Original subtitles

ELIZABETH CARLING: With an extra 1.5 million new customers

flocking through their doors last year,

Lidl is now one of the UK's biggest supermarkets.

Lidl are taking share from the traditional supermarkets.

They're basically hoovering it all up.

In this programme,

we go behind the scenes to spend 24 hours with Lidl...

The logistics for Lidl in the UK is breath-taking.

..and discover the companies that supply them.

So, every one of these eggs now is picked off,

and it's fed down a machine at 180,000 eggs per hour.

We shed light on the tricks of the trade...

Top tip - go early in the morning.

All the shelves are full, everything's fresh.

..reveal how they aim to keep food bills low.

That looks like the product I like, but it's cheaper.

We'll give bargain hunters new tips...

So, if you're able to shop late on a Wednesday evening,

you might get first dibs on this week's great offers.

Best time of day to go is around four to five o'clock.

They normally have, like, one crate with all the markdowns.

..and discover the secrets of the imitation game.

They use the same colours, the same fonts, but cheaper.

Plus, we'll explain how to get the best

out of the middle-aisle offerings.

It's an affordable Christmas present, birthday present...

Or to treat yourself. Definitely.

So, how do they keep customers flooding in

and beat many of the more traditional supermarkets

at their game...

Lidl has every base covered.

They're offering good-quality products but at lower prices.

That's a threat to supermarkets that are offering premium products.

We're a savvy consumer, we're a smart consumer,

and we're not looking back.

..as we lift the lid on Lidl.

It's Thursday at 5am, and the first shift has just begun

at one of over 950 Lidl stores in the UK.

Deliveries of fresh food have been arriving throughout the night.

At the Thomases' family farm in Mid Wales,

the hens start laying their eggs.

There's roughly 32...

Well, just under 32,000 birds in the shed now,

and we're probably getting around

between 28,000 to 29,000 eggs a day.

Dylan's task is to get his free-range eggs

from the laying barn to Lidl's shelves as quickly as possible.

The birds go in each morning, lay their eggs,

and then the eggs go onto a conveyor,

and then they go through and round into the packing room next door,

where they're packed and stamped.

The logistics for Lidl in the UK is breath-taking,

and the scale of it is something that shoppers don't really see.

That's what allows them to have the prices so cheap,

but they don't compromise on the quality.

Freshness is a huge concept for Lidl,

and that's how they differentiate themselves from competitors.

And the fresh delivery comes in every single day.

Most of Dylan's eggs are collected

within two days of the eggs being laid

by lorries from Griffiths Farms processing plant.

Well, this egg here was laid on the 29th.

It's today the 30th.

This will be in a distribution depot tomorrow morning.

To make that possible requires high-tech robotics.

So, every one of these eggs now is picked off,

and it's fed down a machine at 180,000 eggs per hour.

The loading robot is relentless.

This has worked for us ten years.

It doesn't know a bank holiday, it doesn't know a Christmas Day.

The chickens lay an egg every day,

and we have to work every day as key workers.

Ten years ago, we supplied three types of egg to Lidl.

We can now be over 24 different choices for the customer.

That is size, that is profile, and every one meets a different budget.

7.25am in store.

All the fresh goods, including Dylan's eggs,

are stacked on shelves.

All the aisles have been cleared of any surplus packaging,

and they're ready for the influx of customers.

Everything should be done by 7:30.

Getting everything ready, customer-facing by eight o'clock.

As the shop gets ready to open,

its stacked shelves look very different

to some of the more traditional supermarkets.

Here, they're filled with a variety of lesser-known names.

90% of their products are own-labelled brands.

Whether you're buying potatoes or crisps or broccoli,

everything has its own distinctive own brand,

and it makes it all seem a bit more premium

and a bit more interesting than if it was all just branded "Lidl".

So while the names may differ, most are really Lidl in disguise.

And that makes good sense for a supermarket

that prides itself on low prices.

They keep their costs low through their private-label strategy.

Because they are able to control the production of them,

they control what they look like,

and they can control the price of them.

They focus on price, price, price.

8am.

It's opening time across the supermarket giant's

many stores throughout the UK.

From Orkney in the north to Penzance in the south,

and as the customers begin to pour through the doors,

they're greeted by Lidl's own-brand named products,

many with strangely familiar-looking packaging.

