Image: Lidl GB press kit.
Lidl GB has revealed that sales of its own-label meat-free products and plant-based milks are up a staggering 694%, almost double the 400% growth it had targeted for 2025.
The discounter, which has more than 980 stores across England, Scotland and Wales, set the target against its 2020 financial year. It announced this week that it had not just hit it but sailed past it. Even more encouraging, Lidl says its top three veggie products outperformed its best-selling meat replacements by almost 20%, a sign shoppers are reaching for beans, lentils and tofu as well as plant-based burgers.
Since the start of the year alone, Lidl GB has sold more than 1,400 tonnes of pulses, seeds and grains. To keep up with demand, it has just launched more than 20 new products in its Vemondo Plant! range, including marinated tofu, falafel and tortellini, with plant-based ground meat and burgers from £1.49.
Amali Bunter, Head of Responsible Sourcing and Ethical Trade at Lidl GB, said:
Surpassing our 2025 meat-free and milk-alternative sales target marks a significant milestone in our wider healthy and sustainable diets agenda and supports our long-term goal of aligning with the Planetary Health Diet by 2050, a vital lever in the net-zero transition. We're proud to be leading the industry with our protein transition goal of ensuring that plant-based protein sales (by tonnage) account for 25% of our total protein sales by 2030.
Lidl became the first UK retailer to set a 'protein split' target last October, and the 694% shows the target is realistic. As Green Queen points out, Lidl's growth goes against the grain for vegan food sales across the UK as a whole. Make them cheap and easy to find, and people buy them.
The Planetary Health Diet Lidl is working toward comes from the EAT-Lancet commission of 37 scientists, which called for the world to halve red meat and roughly double its intake of nuts, fruit, vegetables and legumes to protect both our health and the planet.
It's the latest supermarket to put its money where its mouth is. In 2018 the UK's largest supermarket launched its Wicked Kitchen vegan range, and in 2020 Tesco pledged to boost plant-based meat sales 300% by 2025. Over in Germany, Lidl cut its vegan prices to match meat in 2023. And this summer we reported that plant milk is now in over a third of UK households.
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