Lidl

Intesa San Paolo and other large North manufacturing companies are starting analogous routes, so you can find them on the internet, local ITS, especially in the sectors of advanced mechanics and energy transition.

But the most documented case, and close to the original German model, is Lidl to your career.

Lidl, supermarkets, to put it that way.

And it works like this, so guys between 18 and 29 years old, hired with a high-level apprenticeship from the first day, a bi-annual course with almost 70% of the training directly in the company, double final title, then ITS diploma and German certification of Retail Specialist or Logistics Specialist.

And the numbers in four years are these, 550 signed contracts, 23,000 applications received, 42 candidates therefore for each position.

The average profile of those who apply says something relevant, that is, average age 24 years, 90% with a diploma, 10% even already in possession of a three-year degree.

They are not boys who did not know what to do, they are boys who deliberately chose a path different from the university one.

Those 23,000 Italian candidates for the 550 positions In Lidl they are very far away, as a proportion from that 1,200,000 for the 8,000 positions at the Chinese nuclear center.

You know, shopping the, you know, we're in Tesco and Sainsbury's, that's it.

You know, we're not in Waitrose and now we're in, in Lidl and Kwik Save.

You know what I mean?

Richie, is there not an element here of entitlement?

[upbeat music] This week on Lunchbox Envy, Brits spend more than a quarter of their money in Tesco.

You can subscribe to Lidl on Spotify to listen to ambient supermarket sounds.

And in Dubai, you can do your weekly shop by boat.

It's time for The Big Shop.

Okay

...

Lidl.

Okay.

Right, OK. Wendover, whereabouts are you, by the way? Because Andy had only got to West Harts College.

I'm just heading to Tring because I've got to go into Lidl and pick a few things up for Mrs.

Wendover.

You don't,

If they send you shopping alone, they're taking the risk as far as I'm concerned.

There he goes.

If you're in Tring in Lidl, you'll see Wendover looking around, looking probably gaunt and worried and trying to wonder how to buy milk or something or other.

Like, you're r- you're stretched really thin.

You'll hear people saying, when going on a night out, they're like, "I'm only having two drinks tonight 'cause, like, I can't afford anything else." People even just, like, their food shop, when people are waiting for payday to come along and things like that, they're saying like, "Oh, I've, literally, I've been living off, like, noodles or pasta for the past week." Um, like, you know, a lot of my friends are like, [laughs] "It's been a long time since my body has seen a vegetable," because when they're in Lidl doing their food shop during the week, they are just literally trying to get, you know, get their money to go as far as they possibly can.

Okay.

Um, I think that feeling of uncertainty that Jane mentioned is probably understandable to most people.

So I answer the phone.

She starts very loudly, "Anna." The arm comes out in the middle of Lidl.

"Have you seen this before?" So I started screenshotting for context because I was so-

I can't believe you screenshotted.

Let's have a look.

[laughs]

In the middle of Lidl, as you can see.

I've just gotta get my glasses on.

Some people pretend there's an extra vowel in there, as there should be.

It's spelled L-I-D-L. Lid-L. That's not a word in this country, but people pretend it is, so they say it's Lidl.

Ah, who gives a fuck how Lidl is pronounced? [laughs] Now Aldi, that's at least somewhat sensible.

Aldi is the other discount German supermarket that's everywhere now.

At least they've somewhat arranged their consonants and vowels in a way to make some sense.

A-L-D-I, so a lot better than L-I-D-L. There's no reason you should have D and L with nothing between them.

That's ridiculous.

That's just doing something in your own language and expecting everyone to just figure it out and make up their own way of doing it.