Aldi and Lidl take £542m in sales from big four. In the 12 weeks to 26 January 2020 alone, Aldi and Lidl took £28m from Morrisons, £35m from Sainsbury’s, £36m from Asda and £44m from Tesco Lidl Stiftung & Co. KG is a German international discount supermarket chain that operates over 10, 000 stores across Europe and the United States. Headquartered in Neckarsulm, Baden-Württemberg, the company belongs to the Schwarz Group, which also operates the hypermarket chain Kaufland. Lidl opened its first UK store in 1994. Since then, Lidl UK has grown consistently, and today has over 800 stores. While it is still a small player in the United Kingdom, with a grocery market share of less than 5%, its importance, along with that of continental, no-frills competitor Aldi is growing, with half of the shoppers in the United Kingdom visiting Aldi or Lidl over Christmas 2014. The Lidl operation in the United Kingdom took a different approach than in Germany, with a focus on marketing and public relations, and providing employee benefits not required by law, including paying the independently verified living wage and offering a staff discount. Upmarket products were introduced, especially in the lead-up to Christmas. This required significant investment in marketing to produce sales growth but had an effect on Lidl's logistical operation and pressure on profits. Ronny Gottschlich, who had run Lidl UK for the six years to 2016, was responsible for this approach, which led to friction with head office, due to the cost involved. In September 2016, Gottschlich unexpectedly left and was replaced by the Austrian sales and operations director, German-national Christian Härtnagel. Lidl continued to have ambitious investment plans in the United Kingdom, ultimately doubling the number of stores to 1, 500. In the financial year of 2015, Lidl Great Britain's revenue from its over 630 stores throughout Britain was £4.7 billion
