{"id":606401,"date":"2026-05-27T10:14:11","date_gmt":"2026-05-27T10:14:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/606401\/"},"modified":"2026-05-27T10:14:11","modified_gmt":"2026-05-27T10:14:11","slug":"lidl-overtakes-morrisons-to-become-fifth-largest-supermarket-in-great-britain-lidl","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/606401\/","title":{"rendered":"Lidl overtakes Morrisons to become fifth largest supermarket in Great Britain | Lidl"},"content":{"rendered":"

Lidl has overtaken Morrisons<\/a> to become the fifth largest grocer in Great Britain as its sales were powered ahead by households seeking to keep a lid on their weekly bills.<\/p>\n

The German-owned discounter increased its sales by 8.8% year on year \u2013 making it the fastest-growing store-based grocer \u2013 to hit a record high market share of 8.6% over the 12 weeks to 17 May, according to figures from the market analysts Worldpanel by Numerator. That compared with an 8.3% share for Morrisons in the period as the Bradford-based chain grew its sales by only 1.3% compared with a year earlier.<\/p>\n

Twenty-five years ago, Lidl<\/a> accounted for only 1.4% of the grocery market, behind long-gone names such as Safeway, Somerfield and Kwik Save. Since then it has rapidly opened stores and broadened its appeal to become more of a weekly shopping destination.<\/p>\n

Since establishing itself in the UK in 1994, Lidl GB has now reached 1,000 stores and 13 distribution centres, employing 35,000 people in England, Scotland and Wales. In the year to February 2025, sales rose 8.3% to \u00a311.7bn at Lidl GB and profits more than doubled to \u00a3156.8m.<\/p>\n

In April, Lidl pledged to open 50 UK stores in the year ahead<\/a> and to invest more than \u00a3600m in expansion in the country.<\/p>\n

Lidl now sits behind the fellow German-owned discounter Aldi, which is the UK\u2019s fourth biggest supermarket. Aldi is now less than one percentage point behind struggling Asda, where sales continue to fall back despite efforts at a turnaround.<\/p>\n

Aldi and Lidl have grown rapidly, partly helped by poor performance at Asda and Morrisons since both were taken over in debt-fuelled private equity deals.<\/p>\n

However, Aldi\u2019s growth has slowed recently as Tesco and Sainsbury\u2019s \u2013 the UK\u2019s first and second largest chains respectively \u2013 have fought back with loyalty schemes and ranges that match Aldi<\/a> on price.<\/p>\n

Ryan McDonnell, the chief executive of Lidl GB, said: \u201cBecoming Great Britain\u2019s fifth largest supermarket is a significant milestone and a clear indication of the momentum we have built. As customer expectations shift, households are looking for value they can rely on without compromising on quality, and we remain laser-focused on delivering exactly that.<\/p>\n

\u201cAchieving this is a testament to the dedication of our colleagues, whose hard work delivers for our customers every single day.\u201d<\/p>\n

The rise of the discounters comes as households turn to the budget chains and seek out promotions as a way to offset inflation on food and energy bills.<\/p>\n

Like-for-like grocery prices rose 3.1% in the four weeks to 17 May, but this marked the slowest pace of inflation since December 2024 as supermarkets offered discounts to try to tempt households to spend, Worldpanel reported.<\/p>\n

Shoppers snapped up promotions to keep costs down, with spending on promoted items up 9.5% year on year, while full-price spending was virtually flat, growing by only 0.1%.<\/p>\n

Fraser McKevitt, the head of retail and consumer insight at Worldpanel, said: \u201cThe easing in the rate of inflation is welcome news for shoppers who have been grappling with warnings of a hike in food prices due to the impact of the war in the Middle East.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Lidl has overtaken Morrisons to become the fifth largest grocer in Great Britain as its sales were powered…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":606402,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[59,57,58,50,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-606401","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-united-kingdom","tag-gb","tag-great-britain","tag-greatbritain","tag-news","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/606401","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=606401"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/606401\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/606402"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=606401"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=606401"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=606401"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}