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Lidl Will Start Selling 5kg Of Damaged Fruit And Vegetables For £1.50

Lidl Will Start Selling 5kg Of Damaged Fruit And Vegetables For £1.50

As part of their Too Good To Waste trial, German supermarket chain Lidl are going to be selling 5kg boxes of fruit and veg for just £1.50.

Mischa Pearlmen

Mischa Pearlmen

Lidl is already great in our books for selling products at discounted prices. Sure, they might not always have what you want, and their deals shift all the time so if you miss out on something you may never get another chance, but that's down to you more than it is them.

Now, the German grocery chain is piloting an absolutely awesome idea - they're going to be selling 5kg boxes of fruit and vegetables for just £1.50.

"Why so cheap?" you ask. Well, it's all part of Lidl's food waste reduction initiative, which means that the discounted fruit and vegetables are all slightly damaged. So they might not look as appetising as the stuff you normally see on the shelves, but they're perfectly edible.

Part of it's Too Good To Waste trial, 122 branches of Lidl will sell the boxes between 8am and 10am this week. Any unsold produce will be donated to charity, so really it's a win-win situation for everybody.

If the trial is successful - and we honestly can't fathom any reason why it wouldn't be - the chain will consider a national rollout across all its UK stores, which could save an estimated 10,000 tonnes of food waste every year. That's a lot of waste.

Lidl

Supermarkets have come under increased scrutiny and pressure recently about how much perfectly good food they throw out because it's slightly tainted and doesn't match consumer's unreasonable expectations about how food should look - similar to how Photoshopped magazine images have skewed our perception of beauty.

Lidl, however, is battling against food waste and has pledged to cut it by 25 percent per store by 2020. That doesn't appear to be some unattainable number, either - it recently released figures showing that average food waste per store has already fallen by 13.3 percent.

"Proportionately, we sell the most fruit and veg in the sector," said Lidl UK chief executive Christian Hartnagel, "but we know from our data that fresh produce is one of the biggest contributors to food waste in stores.

"We're excited by the difference our Too Good To Waste initiative will make. Not only will it help customers consider items they might have previously dismissed, it will also provide an opportunity for them to make further savings."

Both Asda and Morrisons have launched similar schemes, but £3.50 and £3 respectively, they cost at least twice the price of Lidl's offerings.

Featured Image Credit: Lidl

Topics: UK News, News, lidl,