Lidl is organizing a so-called theme week with innovative consumer products. They are looking for suppliers and startups that can deliver those new, healthy, and/or very sustainable food and non-food products. StartLife works together with Lidl to select startups for this week and we agreed that a minimum of 15 products will be products from StartLife startups.
For years now, Lidl has been organizing theme weeks to promote Italian, French, or Spanish products, to name just a few. In the spring of 2019, the chain will introduce a new theme. “We want to keep surprising our clients, this time with products that are very sustainable or highly innovative. To help us, we’re looking for producers and startups that we can help and guide towards production,” says Braun. “The idea is to sell the products during the theme week, which is unique. Should a theme week product be very popular, we will of course consider adding it to our core product range,” Braun continues.
For this project, Lidl is collaborating with StartLife, which helps the supermarket chain to select the startups. StartLife is the leading European Food & Agtech incubator. Marloes Groenewegen, Director of Operations at StartLife: “With this project Lidl can really help startups, precisely because a regular purchasing order is issued long before goods have to be delivered. This pushes startups to speed up and can help them launch their products
The total number of products to be sold during the theme week is also as yet unknown. “A good theme week ordinarily has between 30 and 50 products, but it’s still early days to put an exact number on it,” Braun emphasizes. However, a minimum of 15 of these products will be products from StartLife startups. These startups will be selected through a separate selection session.