Lidl bakery

Source: Lidl

Lidl’s bakeries have been seen as instrumental in helping drive its recent sales growth

Lidl is pitching its bakeries against Greggs in a print advertising campaign aimed at tempting customers away from the grab & go giant.

The discounter has been highlighting the savings customers can make by heading to its stores, with a newspaper ad comparing its 39p jam-filled doughnut with a 95p one from Greggs.

The ad is part of a wider campaign promoting Lidl’s bakeries, which have been seen as instrumental in helping drive its recent sales growth. The supermarket has been the fastest-growing bricks & mortar supermarket for 12 months in a row, according to Kantar, with its sales up 7.8% year on year in the 12 weeks to 4 August, boosting its market share to 8.1% up from 7.7%.

Lidl’s bakery market share in the 12 weeks was 15.6%, having shot from 10.6% since January 2023.

The retailer has also been using its in-store bakeries to leverage its Lidl Plus loyalty app – seen as an additional differentiator in the discounter landscape – by rewarding members with free items.

Meanwhile, Greggs has been increasing its presence in traditional supermarkets. It opened 220 new stores in 2023, including five sites in a partnership with Sainsbury’s, which it entered in May, adding to existing tie-ups with Tesco and Asda. The expansion helped Greggs grow sales across its 2,473 stores by 19.6% to £1.81bn in the year, and overtake McDonald’s to become the UK’s number one breakfast destination. Greggs’ sales continued to grow in the first half to 29 June 2024, by 13.8% to £961m.

Lidl’s print ad targeting the chain appears to have been inspired by a customer’s post on social media saying ‘Lidl bakery over Greggs all day’.

‘And they cost less dough than Greggs too,’ Lidl adds.

The ad appeared in the free tabloid Metro on Friday (16 August).

“Things [are] really are hotting up in the battle between retail and food to go,” wrote Nick Downing, non-executive director at agency MinsterFB and former IGD commercial and insight director, on LinkedIn. “Not seen anything quite like this before, in today’s Metro newspaper. Lidl GB has invested massively in its offer, it also looks like a customer post was the basis for the ad.”

Lidl has also been promoting its bakeries more generally on X (formerly Twitter).

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