Lidl really capitalise on the consumer psyche

when they use similar branding to a market leader.

You feel a massive sense of reassurance, and you think,

"Ooh, that looks like the product I like, but it's lots cheaper."

From Cheese Curls for Quavers,

Freeway Cola for Coke,

and Cien for TRESemme, the colours, shapes, and even fonts

create a big-brand style appearance for shoppers.

They can get away with it because they can use those market leaders

as inspiration rather than imitation.

But every so often, it will come up with a design

that does incur the wrath of the big brand.

Generally, if that happens, Lidl ends up in court.

In 2021, the company lost a Scottish case

over an own-brand gin looking too similar to Hendrick's Gin.

And, in 2022, a Swiss court ruled that its gold foil chocolate bunnies

looked too much like Lindt's.

And while the discounter walks this fine line

as it bids to grow its business, there could be more cases to come.

Retail is cut-throat.

You know, market share is very precious to a retailer.

Very precious.

So, it'll be interesting to watch this space.

Coming up...

We put own brands on trial to discover if they taste as good...

There ain't much flavour to that.

Not much flavour? No.

..and we reveal the secret to the supermarket's super-speedy checkout.

We had targets. We had to scan 30 items per minute.

We're spending 24 hours in Lidl

to understand how this supermarket really works.

8:30, and the clued-up early-bird shoppers

are already filling their baskets.

Top tip - go early in the morning.

Get there at eight o'clock, between eight and nine.

All the shelves are full, everything's fresh,

everything's been rotated.

And the supermarket's own brands are finding new customers.

During every cost-of-living crisis, every downturn,

people are more prepared to try those own brands.

Through their private-label strategy,

they offer really good products,

really good-quality products, at lower prices.

It sounds too good to be true.

So, just how good are they?

It's a hot summer's day, and by 9.30am,

the ice-cream end of the freezer section

has already taken a hammering.

Lidl's own-brand Bon Gelati ice-cream cone is proving popular,

but just how tasty is it?

And how does it compare to more expensive brands?

Briony May Williams loves ice cream

almost as much as she loves a bargain.

So, she heads to the prom at Blackpool

to conduct a very cool taste test.

For me, there's nothing better than an ice cream on a sunny day,

but the price of the classic cone can vary in different supermarkets.

I know you can pick up a bit of a bargain

on some lookalike own-brand treats.

Do they really taste as good?

Along with the classic Cornetto, I've got three own brands,

and I wanna see which one of them has got it licked.

Lidl's Bon Gelati ice-cream cone is in red foil,

and, at 24p, is the cheapest offering.

The most expensive, the Cornetto, is in blue.

Tesco's own brand is in plain silver,

and Morrisons' is silver but with a red lid.

The flavours of all the ice creams are the same, they're strawberry,

but this is going to be a blind taste test,

so the participants won't know which brand they're sampling.

Time to get the scoop on which one's the best.

We're handing out free ice creams!

You try it, and then let me know what you think.

Ooh, that looks all right, doesn't it?

The lure of luscious strawberry ice creams on the iconic prom

proves an instant hit.

You unwrap that one. Have a taste, let me know what you think.

The first test is if you can open it!

BRIONY LAUGHS

Mmm! Did you like it?

First up, cheapest of the bunch, Lidl in the red foil.

Sweet. Very sweet? Yeah.

Good strawberry flavour? Aye.

Yeah, that's quite nice.

That is very soft.

Too soft? Too soft for me.

Is it nice? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Do you like the flavour? Yeah, very, very nice.

Next, the most expensive at 33p, the Wall's Cornetto.

This one's nice. It's got the white chocolate on top.

You like the white chocolate?

I'm not that keen on white chocolate.

Oh, aren't you?

No, that's put me off a bit. OK.

There isn't much flavour to that.

Not much flavour? No.

Next up is Tesco, at 30p a cone.

Go on, Alan, get in there!

It's the Tesco one you like the best. So there you go.

Sorted. Aye, we need to go to Tesco's now.

BRIONY LAUGHS

Lastly, Morrisons, and it proved to be particularly crunchy.

CONE CRUNCHES

That's a bit icy as you bite into it.

Tough decisions have to be made.

I don't know.

As the test progresses,

it's the candidate in red foil that gets the top vote,

putting lowest-priced Lidl firmly at the head of the ice-cream cabinet.

