Lidl is once again accelerating its UK expansion. Our Grocer of the Year 2025 has bigger stores, a health focus and revamped layouts, backed by a new sale and leaseback strategy
Lidl is expanding at full speed again. The discounter aims to open 40 UK stores this year and keep up the pace in 2026.
Its expansion is being boosted by a new sale and leaseback approach, in which it acquires the land and finds investors to buy the freehold and fund store construction.
Its first such deal in the UK came last October, when it sold 12 stores under construction to Roadside Real Estate for £70m, feeding its pipeline of new supermarkets for 2025.
As revealed by The Grocer last month, Lidl International has now secured an offer on a new portfolio of 35 stores in construction – 17 in the UK and 18 in Europe – to feed the 2026 pipeline.
“We are in contract stage,” Lidl GB chief retail estate officer Richard Taylor tells The Grocer. “It’s a new approach for us, but almost all of our competitive set at the moment are in the process of various sale and leaseback arrangements.
“It gives us the ability to have a pipeline of store openings that’s as strong as possible. We’re very fortunate in that we are less than 20% leasehold-led at the moment, and we’re probably therefore in a stronger position to be a little bit more flexible.”
But estate expansion is only part of the story as Lidl marks its 31st year in the UK and prepares to open its 1,000th store in November. Recent history has also proven the discounter’s ability to supercharge sales in existing stores. Lidl, which picked up the Grocer of the Year 2025 title at The Grocer Gold Awards in July, has been the UK’s fastest-growing bricks & mortar grocer for 22 months in Worldpanel (formerly Kantar) data.
That’s despite a period of slower estate growth as its parent company grappled with high interest rates on debt, and Lidl GB focused investment on boosting warehouse capacity instead.
New-look Lidl stores
So, what’s been changing in stores to win more shoppers? Taylor gave The Grocer a tour of one of its newest, which opened in Paignton, Devon, in June.
The site is designated by the planning authority as a neighbourhood centre, which provides greater certainty in the application stage as it’s “clearly defined as suitable for retail development”.
The land includes four acres that Lidl will sell for residential development and two commercial units that it’s “actively marketing at the moment”, seeking “small operators of a retail nature”.
Other requirements of the planning process have included the use of stone “from a quarry 32 miles away” and a bench sculpted from white granite in the shape of a rope, overlooking the sea.
As for the store itself, the first thing to note is its size: a net sales area of about 16,000 sq ft (1,500 sq m). “Our original concepts were 1,100 sq m and then it went to 1,300 and now it’s moved to 1,500,” says Taylor. This gives “a little more breathing room in aisles”.
There is certainly a sense of space on entering the store. Lidl’s new layouts and technologies, which began rolling out last year, are also immediately evident.
After passing through the electronic one-way security barrier, shoppers see the bakery, “which we see as a USP to our overall brand and perception”, says Taylor. “And Lidl Plus is helping us lean into that strength,” he adds, by rewarding members with bakery freebies and discounts.
The front of store is also home to an expansive fruit & veg section. It’s a sign of Lidl’s work over the past year to devote significantly more space to fresh fruit & veg in aisles one and two, while moving meat and fish further back.
Is this Lidl getting a head-start on the healthier sales targets the government has promised? “Absolutely,” says Taylor. “It’s also reacting to customer demand and what we think is important.”
That expansive fruit & veg range is the result of some hefty work behind the scenes. Lidl has been busy investing in its supply chain and logistics infrastructure to ensure availability and freshness.
Last month, the discounter announced a £150m investment in a new warehouse in Leeds, on top of the 14 it already has across the UK. At the same time, it completed a £285m extension of its warehouse in Belvedere, London, more than doubling its size to 800,000 sq ft.
The focus aligns with Lidl’s own dietary targets, too. The retailer has committed to Eat-Lancet Planetary Health Diet goals to cut consumption of certain foods, including red meat and sugar, by 50% by 2050.
Recently, Lidl announced it had increased sales of own-label plant-based products and milk alternatives by nearly 700% since 2020 – far surpassing its original target of 400%.
The plant-based theme is in evidence in the ‘chiller tunnel’ at the far end of aisle one. There, a dedicated meat-free cabinet showcases Lidl’s Vemondo Plant range, which gained 20 new lines last month.
Lidl’s limited offers – essentially promotions – also get their own space, both in dedicated cabinets here and on aisle ends around the store. “It’s about seasonality, so in August it’s the BBQ range and summer product cooking,” Taylor says.
In the middle of the store is something that never moves: the Middle of Lidl, where the Parkside DIY range is “incredibly strong for us”, says Taylor.
But aisle five, like aisle one, has a new layout. Here, booze has been moved to the back of the store, swapping places with the freezer tunnel, which is now at the end of the shopper journey.
Wine Tour – Lidl’s monthly, limited-time wine specials – gets its own dedicated bays and banners, with bottles displayed in wooden cases.
“We’ve dedicated more facing to it and tried to simplify it,” says Taylor.
Frozen food has more space, while the upright freezers feature trays that can be pulled out, making life easier “from a restocking and customer point of view”.
Food to go is next to the self-checkouts but still remains “visible as you come into the store from aisle one”, as per previous layouts.
“I don’t think our food-to-go concept has ever been stronger or clearer than it is now,” says Taylor. “And then it’s our self-checkouts. We’ve had a huge rollout of these across the entire country and over 50% of customers are choosing to use them.”
Could some be deterred by having to scan a receipt to exit the self-checkout area? “That’s purely about inventory control. We’re constantly seeking feedback and asking people whether the technology is working to their satisfaction, and we’ll continue to develop it.”
Paignton represents the current “standardisation of the model”, which customers will have begun to see with “consistency across the stores” in the past 12 months, adds Taylor.
Still, Lidl has attracted more than half a million new customers in the 12 weeks to 13 July alone [Worldpanel]. So many will be blissfully unaware the discounter’s stores were ever any different.
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