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Lidl store: The grocer increased sales by almost 14 percent, also thanks to price increases

Photo: Sven Severing / imago images/Jan Huebner

The Schwarz Group, which includes the food retailers Lidl and Kaufland, continued to grow in the 2022 financial year. The group, headed by Gerd Chrzanowski (51), increased sales by 15.4 percent year-on-year across all business areas to 154.1 billion euros, as the Neckarsulm-based company announced on Thursday morning.

The group of owner Dieter Schwarz (83), like all discounters in the food trade, is also benefiting from inflation. Cost increases for merchandise, raw materials, energy and transport were "partially absorbed by efficient process management and were not fully passed on to customers," the company said. In addition, the company was able to win new customers and thus increase its market share, and the number of branches also increased by 400 to 13,700. In part, however, Europe's largest retail group had apparently succeeded in passing on the high prices to its customers.

With sometimes aggressive price negotiations, the group's buyers are also trying to play off their power against the producers. The dispute escalated with the confectionery manufacturer Haribo, for example, so that its products were removed from the range. Hopes for a price turnaround, however, had dampened Lidl Germany boss Christian Härtnagel only last week. They are in negotiations with the food manufacturers and there are demands for further price increases on the table.

8 billion for the conversion

The group, which has made its owner the richest German, is currently in the midst of a transformation. In the past fiscal year, CEO Chrzanowski invested around 8 billion euros in the brick-and-mortar business – but above all in strategic projects and digital business areas. He wants to turn the retailer into a conglomerate that fends off hacker attacks, stores data, researches artificial intelligence, sends container ships around the world, disposes of garbage and produces and sells tons of food on the side. In late summer, the cyber defense and cloud business is even expected to become the fifth group division alongside Lidl, Kaufland, the Prezero waste disposal division and the company's own food production.

By far the largest division is and remains Lidl. Lidl increased annual sales by almost 2023 percent to 14.114 billion euros as of the balance sheet date at the end of February 8. At Kaufland, store sales, including the integrated Real stores, increased by 16 percent to 31.8 billion euros. In comparison, total online sales remained minimal: the 1.9 billion euros are 200 million euros more than in the previous year.

Sales in the Prezero waste management business almost doubled to 2021.3 billion euros after acquisitions in 9. And the Group's own food production, the Group's fourth division, grew by almost a third and came to a value of around 3.4 billion euros. These included, for example, the pasta factory acquired in October 2022, a newly built coffee factory and the entry into indoor vegetable cultivation. The Schwarz Group does not publish profit figures.

Dri