The Covid Pandemic proved to have a silver lining for the big supermarket chains in Ireland. In lockdown year 2020/21 our spend on groceries jumped by almost 11% to €12.76 Billion. Among the big winners were the discount stores Lidl and Aldi who continue to make inroads into the Irish retail market once dominated by the big three – Dunnes, Supervalu and Tesco.
RTÉ was given unprecedented behind the scenes access at two contrasting Lidl stores – the bustling Moore Street store in Dublin and a new Lidl store in Tipperary Town, which opened its doors in November 2021.
The cameras are in Moore Street over Halloween and Christmas, as store staff brace themselves for the holiday rush and the customers grab the best of the special buys from the Middles Aisles. In Tipperary, staff are under pressure to have fridges installed and shelves stocked in time for the grand opening of the new store, set to compete with the rival supermarkets in town.
Behind the day-to day bustle, the documentary reveals the increasingly complex operation and staff effort required to keep a modern supermarket open for business – and just how lucrative and cut throat that business has become.
Secrets From The Middle Aisle also looks at this burgeoning multi-billion supermarket world from the perspective of the Irish consumer, who pays for it all. Our idiosyncrasies as a shopping nation are explored, along with our love/hate dependence on the big supermarkets – a relationship that changed forever with the arrival, over 20 years ago, of the German discount stores Lidl and Aldi. The documentary shines a light on some of the staff who may have been overlooked during the pandemic, serving as frontline workers at a time when where and how we shop and has become more important.
QUOTES –
“With supermarkets allowed to remain open, for many of us that tiny little glimmer of hope during the Pandemic was the weekly shop. And if that shop was somehow enhanced by the fact you could pick up an egg-chair in a German supermarket, then so be it. We took our pleasures where we could!.” – Siobhán Maguire, Consumer Journalist
“People’s shopping habits adjusted overnight in the Pandemic. Before the Pandemic the amount of money that was spent on food consumed in the home and outside the home was about 50/50. All of that food then transferred to being consumed in the home. Supermarket food sales were up by over 20%.” – Malachy O’Connor, Retail Consultant
“Aldi and Lidl’s growth in Ireland has just been stellar. They have gone from nothing to having 1 in 4 people doing their shopping there every week.” – Conor Pope, Irish Times