I feel like I'm going to be the last retail nerd to see the new Lidl US, but that doesn't mean I'm not store checking some Lidls.
I just got back from vacation in southern and central Europe, and that means store checks, of course. What would a vacation be without photos from supermarkets?
My family and I had a pit stop in southern Germany on the way from Zurich to Munich and I dragged everyone to Lidl. It was in the same retail center as a Rewe, in a rural town along an autobahn.
The first thing I noticed was that this was a nicer, more organized Lidl than I saw in Berlin, and Verona, Italy. Aisles were clean, well-stocked and had a lot of variation. Judging by the number of u-pick strawberry fields I saw along the way, the adorable little strawberries were local.
There also were bulk cherries in abundance, something I saw a lot of in the retailers I checked in Germany on this trip.
This store also offered flow-wrap grill pan style kits, with mini bell peppers and tomatoes, similar to some I've seen in the U.S. They also carried several sizes of watermelon, including chilled cut fruit, and tray packed branded apples. The most notable one was Pink Lady.
At Lidl in Vicenza, Italy, we were there later in the day on a Thursday, so shelves were shopped down a little more than the store we visited in Germany. I saw a lot of fresh herbs, two different types of radicchio, which you'd expect in Italy.
They were also in the middle of an "American" promotion with a bunch of wacky foods that are "American" including pulled pork, steak and onion Pringles-style chips, bagels, cheeseburgers, yogurt and American-style bacon.
I was visiting a friend, whose husband is active duty military stationed in Italy, so there are a lot of Americans in this town. We cracked up over these foods, but hey, at least they weren't the "Mexican" salami that had kidney beans in it.
Stay tuned for more from this trip. I have Rewe and Kaufland in Germany and some retail in Venice, Italy.