Lidl NI | NI Responsible Business Awards | Business in the Community

Lidl Northern Ireland

Lidl Northern Ireland operates 38 stores, located across every major town in Northern Ireland. It currently employs 891 staff in stores, and its distribution centre and offices based at Nutt’s Corner.

Background

Its commitment to communities has always been a priority and a strong connection between its store colleagues and customers has been crucial to its success. It looks forward to further strengthening this connection with local communities through its sustainability strategy and commitment to providing a safe and nurturing environment for employees, being a positive contributor to the communities in which its operates and being good stewards of the environment.

What Lidl NI did

This year, Lidl aimed to increase awareness of CSR among its 800 colleagues spanning almost 40 sites in Northern Ireland alone. With the majority of these ‘offline’, Lidl developed an employee app as its main channel of communication, and this has given the company a tangible and user-friendly way of educating and informing its colleague about Lidl’s sustainability initiatives.

In increasing understanding an awareness of CSR internally Lidl believes it can better connect and collaborate with its local communities and stakeholders.

Lidl ensures that it regularly communicates information on its commitment to sustainable development covering topics such as responsible sourcing, community initiatives and environmental awareness. These scheduled updates ensure that sustainability is front of the mind of its colleagues.

Feedback through the app told Lidl that food waste was a major frustration in stores. To this end, it partnered with FoodCloud a national food redistribution facilitator that connects retailers with local charities via a software platform. Each of its 38 stores confirm daily donations either through FoodCloud’s own app or by submitting details to FoodCloud via email. This digital solution has allowed Lidl to introduce a simple way of redistributing surplus food and helping people in need in its local communities.

To engage and communicate with a wider audience and in the interest of greater transparency, Lidl also developed a website dedicated to sustainability news and initiatives www.abetttertomorrow-lidl-ni.co.uk.

Impacts and Outcomes

  • Overall CSR communication accounts for around 35% of all updates on Lidl’s employee app
  • The Lidl ‘Feed it Back’ network, powered by FoodCloud:
    • uses a digital platform to donate surplus food up to four days per week
    • has donated over 51 tonnes of surplus food creating 110,000 meals for those in need across Northern Ireland
    • has saved charities £153,000, allowing them to redirect these funds back into their core services.
    • These donations have saved over 168 tonnes of CO2 emissions
  • Lidl has set a target to donate £250,000 meals to local charities by 2020
  • Lidl’s Autism Awareness campaign reached over 676,000 through social media
  • Lidl’s CSR website has had more than 40,000 unique views since its launch in August 2017
  • The business has driven employee app usage by 120%

For more information, please email amy.slevin@lidl.ie