Lidl US CEO Joel Rampoldt On Where Lidl US Is Now And Where It Is Going Next

Hello, everyone.

Welcome back.

This is omnitalk Retail.

I'm Anne Mazinga.

And I'm Chris Walton.

And we are coming to you live from Grocery Shop 2025 from the Fusion Group booth.

A big thank you to the Fusion Group for helping us bring you all of our interviews and coverage from the show.

Chris, we have a pretty exciting guest standing between a first timer on Omnitok, we have Lidl US CEO Joel Rampold.

Joel, welcome to omnitalk.

Thanks, Anne.

Thanks for having me.

Yeah, this is a big deal.

We get to have Lidl on the show.

We get to tell our custom or our audience about it and about your expansion into the US So it's a big deal for us.

Thanks for making the time.

Great.

My pleasure.

Yeah.

You know, Joel.

Yeah.

That's one thing we love.

We love.

We love Getting to meet CEOs from all walks of life across retail.

So let's start with that.

Let's get to know you a little bit.

Tell us about your background and how you came to become CEO.

So for a couple of decades before I came to Lidl, I was a management consultant specializing in retail and specializing in grocery retail.

And in that, through that work, I met the man who's currently the CEO of LIDL Globally, Kenneth McGrath.

And he asked me to dinner one night and said he wanted to talk about who should be the next CEO of Lidl.

Us.

Really?

And I had no idea he had me in mind when I went to that deal.

Setting you up, huh?

He set me up.

Yeah.

All right.

So, yeah, tell us what happened next.

Yeah, tell us a little bit more.

Like, what did you have for dinner?

Were you nervous what was happening?

I certainly don't remember what I ate, if in fact I ate anything.

But it was really exciting.

I wasn't expecting that conversation to go in that direction.

But as soon as he started talking about it, I knew that it was something that I would have to do because I'm a huge believer in the Lidl model.

I've done a fair amount of work in Europe, where discount grocery is growing and growing and growing and just doesn't seem to have any ceiling.

And Lidl's had some struggles in the US has been widely publicized and talked about, but I'm a huge believer in the business model, and I know it will work and be brilliant in the U.S. and so the opportunity to be a part of that was really exciting for me.

And how long have you been in Roll?

Two years.

Two years.

Okay.

And where.

And where.

How would you sum up lidl within the US right now?

Well, we're 190 stores up and down the east coast, basically from Atlanta up the coast out to Long island, where we have pockets of strength.

Our three biggest markets are Atlanta, the D.C. area, Maryland, Virginia, Delaware and New York, including northern New Jersey, New York City and Long island.

We have 190 stores up and down the east coast, but concentrated in those markets, we are a private brand forward, fresh forward retailer.

Our boxes are a little bit smaller.

Right.

So we're smaller than a traditional grocer with more of a curated, tight assortment.

Okay.

And we focus on, unlike other discount grocers, we focus a lot on fresh.

When you walk into a Lidl, the first things you see are fresh fruits, fresh vegetables, and fresh bakery.

Just after that is fresh protein.

So a lot of people think about discount grocery and they think of cans and boxes.

And of course, we do that as well.

Yeah.

But we put a lot more emphasis on fresh.

Right.

And Joel put it into context globally, too.

Like how.

How does.

How do you.

You just summed up Lidl for the US but sum up Lidl globally, too, for our audience.

Yeah.

So we're part of the Schwartz Group.

We are the fourth largest retailer in the world.

In the world.

Right.

Not fourth largest grocery retailer.

Fourth largest retailer.

We operate in 30 countries in Europe, plus the U.S. and Lidl has 12,000 stores across all of those countries, including the couple hundred almost that we have in the United States.

And so, Joel, outside of kind of helping raise awareness about Lidl here at Grocery Shop, what.

What are you looking to do while you're here?

What brings you here?

Well, so a lot of the reason we are here is to connect with industry peers, find out what other people are doing.

Some of the folks on my team are here to learn about new technology.

We have many of our technology partners with whom we already do business are here.

I'm looking at a couple of them now.

So that's useful.

But also getting to meet people we don't yet do business with and find out what's new.

And also our employees are very interested in what we say what when we go to these sorts of events.

So when I'm doing a podcast like this, some of the people listening will be folks who work for Lidl us.

And this is one of the ways that they find out about what we're talking about.

That's cool.

That's one response we've never had before.

Yeah, I've never had that response before.

It's really insightful.

So you mentioned this a little bit But I want to go into it a little bit deeper.

You said you talked a little bit about differentiation.

Tell us more about how you see Lidl differentiating itself, particularly here in the United States.

Yeah, well, the recipe is the same in the US as it is in Europe.

Our motto is as global as possible, as local as necessary.

So there are some things that we have to do differently in the us there's no question about that.

But as much as possible, we want to be true to what has made Lidl successful everywhere we operate.

And so that means that we differentiate on quality and price.

So best quality, best price.

We're a private brand forward company, we do carry brands and we love carrying, working with our branded partners.

But we're private brand first and we've spent a lot of energy and time and money making sure that the private brand quality is great and that the price is the best you can get anywhere in the market.

Now, of course, the trade off is we don't have tens of thousands of SKUs.

We do not differentiate on choice and many customers will go to other retailers after they shop us to get specialty items that we, that we can't carry because they don't work in our operational envelope.

But many customers also really like coming to Lidl because it is a curated assortment and they know they can get in and get out very quickly.

