Italy: Lidl Trials Its First Shop To Have An Urban Garden
Spanish retailers follow the trend
A few weeks ago people were talking about the plans of El Corte Ingles to install a vertical garden in their store in Valladolid, now their focus is on Lidl, which has put into operation its first store in the world with an urban garden.
The discount company has opened this pioneer establishment in the Italian city of Turin. The store has 1,400 square meters of plant spaces on the roof of the building, which will be managed by Re.Te, a non-profit association that develops cooperation and social inclusion projects for people in need.
"Today we are not only here to inaugurate a new point of sale, but also to announce a unique project: the first Lidl store in the world, and there are already more than 10,500 of them, with a urban garden on the roof," stated the Regional director of Lidl Italy, Maurizio Cellini.
The urban garden will be administered in collaboration with other associations and will be entrusted to the inhabitants of the neighborhood, taking into account their income, work and personal situation.
"This is a story of which we are particularly proud and which expresses Lidl's willingness to meet the needs of the territory and to be part of a social inclusion project that will feature neighborhood families," added the director.
In this sense, the vice president of Re.Te, Luca Giliberti, stated that the urban garden would be administered in collaboration with other associations and would be entrusted to the inhabitants of the neighborhood, taking into account their income, work and personal situation.
The gardens will be used for awareness activities for school groups and labor reintegration, as well as to test agricultural techniques to combat the effects of climate change and support international agricultural projects in Latin America, the Caribbean, and sub-Saharan Africa.
The new store offers an assortment of more than 2,000 items, 80% of which are manufactured in Italy. It is also equipped with photovoltaic panels to reduce energy needs.
In this way, Lidl joins the trend of developing vertical and urban projects in food distribution, especially at the international level. In fact, similar initiatives have already been launched by chains such as Carrefour, Auchan Retail, and Mercadona. Specialized retail has also started to implement projects of this type, just as Ikea has recently done in Sweden.