Lidl is looking to expand its network with a £91.1m funding pitch for 12 leased supermarkets across the country.
The discounter has begun to look for investors to build the supermarkets, which it then aims to rent from them, stating in a funding pitch it is offering “a unique opportunity to acquire the freehold and fund the construction of 12 supermarkets let to Lidl GB”, reported The Grocer.
Locations currently mentioned in the documents include Alexandria in Wes Dunbartonshire, Birmingham, Bovey Tracey and Credion in Devon, Bristol, Downham Market in Norfolk, Hull, Manchester, Northampton, Reading, Redcar and Saffron Walden.
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The new investments would be the first time the supermarket has used this process, with only an estimated 20% of its 960 UK stores being leasehold.
A Lidl spokesperson said: “We have long taken a flexible approach to delivering new sites with the core aim of giving all households access to a Lidl store.”
The new move comes amid Lidl’s plans to reduce its expansion plans last year, from 50 new stores to only 25, in a bid to better focus on growing its warehouse capacity.
Fellow discounter Aldi created a new National Real Estate Team late last year to help deliver on its target of 500 new stores.
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Breakfast, somewhere on the Selby coastline, Yorkshire, UK, 2065, “Daddy, why do we say we’re going to the Aldlidl shops? They’re all big and modern”? “OK sonny, Aldlidl doesn’t mean ‘old and little’, it means they are the only two food shops we have in the UK now. Once we had many different kinds of shops, Waitrose, Co-op, Asda, Tesco, Sainsburys, Morrison, oooh and what we used to call ;’corner stores’ too, don’t ask me why, a lot of them weren’t even on corners, but gradually we got just two of them, Aldi and Lidl, took over everything”. “OK daddy, now can I have some tuna sandwiches for lunch”, “Oooh well, sonny, I’m not sure our wages stretch that far, I’m only a senior NHS consultant you know, and yes back when we had lots of stores, tuna was cheap, but now now….”