No Duke’s mayo but plenty of wine as Lidl opens in Raleigh

Raleigh shoppers will finally get a first look at a Lidl on Thursday, as the German grocer continues its march along the Eastern seaboard.

The new Raleigh Lidl (pronounced lee-dul) will open its doors at 4308 Wake Forest Road in northeast Raleigh to the public at 8 a.m.

For shoppers who haven’t visited a Lidl before – the first local store opened in Wake Forest in July – here’s a quick look at what to expect.

First impressions

▪ The store is trying to stand out in a cluttered grocery market by cutting the clutter. Its six wide aisles – half the size of a typical supermarket – give a sense of expansive openness as you walk through the front doors.

▪ Turn toward the smell of baked goods as you enter and you’ll encounter shelves of bagels, muffins, baguettes and loaves that are made fresh throughout the day. Turn another direction and you’ll find fresh produce displayed in crates, not piled up in pyramids where the fruits and vegetables can go bad faster. We’re talking sweet potatoes for 49 cents a pound, $2.39 for a bag of clementine tangerines in this week’s specials.

▪ Just down the aisle is the packaged coffee, where you pick up on Lidl’s basic approach. Ninety percent of its goods are in-house brands, which are substantially discounted, mixed in with familiar brands. Coffee choices range from $2.34 to $7.98 a pound for store brands, with Dunkin Donuts and Folgers as options.

▪ Nearby you won’t find that Southern staple, Duke’s Mayonnaise, but you will find Hellman’s.

▪ Penne rigate goes for 75 cents a pound; rotini for 79 cents and spaghetti for $1.34.

▪ You can find Ben & Jerry’s, Haagen-Dazs and Breyers, along with a store brand spiked eggnog ice cream, to go with your Chips Ahoy! ($1.46 for 24.8-ounce package) or the in-house cookie brand, Essentials (95 cents for 12 ounces).

▪ Lidl is especially proud of its wine selection and gives it a lot of real estate. The wines were selected by an in-house master and lean heavily on Northern California, Washington and French labels.

It is difficult to find a bottle selling for more than $20. (That would be the typically much pricier Chateaunef-du-Pape red for $19.99, plus tax.)

You can go cheap: $2.59 for a chardonnay or pinot grigio, $3.49 for a bottle of Prosecco, $4.99 for the Riesling.

On the beer front, Lidl’s Craft Explorers offers $6.99 six-packs of IPA, amber ale and pale ale. Or you can go with a couple of well-known nationally distributed beers like Stone or Blue Moon.

Twice a week the store puts out an eclectic array of goods that are not restocked once sold. On Tuesday at the Wake Forest store you would have found Christmas decorations, $10 children’s boots, a Butterball Electric Fryer XL for $99.99 (price “chopped” from $124.99) and various tools.

“It’s meant to drive that treasure hunt, like a Costco or Sam’s or BJ’s,” Mike Paglia, an analyst with Kantar Retail, said Wednesday. “It’s the element of surprise or delight and urgency – once it’s gone it’s gone.”

Like Aldi?

Lidl is often compared to Aldi, which has eight stores in the Triangle.

The two are fierce competitors, particularly in Germany where they are both based, and Aldi met Lidl’s arrival in the U.S. with a plan to renovate its stores. There are many similarities between the two: They are smaller than most supermarkets, emphasize value and promote their own labels. They both require customers to bag their own groceries, too. But there are differences. Aldi appears to pack more on its shelves, and its stores are often smaller than Lidl. Both stores have a flavor of Trader Joe’s, which like Aldi is owned by the Albrecht family.

“Lidl stores drift into the territory of a small supermarket,” Paglia said, “with the bakery, flowers and fresh produce. Not as much at Aldi.”

On Tuesday, Jennifer Jump of Zebulon was loading Lidl groceries into her SUV. She said she shops there when she is in Wake Forest for a weekly appointment – and also shops at the Aldi two miles away. She needs both stores to find her favorites, like a particular Italian dressing.

“It’s similar to Aldi,” she said. “I go to both places and choose.”

Strategy

Lidl began its assault on mid-Atlantic and southeastern states in mid-June, opening 20 stores, to be followed by another 80 stores over the span of a year. Paglia says the company has already surpassed that, with 40 stores opened or opening in 2017.

“They’re definitely expanding very aggressively,” he said. “Their strategy when they come to a new market is to go immediately after the price leader. In most markets that’s Walmart.” Walmart had 20 percent of the market share in Raleigh last year, according to Chain Store Guide.

Lidl stores typically sell name brands for about the same, but it undercuts the competition with its in-house goods, by as much as 20 percent or more, Paglia said.

Lidl touted that strategy last month in its announcement about the Raleigh store’s opening. The company said it has driven down prices in some North Carolina markets by as much as 30 percent.

The company will have 16 stores in North Carolina with the opening of the Raleigh store and another in Winston-Salem also on Thursday. One is planned for Cary, but construction has not yet begun.

This story was originally published November 15, 2017 at 4:06 PM with the headline "No Duke’s mayo but plenty of wine as Lidl opens in Raleigh."