New store

At 08.00 on Thursday 12th November 2015, the latest Lidl store opened its doors to the Rushden public. The initial opening hours are Monday-Saturday 08.00-21.00, and the Sunday hours are 10.00-16.00, but the store has applied to East Northamptonshire Council to have the hours extended, and if approved, it would mean the store was open 7am to 10pm Monday to Saturday, with Sunday trading hours remaining the same from 10am to 4pm.

Some of the more eager customers were awaiting the official opening of the doors from about 7am, hoping to be the first to pick up some bargains! The big day was blessed with bright sunshine and a pleasant temperature of 15C, and as you can imagine, large crowds were enjoying the new store layout, which looks pretty impressive. Free bunches of flowers, and hot food and drinks were also being given away. For an ongoing customer convenience Alco taxis have provided a freephone service in the store.

Lidl is a small name on paper, but is now a massive player in the UK grocery world, and the likes of Asda, Tesco and Sainsbury are certainly feeling their presence, as they are losing market share to the German discounter.

The new Lidl store is located in Newton Road, on what was the old council yard, the original store is located opposite the Needle and Awl public house. This was built (in 2000) by Rushden builders Kier Marriott, who are based up at Brindley Close. By contrast the new store in Newton road was built by contractors from Cherry Hinton near Cambridge, with a large percentage of labour and building materials coming from mainland Europe.

Entrance	Inside the store

The two Rushden stores are now part of over 9,000 stores across Europe, and from October 2015, Lidl UK employees will be earning a minimum of £8.20 an hour across England, Scotland and Wales, and £9.35 an hour in London.

Supermarket rival Aldi has revealed that staff wages will rise to a minimum rate of £8.40 per hour from February 2016 - eclipsing the wages at more ‘upmarket’ chains like Waitrose. On the plus side Aldi hopes to have 1,000 stores by 2022.

Lidl was created in the 1930s and was originally a wholesale grocery business. The business was started in Germany by the Schwarz family. The first store put up by the family was called “Schwarz Assorted Wholesale Foods”. The name Lidl was the surname of the Schwarz’ former partner in business, Ludwig Lidl and Schwarz bought the rights to the store’s name.

A new Wellingborough Lidl store is opening its doors in December 2015, and this is on the site of an old Co-op bakery, next to the Dog & Duck restaurant in London Road.