This one. Still that one? This one's better.

Interestingly, the one that you chose as top,

that was in red, was from Lidl.

Looks like Karen must like it.

So, the one that you actually like the most was the cheapest.

Cheapest, yeah. Yeah.

Not a surprise, then,

that the people of Blackpool loved their ice creams,

and the one that came out on top was...

Lidl, with just shy of 75% of people choosing it as their favourites.

With our group of punters,

it's Lidl that shines as the jewel of the gelatos.

So, that just goes to show that the supermarket ice creams

can really hold their own against the market leader.

Twelve o'clock, and the store is gearing up

for a daily supermarket sweep.

From 12 o'clock into the, like, the middle of the day,

you'd have your lunchtime rush.

And that can mean all hands to the tills.

Everyone is till-trained,

no matter how low or high your status is in the store -

whether you're a manager or a customer assistant.

Checkouts are a potential pinch point for customers,

and causing delay is not the Lidl way.

Everything in a Lidl store is about efficiency, efficiency, efficiency.

They want to get as many people in the door and out of the door

as quickly as possible.

Once you come to pay, they want rid of you.

The supermarket hates a logjam,

and staff act fast at the first sign of a hold-up.

As soon as a trolley was appearing behind another trolley,

that means you've got one plus one,

which means that there's a queue forming,

so you have to call a second till person on.

But the discounter also has a cunning trick to keep things moving.

What they don't want is what's called mis-scanning.

Every tiny gain they can make is significant,

so mis-scanning takes time, costs money.

Their solution is unmistakable.

If you notice the bar codes on their products,

they're huge bar codes, which take up all of the packaging.

So they can get it scanned quickly, first time.

It needs to be right every time.

A key part of their strategy

is to get us through the tills as quickly as possible.

We had to scan 30 items, like, per minute.

The idea is to save time on everything.

These bar codes allow them to do that.

The roots of the supermarket's legendary efficiency

stretch back to 1930s Germany, where it began life as a wholesaler.

It didn't open as a supermarket until 1973,

but from then on, there was no stopping them.

In terms of its global footprint, Lidl is huge, it's everywhere.

It wasn't until 1994 that Lidl launched in Great Britain,

but they had a bumpy landing.

When Lidl first opened in the UK in 1994, its stores were...

a bit of a culture shock, frankly.

Their products still had German writing on them,

and they were a bit of a joke.

People were embarrassed to be seen in them.

The supermarket's thrifty no-frills efficiency worked well in Germany,

but British shoppers expected closer to what they were used to.

Added to which, the fact people saw them

as a German business was a huge hurdle to overcome.

To survive in Britain,

they realised they had to make changes.

They had to buy British.

It's been really interesting to see in recent years

is how Lidl is trumpeting its Britishness.

The consumer want products that are made by farms in the UK,

sourced from the agricultural heritage that we've got in the UK.

And what better symbol to use than a Union Jack

that brings everybody together?

They're in Britain, for Britain.

You'll see the red, white, and blue on products all over the shelves.

They offer over 1,800 British-made products,

and they focus on those things that are important from farmers

like dairy products, milk, cheese and eggs.

And that's really important for some customers

that want to support those farmers.

It gives them this good feeling to wanna shop with Lidl.

It's a reason to shop with them, for sure.

They now have over 650 British suppliers

and plans to invest 17 billion in British food and farming by 2025.

Although it's a German store,

it's actually one of the biggest investors in UK suppliers.

12:20pm.

Amongst the early sandwich-grabbers and lunch-break raiders

are customers on a more complex mission -

the weekly family shop.

When you're stocking up on a week's worth of provisions,

the dedicated Lidl shoppers' best friend is their loyalty app.

Loyalty cards are incredible in getting consumers to stay

because what you're doing is rewarding them

for purchases they would have made anyway.

But the supermarket is a very late adopter.

Tesco launched their Clubcard loyalty scheme in 1995.

It took another 25 years before Lidl got in on the act,

and typically, it took a different approach.

In 2020, Lidl launched its own loyalty scheme called Lidl Plus.

It takes the form of an app rather than a card,

so you don't have a bit of plastic to have to carry around.

The supermarket's rewards app varies from month to month,

but they tend to offer either a coupon, freebies,

money-off vouchers or a scratch card,

depending on how much you've spent in-store.

