European discounter Lidl has seen success with its Next Level vegan range and has plans to expand it further in future. In a two-day “vegan workshop”, the company worked together with customers, professional cooks and ProVeg experts to taste vegan products and create new plant-based ready meals.
In order to meet the taste of the target group when introducing plant-based foods, the retail company called on social media in September to use the “Lidl product configurator” to submit ideas for vegan products. The participants showed great interest in plant-based alternatives with total of over 70,000 suggestions submitted. The wishes were very diverse, but the plant-based alternatives to cheese and frozen pizza were particularly popular.
The two-day workshop took place on 25 and 26 October 2019 in Berlin began with a tasting of over 100 plant-based alternatives. Afterwards, convenience products were co-created with the invited customers, the best of which may soon be on the shelves.
The workshop’s goal was to jointly create ideas for plant-based innovations that Lidl will now take into product development for plant-based products. ProVeg offered advice to the company and contributed the organisation’s know-how to the workshop.
“As the world’s largest discounter, hundreds of thousands of households buy their food every day at Lidl stores. By helping companies like Lidl to expand their range of plant-based products, ProVeg makes vegan alternatives more available to many people. This directly supports our mission to reduce the consumption of animal products in society,” says Dirk Liebenberg, ProVeg project manager for the food industry and retail. “Lidl demonstrates its commitment to build a more sustainable product range and is sending a clear signal by focusing on the demand of customers for more plant-based products.”
