000 luxury mince pies were sold hourly during the four weeks.

The German founded chain, which moved into the UK market in 1994, sold one million bottles of pink prosecco.

It also launched its first ever branded Christmas jumper with its traditional festive design and corporate colours of blue, yellow and red. One was sold every minute during the festive rush.

Lidl is the latest supermarket chain to reveal its festive trading performance, after Sainsbury’s, Morrisons and Aldi all revealed higher sales in updates last week.

Rival discounter Aldi posted a 10.6 per cent sales increase for the four weeks up to Christmas Eve.

Christian Hartnagel, the chief executive of Lidl GB, said: “Despite this Christmas being a difficult time for many across the country, we are pleased to have been able to help our customers enjoy themselves by offering high quality food at the lowest prices on the market.

“Our record sales and significant basket size growth just demonstrates the strength of the Lidl appeal.

“As we look ahead to this year, we remain committed to our expansion and investment plans, offering more customers up and down the country our great quality, unbeatable value offer.”

He added: “I’m really proud of how our teams have worked together during this festive period. I want to extend my thanks in particular to our colleagues.

“They are the absolute backbone of our business and have remained dedicated to ensuring customers could get the products they love, in a safe shopping environment.”

The firm said it had continued to press ahead with its store expansion programme, opening four outlets in December, while creating 120 jobs. It forms part of the supermarket’s £1.3 billion investment for the next two years and moves it closer to the target of 1,000 stores by 2023, which it remains on track to achieve.

For the third year in a row, the chain ran its Christmas Eve donation scheme which saw in excess of 180,000 products – the equivalent of £150,000 worth of food – given to charities and those most in need. The products were donated via the discount retailer’s Feed it Back initiative in partnership with Neighbourly.

A message from the Editor:

Thank you for reading this article. We’re more reliant on your support than ever as the shift in consumer habits brought about by coronavirus impacts our advertisers. If you haven’t already, please consider supporting our trusted, fact-checked journalism by taking out a digital subscription: www.scotsman.com/subscriptions