They don't use a points system, as many other retailers do.

Us Brits, we love free items,

so being able to get that free item with your big shop

is such a huge win.

It's not about racking up all those points that you never spend.

It's trying to reward customers

in a way that is meaningful and immediate,

rather than having people building up a points balance

that doesn't really mean anything to them.

The Lidl phone app also gives you discounts

on the middle of Lidl items.

Basically, if you go into Lidl, you get a good price anyway,

and the idea of Lidl Plus is that it's like the icing on the cake.

It's a cake the supermarket has been taking a larger slice of

year after year.

Their market share has grown so much

that larger supermarkets are lowering their prices to compete.

Super shopper Hannah Edia is dedicated to sniffing out a bargain,

both online and in-store,

and she's about to put Lidl's low-price reputation

to the test in her own personal shop-off

with market leader Tesco.

So, I'm gonna be comparing prices between Lidl and Tesco.

Let's see which one is cheaper.

You know, let's lay the argument down once and for all, but first,

I'm gonna have my lunch because you should never go shopping hungry.

With her stomach suitably full, Hannah heads to her local store

and picks out a selection of items that make it into her weekly shop.

From fruit and veg...

So, nice big two of these.

..to canned goods and processed foods.

And ranging from own brands...

to big brands and household names.

Just look at all this soft white bread.

I like buying the thick one.

It's been a standard family weekly shop at Lidl for busy mother Hannah,

with three bags full to show for it, including cucumbers, cheese singles,

bread, eggs, and sweet potatoes so what's the verdict?

I thought I bought the entire store, but I ended up spending £87.58,

which I think it's a really good bargain.

But are Hannah's instincts matched by the facts?

Back at her apartment,

she gets online for a price comparison contest.

Now it's time to see how Tesco compares with Lidl. Let's see.

Lidl and Tesco, I think we'll find a lot of things surprising.

I am really looking forward to this one.

So, we start off with cucumber.

In my weekly shop, cucumber cost 79p.

And at Tesco, it also cost 79p.

So it's even-stevens on the cucumber.

So, let's check out cheese singles.

At Lidl, it was 99p.

Over here at Tesco, it is 83p,

so Tesco's actually in the lead here.

So, how do they compare on some better-known brands?

So, let's check out the price for Hovis Soft White bread.

That is £1.40 at Lidl,

and it's the same price, actually, at Tesco.

It is £1.40.

This is not very surprising because it's a named brand,

and I expect that it's gonna be the same price.

No signs of massive savings so far.

Time to turn her attention to some grocery staples like eggs,

own brand versus own brand.

I bought six free range large eggs at Lidl for £1.65.

However, Tesco, it is £1.75.

Has a 10p difference.

As Hannah works down the list and the groceries pile up,

so does the price difference...

in Lidl's favour.

At Lidl, sweet potatoes is 99p.

However, at Tesco, it £1.09.

So far, we've checked about... many items, and Lidl is in the lead.

In like-for-like comparisons, Lidl did score better overall,

but there was no shortage of surprises.

I was thinking initially that Tesco was gonna really struggle

when it comes to comparing with Lidl, but not so much.

Yes, Lidl is still cheaper than Tesco, but not by a long shot.

The takeaway tip from this shopping trip -

focus on Lidl's own brands to catch a bargain,

but don't automatically presume that their prices will always be cheaper.

Coming up...

How a clever convenience could our increase spending...

You can't feel the weight, and it works magically.

..and top tips for nabbing a bargain.

They need to be there as soon as the doors open to get the best offers.

We're lifting the lid on Lidl,

spending 24 hours with the price-cutting store.

It's risen from humble beginnings

to become the UK's sixth-largest supermarket,

and it has big plans to rise even further.

Lidl are taking share from the traditional supermarkets.

They're basically hoovering it all up.

They are fighting to keep that market share

and to continue their growth.

But that depends on them making sure that we spend more.

12:45pm, and staff at the entrance have topped up the baskets

for lunch-break shoppers.

And the only baskets in this store are very big and on wheels.

Guess why.

Have you ever been in a supermarket where you're carrying a basket round

and that basket's getting too heavy?

The first thing it does, it stops you shopping.

The idea of the wheelie basket is basically so that they don't feel

so weighed down when they are walking around with a basket.

So, essentially, when you go to the till,

suddenly it all builds up, and you spend a lot more.

