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Less than half a year has passed since the Lidl retail chain, supporting small Lithuanian producers, invited them to present their food products to customers, and their favorite products gained a permanent place on store shelves. The regular range already included authentic products from six Lidl partners in October.
Visitors to Lidl shops will be able to buy curd spread, semi-fat curd and sour cream, sour milk from the Audrius Banionis farm, cottage cheese with blueberries from the Ilzenberg mansion, and rustic natural milk from the Kontėna company.
In addition, customers of the retail chain will find on the store shelves cold-smoked skilandis sausages, cold-smoked bacon and bacon, cold cuts made by the company Kaimiškas dūmas and loins and kvass of homemade Daujėnai bread supplied by the Saimeta company.
Cooperation only intensified
The Banionis farm in Kaunas district, which was one of the first small producers to start cooperation with Lidl this year, has further strengthened its ties with this retail network since spring. The most popular food products among consumers, made according to the old Lithuanian traditions, are already supplied to the shops continuously. Farmer A. Banionis told Kauno Diena that even six months ago he was happy to get the attention of the Lidl retail network, when he presented products only through promotions.
Optimism: A. Banionis looks forward to offering new products to Lidl customers soon. (Personal file photo)
“During that time, we managed to expand production a bit so much that we already supply some products to the retail network on a regular basis,” said A. Banionis. – For example, meat products: cold-smoked bacon and bacon, skiland sausage. All of these products have found a permanent place on Lidl store shelves. Starting from dairy products, we present our rural sour milk for daily trade. Orders are large, we do our best to fulfill them. We are often invited to present our other products through promotions. For example, we supply fresh lamb and fresh veal for customer evaluation. Soon we will be offering other products that we have already discussed with the retail chain. We cannot offer everything for regular trade, because the orders would be really large and it would be difficult to redirect them so quickly. However, we are trying to increase capacity as much as we can. “
A. Banionis made no secret that Lidl was initially expected to supply individual food products through promotions. You hand over one type, then you make another type and you rethread.
“However, it is gratifying that in just a few months we were able to agree with such a retail chain the price of our products for the whole year, large orders,” said A. Banionis with satisfaction. – The order department is working. Now we deliver the merchandise several times a week. One is to deliver the merchandise through the campaign when we have delivered two pallets, the other is to deliver regular products with orders three times higher.
We feel a responsibility to keep our products on supermarket shelves at all times and to ensure the highest quality. We really don’t want to lose our buyer. Our goal is for the buyer to come and find a favorite product made on A. Banionis’ farm. “
It’s fun to support yours
Sandra Riepšienė, director of the Kontėna company operating in Žarėnai, Telšiai district, is pleased to say that Lidl supports local producers. Among the common products of the retail chain are two types of castings produced by the Kontėna company.
Own: S.Riepšienė is pleased that the Lidl sales network supports local manufacturers. (Personal file photo)
“We are very satisfied that Lidl supports Lithuanian entrepreneurs, because someone else can help himself, if not himself,” said S.Riepšienė. – Of course, it has been an extremely big challenge for us to start working with such a powerful sales network just because the quantity of products ordered is really large. When asked if we would like to cooperate, of course, the answer is yes, it is not very difficult, but it is not easy to do. However, we are pleased that we have been able to increase productivity and maintain high product quality. We had to weigh our options, count resources, reorient ourselves in no time. We have been successful, we are very satisfied with the cooperation.
It is gratifying that the employees of this network who order the merchandise do not do so because the tick has been placed, that several containers have been offered for acceptance on the shelf. Serious work here, large amounts, responsibility ”.
The director of the company Kontėna hopes that in the future the customers of Lidl supermarkets will be interested in more of his products.
“Our company produces a wide range of foods, from carrots to sweets, from other sweets to dairy products. Why so much diversity? We started with kvass, but it is a seasonal product for the summer. We started to think about what we could produce for the winter. Everything is focused on the national food heritage, everything is based on naturalness, certainty, produced according to the recipes of the man’s grandmother, according to what other people have written for a long time, “he said S.Riepšienė.
We, the little ones, and the joy of receiving an offer of cooperation, and a sense of responsibility.
Both joy and responsibility
In Daujėnai, Pasvalys district, Saimeta, famous for bread, confectionery, kvass and other products, has also reached Lidl customers. Its manager, Vita Stankevičienė, said the first thing that caught the eye was the “Mushrooms” cookies. And when the quarantine began, the businesswoman offered hemp bread and “Nuts” cookies to the retail chain.
Vita Stankevičienė / Photo from personal archive
“Then I became interested in Daujėnai homemade bread kvass. It has become a regular supply of our products to Lidl stores, V. Stankevičienė told Kauno Diena. – He invited us to introduce customers and more types of products, but not everything we can offer, because it would be necessary to produce a large quantity. We have to choose what we will really be able to do. We offered a confectionery product “Tinginukas”, we have already served a lot. Very satisfied with such association. We, the little ones, and the joy of receiving an offer of cooperation, and a sense of responsibility. We stick “Made in Lithuania” stickers on our food products supplied to the Lidl network. Very pleased.”
The director of the Saimeta company was glad that the first quarantine was relatively easy to survive, so the second wave of COVID-19 was prepared: “We do not send people from our company to downtime, we do not take profits. If two people did the same job, one went on vacation and then the other. Everyone was able to rest at that time, now they are very willing to work. “
Lidl helps you grow
According to Ilona Čiužienė, Rank Director of Lidl Lietuva, the retail chain is constantly striving not only to expand its offering of Lithuanian products, but also to help the country’s producers grow.
“We believe and trust the small business in the country, so we are taking another important step. We want to work even more closely with local manufacturers, so from now on Lidl customers can always find the products they supply. Quarantine acted as a kind of catalyst, leading to a closer partnership with a large number of Lithuanian suppliers. In this way, we were able to achieve two goals: we not only helped to ensure the stability of small producers’ activities, and we helped them to improve, but we also started to offer an even wider selection of unique Lithuanian products to our customers, ”says I.Čiužienė.
According to her, cooperation with the country’s small suppliers allows us to once again touch the often-forgotten Lithuanian products, which can now only be found in the most remote corners of Lithuania.
“We hope that Lidl’s customers will appreciate and like these products. We would like to encourage other small producers and growers in the country to contact us as well; we are always considering cooperating with local companies that produce quality products.” said range manager Lidl Lietuva.
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