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Germany: Aldi vs. Lidl the price battle goes into the next round

Discount Retail Chain Aldi is keeping the frequency high: The discounter reports seven price reductions in the first six weeks of the new year and thus sees itself confirmed as the price leader in Germany. And the retailer also lets the consumer know this mantra-like, be it in radio and TV commercials or on billboards and in online advertisements. Because Aldi feels attacked and challenged. And in fact, competitor Lidl has been trying to adopt the price leader image for some time.


A price war is raging between the discounters Aldi and Lidl: First, the two chains are trying to gain dominance in the German food trade through butter. Now the battle is shifting to sweets.


For decades, the distribution of roles in the German retail sector was clear: Aldi, the inventor of the discount principle, sets a price, and the competition has to follow suit. In the meantime, however, the discounter is almost on a par with the Schwarz Group in terms of size and is therefore increasingly self-confident.


This can be seen, for example, in sales: Lidl's net revenues totalled 30.4 billion euros in 2024, according to retail researchers at the EHI Retail Institute, while Aldi Nord and Süd together came to 33.7 billion. In the digital business with technology and non-food items, Lidl has already taken the lead, while Aldi even closed its online shop at the end of September last year due to a lack of profitability.


The continuous race to catch up is now culminating in a tangible dispute for supremacy on the domestic market. And Lidl has recently launched several attacks. First last summer with the "largest simultaneous price reduction in the history of Lidl". At the time, the retailer had promised permanent reductions for a good 500 items, but without specifically naming products and prices, which is why the Hamburg Consumer Advice Centre is currently suing the industry giant for allegedly misleading advertising. Aldi followed suit with a total of 1000 reduced products and without providing any points of attack for consumer advocates.


Since then, the debate has shifted to the level of individual products. Coffee is an example of this, but above all dairy products. Partly on a weekly basis, there were price reductions initiated by Lidl and sometimes by Aldi for cheese, cream, yoghurt and above all for butter. The classic 250-gram cube of the respective own brand currently costs 99 cents. This means that the price has more than halved within a year.


And now the next category in the discounter battle follows: chocolate. Aldi made the start. Shortly before Christmas, there were the first price reductions for some own-brand products, especially chocolate bars – the competition followed suit in each case. To coincide with the start of the International Confectionery Fair (ISM) in Cologne, the next step will follow in the next few days. This time, Aldi is reducing a total of 30 items of its own brands Choceur and Moser Roth, at least by ten, in some cases by up to 50 cents per bar or pack.


Lidl counters and also lowers chocolate prices

Lidl's response followed immediately: The discounter from Baden-Württemberg even undercut the price reductions for a good dozen products, such as chocolate lentils or whole milk bars with almonds or salted cashews from its own brands Fin Carré, Mister Choc and J.D. Gross. "The price leader is now reducing a large part of its own chocolate brands," it says confidently in the corresponding announcement. And that prices have now been reduced for the fourth time within eight days. The choice of words is no coincidence, experts say. After all, price leadership today is less a question of calculation than a strategic overall package.


With chocolate, the discounters have now taken on the next so-called basic price item for their dispute. This refers to products that are purchased particularly frequently and for which price changes are thus perceived more strongly by consumers than for other product groups, especially since price knowledge is high in each case. In addition to chocolate, these are also the previously contested butter or coffee, milk, pasta and beer.


Low prices for private labels and discount campaigns for branded goods in these areas are intended to lure customers into the stores, where they usually buy more than just the decoy products. This then fulfils a mixed calculation with particularly cheap products on the one hand, with which hardly any money can be earned, and on the other hand, marginal assortments with particularly high margins.


The attention for the emotional product chocolate, which is an emotional product among consumers, is likely to be particularly high. This is because the popular confectionery has recently become massively more expensive, the classic 100-gram bar, for example, by 70 percent since 2020, according to the Federal Statistical Office. The jumps have been particularly large in the past two years.


The reason for this is the sharp rise in cocoa prices. While the average world market price fluctuated between 2000 and 3000 US dollars per ton for a long time, it averaged over 7000 dollars in 2024 and almost 8000 dollars in 2025. At its peak, around 12,000 dollars per ton were even called for at times, also driven by speculators.


Retailers and manufacturers have felt the effects directly at the checkout. In any case, 2025 was a bad year for suppliers of chocolate products in this country. Sales in what is by far the largest confectionery segment have slumped by seven percent, reports the Federal Association of the German Confectionery Industry (BDSI).


The fact that sales have risen significantly at the same time, specifically by over twelve percent, does not help the industry at all, complains not only the BDSI. "Sales are not the same as profits," explains Andreas Ronken, the managing director of Ritter Sport, for example, with reference to his own balance sheet. At 712 million euros, the company reports almost 18 percent higher sales for 2025, the bottom line is lower sales figures, but above all losses. "The massive cost increases along the entire value chain could not be compensated for by the sales growth," explains Ronken. In recent years, in addition to cocoa, the prices for energy, logistics and packaging have also risen significantly. And despite increased selling prices, it was not possible to pass this on to the trade in full.


The fact that the discounters are now dueling over chocolate and noticeably lowering prices - at least for private labels - is likely to register Ronken as well as the rest of the industry with concern. After all, consumers now expect similar developments in branded goods, says Ulrich Zuenelli, Chairman of the Supervisory Board of the confectionery trade association Sweets Global Network. For him, the Aldi-Lidl duel is no surprise. "It is clear and well known that competition in Germany is based on price. So the discounters work on their image wherever possible." Losses are sometimes accepted for this. "Although the market could even give up the price reductions for chocolate at the moment."


Zuenelli is alluding to the current price slide for cocoa: While just under 9800 dollars were due at the beginning of 2025, it was still around 6000 dollars at the turn of the year 2026. And currently, the price has even been reduced to 4200 dollars – even if that is still a high level compared to the time before the record highs. "The question is, when did Aldi and Lidl buy cocoa for their own chocolate plants and when did they conclude contracts with additional suppliers," says expert Zuenelli.


In fact, many providers are likely to process expensively purchased stocks at present – and some will continue to do so in the coming weeks and months. Lambertz too. The world market leader for so-called autumn and Christmas biscuits such as gingerbread, Printen, dominoes and Co. stocked up months ago in order to be reliably supplied with raw materials, as owner Hermann Bühlbecker reports.


"We have signed contracts for the months of May, June and July, when we start producing seasonal items. Because we can't afford to speculate and then suddenly not be sufficiently supplied." Lambertz has to pay the cocoa price at the time of signing the contract, not the price at the time of delivery.


Bühlbecker therefore expects difficult negotiations with the retail chains, with whom his management team is already talking in the coming weeks about delivery in the next Christmas business. He sees his products, as well as the articles of other manufacturers of chocolate products, degraded to the "plaything of competitive wrangling".


In order to save costs, Lambertz is now also thinking about relocations, as Bühlbecker reports. In particular, products without a geographically protected indication of origin, such as those available for Aachener Printen, Nürnberger Lebkuchen and Dresdner Stollen, could be produced in Poland in the future, where Lambertz already operates two plants. These would be, for example, biscuit mixes or confectionery. "It is becoming increasingly difficult for family businesses to invest in Germany."



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