It makes you buy more things cos you're not feeling the weight of it.

These lunchtime shoppers,

thinking about what to have for dinner that night,

will find another shopper trap waiting for them,

in the way the store is laid out.

Every Lidl store is the exact same layout,

and it's laid out on purpose.

Many shoppers go in search of fresh meat and fish

as their main meal ingredient,

so the supermarket puts them as far away as possible.

Putting the fresh meats and fresh food in general

at the back of the store means you walk around the store more,

and as a result, you're gonna buy more

because you're seeing more of their product on display.

But one fresh food offering is always right inside the door...

and it's a firm favourite.

Oh, my God, the bakery's insane.

I had, like, a pastel de nata.

Apple turnovers, the custard tarts,

and I absolutely love a Lidl sourdough loaf.

And, of course, there's a reason the stores place their oven-fresh bakery

just by the entrance.

That smell of bread when you walk through the door,

the warm smell, sugar, it gets a consumer enticed,

but it creates an atmosphere for the consumer to buy

because it makes you feel a little bit more hungry.

You're gonna have to pick up a croissant

that you never planned on buying.

And the effect lingers, which means a bigger basket.

It's 1pm on a Thursday -

the peak time for drawing the shoppers' attention

towards the latest deals.

Promotions start from Thursday

and end the Wednesday the following week,

so you get a lot of branded products,

promotions based on what food or what country

is being celebrated in that week.

Those things tend to be on rotation, but they do fizzle out.

And, genuinely, when it's gone, it is gone.

So it's named really well, I guess, in that respect.

It's important for Lidl to be able to keep showing them new things

so that every time they come into a store,

they see something new.

And the need for speed and efficiency comes first yet again,

but Lidl will look to save money wherever it can,

and that means saving its employees time.

What they have in Lidl is what's called SRP, shelf-ready packaging,

and you'll see that it's boxes,

they rip the lids off, they go straight on the shelves.

And even here, the supermarket naturally adds a twist.

On their shelves, they place the price above the item,

not directly below where it sits.

They have a policy called "eye level is buy level",

so the idea is that you look at the product,

and then you look above and see how much it costs.

If you went into traditional supermarket stores,

where do you automatically look? You look beneath it for the price.

You wouldn't look above it, so, automatically,

when you look underneath it,

that's the price that you think it's gonna be.

So, buyer beware.

A casual first-time shopper

may believe they're getting a bargain price

because they're looking in the wrong place.

But there's one legendary area of the Lidl store

where everyone's attention soon becomes sharply focused.

I go there for the middle aisle, to be honest.

Yeah, I do like the mystery aisle. I get a bit caught up in it.

You go, and you're like, "Oh, I like that."

2pm, and on Thursdays, this is a key moment in the store's schedule.

It's the time and day when the middle aisle,

the supermarket's Aladdin's cave of merchandise,

has its major restock, and it's an eclectic mix.

Trampolines, pianos,

"Yahama" keyboards, guitars, you name it.

I went in to my local Lidl recently,

and you could get everything from solar Buddhas to paddle boards.

It's a really, really fun way to shop.

It also offers amazing prices.

Customers can escape the drudge of the weekly food shop

and contemplate a colourful world

of lifestyle products, gadgets, and leisurewear

in this oasis of conspicuous consumption.

But behind the apparently random jumble

is a well-thought-out plan.

All of those purchases are calculated strategically

for seasonal demand.

Lidl are very clever when it comes to things like this

because they know what's trendy.

What the customer are likely to be doing,

thinking and feeling at that time.

What do they like? What do they have interest in?

And when will they need the product? It's all strategic.

The real magic of the middle aisle

is that us shoppers can't help acting on impulse.

And I'm thinking, "I really need that.

"No, I don't need it. I want it."

Until I'm convinced that, "No, I actually need it,"

and then when you get home, "I really didn't need it."

It's a really clever strategic way of making their customers

buy something that they don't need.

Cos you didn't expect them. They're unplanned purchases.

You go into Lidl, and you walk out with a trampoline.

And that's why it's in the middle, and the essentials are at the back.

You have to walk past the middle aisles to go and grab your milk.

It's a clever psychological trick.

The middle aisle stops us in our tracks

by offering unexpected and quirky items

that distract us from the boredom of our weekly food shop.