Got it.

How big is the footprint on the average store?

We have a range of footprints across the US but right now going forward, our workhorse format is going to be 13,000 square feet.

And I'd love to talk a little bit too about where the opportunities are.

So you're coming into the US market, focus on fresh discounted prices.

How do you think about how you're going to continue to differentiate in the market and where you hope to expand or where you see the greatest areas of opportunity?

Yeah, well, the US consumer is still on the journey of accepting private brand as brands.

Our strategy is not just to have control brands or store brands or look alike brands, but to actually build brands.

And some of the brands that we carry are multi billion dollar brands globally.

And so that's part of the journey is getting customers comfortable with that.

This is a product that I can, that I can trust and something that I'm going to buy repeatedly and have a lot of faith that it's never going to let me down.

We call what I call the your kids will eat it test.

Yes, right.

So that's part of it.

And also just getting people comfortable with the idea that I can get my fresh Products.

Yeah.

Fruit, vegetable, protein, especially in a.

In a value oriented story, which is.

That's a change for many American consumers, right?

100%.

Yeah.

So it sounds very similar to kind of the philosophy that we might have seen in some of the European stores, for example, coming here, but really differentiating on those special, almost specialty products that we wouldn't see in another discounted grocer.

And our customers tell us they really like that.

Right.

These are items that, in terms of the percentage of our sales that they account for, are quite small.

Okay.

But they are large for our customers, perhaps particularly around the holidays.

Special items that they would get, that they would bring to a party, charcuterie items, items that are French croissants, obviously are imported, but also Greek olives, Italian cheeses, things that are.

That's really cool.

Authentic.

Yeah.

And many of our European chocolates, those are items that our customers look for over and over again, especially when they're seasonally relevant.

Yeah.

A great gifting opportunity as that small, special touch to it that you can't get anywhere else.

That's really cool.

So, Joel, one thing we wanted to ask you too, is, you know, expanding the US market is particularly in grocery is no easy feat.

In fact, a lot of people have come before you and tried it.

Right.

So I'm curious, what lessons have you learned to date in trying it yourself?

And how are those lessons shaping what your plans are going forward?

Yeah.

Well, I'll circle back to one of the things we talked about a minute ago, which is we have a model that we know works, and we need to be true to that.

Now, again, we adapt to the US Market.

Right.

Our chips and soda is DSD delivered in the US and nowhere else in the world.

Right.

Because that's the way the US has to operate.

So in an example like that, we have to operate differently here.

But as much as possible, we want to stick true to what we know works, what works over and over again.

And the US consumer has some differences in taste and preferences, but for the most part, if you have the right items, you have the best quality and you have the best price, and then you have the operating model that supports your ability to deliver that, you're going to do great.

Well, that is a good lead into our next question, Joel.

What innovations are you excited about that are allowing you to do that as you expand Lidl, across the rest of the United States?

Yeah.

So we're always thinking about how can we grind out the next few cents.

Yeah, sometimes.

Sometimes dollars, but sometimes nickels, dimes and Pennies out of cost and oftentimes that is related to technology.

Okay.

So rolling out electronic shelf labels.

Okay.

Saves us about 22 hours per store per week.

Also.

It gets rid of the hours, but it also gets rid of a really not that pleasant job.

Yes.

Dealing with paper price tickets and changing them, worrying about keeping them current.

With electronic shelf labels, we save a lot of labor which we can redirect into more value added tasks that consumers actually benefit from and know that the pricing is always accurate.

So that's one example.

Has that resulted in any changes to your organization that you've had to kind of impart in order to say, okay, we see the labor savings, for example, with electronic shelf labels.

How do we apply that to.

Yes.

Merchandising team.

Now we can sell this product for $0.03 less.

Right.

So that's a really interesting point.

Something that's so important in our business is that the different functions don't operate as silos.

Okay.

I'm sure this is true for anyone in my seat who would be talking to you, but I feel like it's especially true for us.

Okay.

Like to take that example forward, we've got this savings.

Where are we going to put it?

Yeah.

Right.

Because it could be a product answer, it could be pricing, it could be something about how we operate in store.

And the executives leading those functions in our company are really tight.

And we have this culture of where we will will make the decision that's best for the customer and best for the company as opposed to what's best for the KPIs that I, as one individual, have responsibility for.

Right.

Anything else you're excited about in the year ahead?

I'm excited about opening new stores.

Okay.

Continuing to open new stores.

Excited about continuing to push our brand.

You know, we've rebranded ourselves as the superst market which has gone really well.

Continuing to launch our hero items.

Our croissant at 49 cents, I think is the best food value in the country.

49 cent croissant, I mean, imported from France.

Imported from France.

That was terrible.

Your fridge is terrible.

But it is, it is an all butter European croissant.

It's a proper, proper croissant.

They're delicious.

And there are items like that where we believe we have something that nobody can touch for the price point and rolling out more of those and really helping our customers understand where there's an extraordinary value that we offer for them.

That's great.

That's awesome.

Well, thank you so much for being here with us.

You're not going to try a German accent?

No, definitely not in German accent, my friend.

God, no.

God, no.

That'd be terrible.

No, Sprekensie Deutsch.

But.

But yeah.

Thank you, Joel.

Thank you so much for being with us, Joel.

The CEO of Lidl Us.

Thanks to the Fusion Group for supporting our coverage here.

You heard about the value of ESLs, too?

And until next time, be careful out there.