If you’re a regular, or even an occasional, customer at Lidl, you’ll know what to expect. Own-brand foodstuffs that shamelessly imitate better-known manufacturers and, by doing so, flirt with copyright infringement right up to the edge of legality; a selection of wines, spirits and beers that alternate between excellent value for the money and frankly undrinkable; and, most famously of all, the middle aisle.
Slowly, step away from the Middle of Lidl. Your dignity will thank you later
For the uninitiated, the middle aisle at Lidl has a unique attraction, mainly for men. It seems to have been based on the sketch from The Fast Show in which a man is sent out to buy groceries and, asked if he’s bought what he was asked to reply, invariably replies: “Even better than that!” before giving an account of the useless tat he has come home with.
In every branch of Lidl, there is an opportunity to buy truly bizarre items that defy belief. On one Reddit thread, users vie with one another in their accounts of what their other halves have returned with from their shopping expeditions. One man came home with a flamethrower, “for getting rid of weeds”, and another returned with a two-man canoe. The latter, unsurprisingly, did not live anywhere near water, but who cares about such things when you have your very own canoe?
The preponderance of this inexpensive, diverting but largely pointless junk, which has engaged usually bored and usually male shoppers in a way that little else has managed to, has helped Lidl make a pre-tax profit of £41 million, after it lost £76 million last year. That represents, undeniably, a huge number of canoes and flamethrowers being sold. But as the company’s UK CEO Ryan McDonnell chortled, “we have a big male following…we often get partners at odds with each other because men have disappeared up the aisle and are buying things they maybe already have.” While their poor, put-upon spouses are busy searching out bargain mince pies and Christmas cake, useless husbands are eyeing up the possibility of buying a chainsaw, crampons or a cement mixer. If they’re lucky, all at the same time.
Their wives cannot say that they haven’t been warned. Lidl suggest on their website that customers should “cruise along our Middle of Lidl aisle for household kit that you never knew you needed…from gardening essentials and outdoor furniture to nifty additions for your kitchen and bathroom.”
Wickedly, they conclude by asking: “What will you take home on your next Lidl shop?” The answer, in many cases, would appear to be “notification of impending divorce”. As McDonnell observes, “I would say there are a lot of men in trouble when they come in here.”
There may be a certain cult following to the sheer weirdness of everything that is sold in the middle aisle, not least because there genuinely seems no end to the tat that appears in every store on a daily basis. (For some reason, gazebos are popular all year round, not only in summer.) But just because something appears to be offered at a bargain price doesn’t mean it’s going to be of any better quality than everything else for sale. Just as much of the food and drink in the shop must be carefully checked, so it is more than likely that that tempting-looking ski gear might fall apart as soon as you take to the slopes.
Lidl has announced that, despite the recent Budget and the apparently never-ending price rises for food even in its stores, that it remains in confident mood for its trading. Little wonder, when the preponderance of cult rubbish in the middle aisle continues to lure in the unwary and curious alike, gawping at what’s on offer. But before you, too, find yourself wondering whether that all-granite pestle and mortar is going to take pride of place in your shed, look at where you’re buying it from and, slowly, step away from the Middle of Lidl. Your dignity will thank you later.
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