To test out this trick,

we decided to ask comedian Olaf Falafel

to set up his own version of a Lidl middle aisle

in the centre of Luton, to see just how it works.

Can the British public spot a real, yet genuinely bizarre,

Lidl product from one Olaf has simply made up?

Hi there. My name is Olaf Falafel, comedian, and I'm here in Luton,

lovely Luton town, and I'm gonna be asking members of the public

if they know what is in the middle aisle of Lidl.

Olaf has come up with a selection of nine middle-aisle maybes,

but only three are the real deal.

Can Lidl aficionados in Luton pick out the sublime

from the truly ridiculous?

Do you reckon you can tell the difference between my weird stuff

and stuff you can actually buy in the middle aisle?

I can try.

First up, three freaky products for fresh produce.

Two of these, I've made up completely.

One of them, you can genuinely find in Lidl.

In Lidl, I see. Yes.

We have Strawberry Pavilion,

Radish Rotunda,

or Potato Tower. Which do you reckon?

So, which one is the most plausible?

What are you going for, Trevor? The Radish Rotunda.

You're going for the Radish Rotunda.

What do think you do with a Radish Rotunda?

Put your radishes in there...

Give it a little spin, and they come out looking...

Come out looking like radishes that are slightly cleaner.

That have been spun.

Radish Rotunda. Radish Rotunda!

You know what... it's not.

No? It's the Potato Tower. Really?

Potato Tower IS the right answer.

Can they find the genuine article in a gaggle of gadgets?

Here's the next one.

Slingshot Slider, Solar-Powered Seagull,

or Elasticated Monkey Launcher.

I'd go with the... probably the monkey.

The Slingshot Glider.

The Slingshot Glider. Well done. Ding, ding, ding.

Finally, three types of barely believable animal refuge.

We've got a Cat Chateau, Hedgehog Cabin, or Toad Abode.

But which one of them will provide a creature comfort for Lidl shoppers?

Cat chateau, no.

Hedgehog cabin. Ooh.

The Cat Chateau. The Cat Chateau.

Hedgehog Cabin. You're both going for Hedgehog Cabin?

I hate to do this, but it's Toad Abode.

Oh, dear Lord!

Yes, Lidl does provide a home for our amphibious friends.

It may even be multipurpose.

Also makes like a nice little kind of World War I-style helmet,

doesn't it?

If Olaf's test is anything to go by,

it's clear the people of Luton

believe anything's possible in the middle aisle.

And the more bizarre, the more plausible it seems.

Most importantly, it made them look.

It's 3pm, and the middle-aisle displays

are now looking even more chaotic.

Those in the know have already rummaged around

to get the best of the latest bargains.

And for those just arriving, there's an added incentive to buy -

FOMO.

But you've gotta get there fast, cos when it's gone, it's gone.

So, you're in this situation where you're like,

"If I leave it, I won't get it

"because it's not gonna be here when I get back,"

so the fear of missing out is such a punishment for you

that you just stick it into your basket

and off you go and buy this product.

And when you get home, you really didn't need it.

And the retailer relies on these panic buys and impulse purchases.

It's a bit of business they really couldn't live without.

Grocery margins are actually quite tight when it comes to food retail,

so they rely on general merchandise sales to balance the books.

And that gives them an edge over their supermarket rivals.

If you were to shop in Tesco,

you're very likely to stick to your shopping list.

You never get that in Lidl.

3:30pm, and a standout product is catching the eye

on the middle aisle.

Recently, Rita Ora launched a haircare range

in collaboration with the discounter,

and that has been getting them noticed.

Now, adding a A-list celebrity to your product

adds prestige, status and elevates your brand.

It will be in newspapers, in magazines,

and it'll introduce new people into Lidl,

who possibly might not have considered it before.

You're gonna rocket those sales straight through the roof.

A celebrity name may add sales clout, but what about the quality?

Rita Ora's volume hair-drying brush is half the price

of its rival from Revlon, but how do they match up in action?

We approached a busy hair salon to help us find out.

So, today, we're gonna try out the two - the Revlon brush,

and we're also going to try out the Rita Ora brush, the hot brushes.

And we're just gonna see how they compare...

and see which one we prefer.

Salon owner Leigh and senior stylist Isobel

and two brave volunteers

put these budget models through their paces.

First, on volume and bounce, starting with the Revlon.

