Supermarket Lidl has expanded its Good to Give trustmark to include hygiene products in an attempt to tackle rising levels of hygiene poverty across Great Britain.
The retailer launched the scheme in partnership with Neighbourly last year to help diversify and increase food bank donations nationwide.
Here’s what you need to know about Lidl’s Good to Give initiative.
How does the Good to Give initiative work?
Available in stores from Monday March 20, shoppers can spot the Good to Give signage on price tickets for 10 essential sanitary and personal care items, including tampons, toothpaste and nappies.
These can be dropped at existing donation points located past the checkouts in all Lidl GB stores and will be collected by charity volunteers who already come to pick up food donations weekly.
Research reveals that demand for toiletries is now soaring alongside food, with 72 per cent of local charities reporting both of these categories as being vital to support communities through the cost of living crisis.
In fact, 81 per cent of teachers have said that there are children in their school who don’t have regular access to toothpaste.
Has the initiative increased the number of donations?
Since introducing the Good to Give trustmark in June 2022, Lidl has seen in-store customer food donations for local charities increase by an estimated 25 per cent – the equivalent to over 250,000 additional meals between June and December 2022. This support from customers contributed to Lidl donating a total of over six million meals last year, including both donations and food surplus.
Lidl is also providing £50,000 of grants for local organisations working to tackle hygiene poverty in their communities.
The funding will help good causes in its Neighbourly network continue to make items like period products, shower gel and toothpaste available to those in need as demand soars.
Mark Newbold, senior CSR manager at Lidl GB, said: “With the cost of living crisis continuing to put pressure on local communities, we want to go beyond our commitment to making good food accessible to everyone by looking at other support we can provide.
“Hygiene poverty is the daily reality for over 3.2 million adults in this country, and our charity partners working day in day out with those in need have told us that the problem is only growing.
“We hope that by providing grants and encouraging our customers to once again donate a little differently, we can get more local charities more of these basic yet vital products.”