This is the Revlon hot brush... that I'm using here today.

It's creating nice volume.

Using it at home, you'd be able to create a nice bouncy blow-dry...

..feeling like you've had your hair done in the salon

when you've done it at home yourself.

Next up, Rita Ora's.

It's pulling quite a bit, so, you can see,

it's just not giving it the bend.

For me, personally, I don't find I'm getting the lift

and I'm getting the balance and the bend that I need to get.

So, the Revlon seems to offer better bounce,

but can it provide a smooth finish?

It does give a nice bouncy blow and a smooth finish.

Results-wise, definitely getting your money's worth.

Yeah.

To be fair, I'm actually impressed with the result

of when it's on a smooth blow-dry. As you can see...

It is giving it that nice smooth finish.

But, yes, I'm definitely impressed

with the smoothness it's giving to this.

So, the Revlon seems to beat the Rita Ora for bounce,

although the Rita Ora is at least its equal over smoothness,

so what are the final results?

You can tell, the way they've made them,

they are very similar. Yeah.

Very similar in what they do, very similar hold of the brush.

Yeah, shape, size. Shape, size, everything.

It is very, very similar.

The Revlon one gave out a lot more power...

Yeah, it was more... ..and a lot more heat.

So, out of ten, what are you thinking?

Rita, I'd probably give it a seven. I agree.

Then the Revlon one...

Probably an eight-and-a-half. Eight, definitely.

Eight. I'm with you on that one.

So, the more established Revlon brand came out on top in our test,

but at half the price,

would the pros give the Rita Ora hot brush their blessing?

I'd definitely say, yeah, if you're on a budget

and you want that bouncy blow-dry, or even a smooth, sleek finish.

It's an affordable Christmas present, birthday present.

Or to treat yourself. Definitely.

Coming up...

How the discounter is going all-out to get even bigger.

It's like Lidl on steroids.

And peeling back the truth about low-cost juice.

So, you have expensive tastes?

Don't get any ideas cos we'll be sticking with this end.

We're spending 24 hours in Lidl,

to understand how this supermarket really works.

It's 4pm in store,

and shelves are restocked after a busy afternoon.

We have set points in the day

where you do a check and a refill of whatever was left out.

This is just one of more than 900 Lidl stores in the UK.

Over at the last 100 years, Lidl have spread across the globe,

recently opening stores in Eastern Europe and America.

And they have big plans for Britain.

Lidl's game plan is to open as many stores as they possibly can,

whether that's in Scotland or all the way down to the south

or every single place in between,

they need a store for consumers to shop in

because they only trade through stores.

On current plans, they're opening a UK store every fortnight.

It's like Lidl on steroids.

But that's not the only change -

their target locations show Lidl's going up in the world.

In the early days,

people who shopped at Lidl tended to be those on lower incomes.

What they did is they opened up in fairly low-income neighbourhoods.

Not any more. They're now going to the more affluent areas.

The supermarket is working hard at persuading us

that they're less about penny-pinching

and more about being money-smart.

They've very much positioned themselves as...

..appealing to the savvy shopper,

and being savvy is really fashionable.

If you know how to save money, you're way ahead of the game.

And their glossy marketing campaigns

are aimed at those with a little more cash to splash.

The produce, the customers,

and the products that Lidl store have definitely gone more upmarket.

You can buy things from black olive paste

to lemon-flavoured pasta

to chocolate-filled croissants to frozen arancini.

The sort of stuff you'd struggle to find in a massive supermarket.

You get that thing of going into the Lidl car park

and seeing all the Audis and the BMWs.

With their deluxe range of premier produce,

their offer of British-sourced quality fresh goods

and their bigger smarter stores,

the new-look Lidl is now treading on the toes

of some very premium brands.

Particularly during the cost-of-living crisis,

it gives those low-class shoppers a reason to shop with Lidl.

They are really getting into the territories

of M&S and Waitrose, as well as Tesco's and Asda now,

in terms of the locations that they're in

the products they offer.

On their target list for new locations

is the likes of Knightsbridge, Mayfair, and Westminster.

But finding the right site isn't easy.

One of the biggest challenges to Lidl's growth

is not finding locations to put shops into.

And being Lidl, they've come up with an original way

of seeking out sites - by paying us to help.

If people can find somewhere

that they think is a good place for a Lidl,

they can get a finder's fee.

They reward people, just normal people like you and me,

for finding sites for them where a Lidl could go.

4:30pm, and many shoppers are seeking out

the store's orange-sticker reductions.

The best time of day to go is around four to five o'clock.

You'll actually see them being marked,

so you'll be able to get them before they even go back out onto shelves.

Most supermarkets discount stock before it passes the sell-by date,

but again, Lidl is different.

They're not marked down on the day, like other supermarkets,

they're marked down two days before, generally.

The first day, it's 30% reduced.

By the second day, it goes down to 60%.

5:30pm, and suddenly,

it seems more customers are crossing the threshold.

It will pick up again post-school and into the evening.

There is a point in the day where it's so busy

that things start to sell out.

The after-work shoppers are beginning to arrive

to do their weekly shop,

while others pop in to pick up things that were forgotten earlier,

like orange juice.

We drink a billion litres of juice every year,

and OJ is our favourite.

But in its quest to conquer the middle-class consumer,

can Lidl's juice match up

to the likes of Waitrose and market leader Tropicana?

Briony May Williams decided a youth session at a cricket club

would be the perfect place to find out.

She's poured four different pure orange juices into a row of jugs,

and only she knows the brands behind them.

We're gonna try four orange juices, and I need you to rank them,

one to four, which is your favourite.

In the first jug is Waitrose own brand, at 18p per 100ml.

In the second jug is low-cost Lidl's Naturis,

the cheapest offering at 9p per 100ml.

Mid-range Asda is 17p per 100ml.

And the last jug is the top-priced Tropicana, at 36p per 100ml -

four times the price of Lidl.

Each taster will try them all in turn

before delivering their final verdict.

You might expect undiluted pure orange juices

to all taste the same...

but each brand will have processed theirs

in a different way before they reach the shelf.

There are also different orange varieties used for the juices,

each with its own unique flavour.

So there's a bigger range of flavours in orange juice

than you might expect.

And they evoke an equally big range of reactions.

First in to bat is the upmarket own brand from Waitrose.

Tastes like most orange juices I've tasted, yeah.

Not as keen. I'm not as keen. I don't know why.

It's a bit watery.

Disappointing. Yeah.

Next in to bat is Lidl's own brand.

What about you, young man? Just tastes of orange juice, really.

That is an entirely fair point.

Sweet and, yeah, good. Nice?

I can't taste the orange as much. It's not as strong.

This one is your favourite?

Yeah. This one here is from Lidl.

That be why we like it.

Is it? Do you normally buy from Lidl?

Lidl or Aldi, his favourite.

Next is mid-range Asda.

Oh, no, that's the worst.

It's very weak. It's just not very orangey.

So, you said that you normally buy your orange juice from Asda.

Yeah. And this one is from Asda.

The worst one? Yeah.

That's right. We need to stop doing that, then, don't we?

But what will these cricketers and their supporters make

of the brand leader, Tropicana?

At over four times the price of the Lidl version, will it win the test?

Bit of mango in there.

Yeah, I'd say that tasted more orangey.

You actually chose the Tropicana as your favourite.

This one's your favourite, isn't it, young man?

This is actually the Tropicana. Expensive tastes.

So, you have expensive tastes, OK?

Don't get any ideas cos we'll be sticking with this end.

So, with our group of 20 cricketers and their family and friends tested,

what are the results?

Overall, the brand leader has come out on top,

and that is definitely the most popular.

But there's a strong showing from Asda and Lidl,

which were in the middle.

I'd say that's pretty blooming good.

CHEERING

9.40pm.

The evening surge has subsided, and the store is winding down.

There's normally only one or two people on the till

because it's a really quiet period.

The idea is that when the store closes at ten,

everyone's ready to leave at quarter past ten.

There is no night shift at this store.

Delivery drivers unload their goods,

ready for the cycle to begin again at 5am,

running like clockwork.

There's a system for delivery, there's a system for shutdown,

for open, for anything you can imagine,

and everything runs off this system.

The company's systematic approach has served the British shopper well.

60% of us have shopped at Lidl,

and with the planned expansion to 1,100 stores,

its continued growth seems guaranteed.

We're seeing Lidl's pop up everywhere in the UK.

More stores means more customers.

More customers means more money through the till.

As Lidl continues to win over customers across Britain...

Every Lidl helps.