The Schwarz Group () is a German multinational

retail Retail is the sale of goods and services to consumers, in contrast to wholesaling, which is the sale to business or institutional customers. A retailer purchases goods in large quantities from manufacturers, directly or through a wholes ...

er that operates stores under the

Lidl Lidl ( ) is a trademark, used by two Germany, German international discount supermarket, discount retailer chain store, chains that operates over 12,600 stores. The ''LD Stiftung'' operates the stores in Germany and the ''Lidl Stiftung & Co. K ...

and

Kaufland Kaufland () is a German hypermarket chain, part of the Schwarz Gruppe which also owns Lidl. The hypermarket directly translates to English as "buy-land." It opened its first store in 1984 in Neckarsulm and quickly expanded to become a major ch ...

brands. With revenues of €167.2 billion in fiscal year 2023, Schwarz Group is the largest European retailer and the fourth-largest retailer in the world by revenue. The Schwarz Group's stores sell mostly

private label A private label, also called a private brand or private-label brand, is a brand owned by a company, offered by that company alongside and competing with brands from other businesses. A private-label brand is almost always offered exclusively by th ...

brands, and the family-owned group also operates its own production facilities for baked goods,

soft drink A soft drink (see #Terminology, § Terminology for other names) is a class of non-alcoholic drink, usually (but not necessarily) Carbonated water, carbonated, and typically including added Sweetness, sweetener. Flavors used to be Natural flav ...

s and

ice cream Ice cream is a frozen dessert typically made from milk or cream that has been flavoured with a sweetener, either sugar or an alternative, and a spice, such as Chocolate, cocoa or vanilla, or with fruit, such as strawberries or peaches. Food ...

History

The business was founded in 1930 by Josef Schwarz (1903–1977), father of Dieter Schwarz. It is headquartered in

Neckarsulm Neckarsulm () is a city in northern Baden-Württemberg, Germany, near Heilbronn, and part of the district of Heilbronn. , Neckarsulm had 26,800 inhabitants. The name Neckarsulm derives from the city's location where the Neckar and Sulm rivers ...

Baden-Württemberg Baden-Württemberg ( ; ), commonly shortened to BW or BaWü, is a states of Germany, German state () in Southwest Germany, east of the Rhine, which forms the southern part of Germany's western border with France. With more than 11.07 million i ...

, Germany. The Schwarz Group is an international trading company with 575,000 employees and operates over 13,900 stores (in 2021) across 33 countries. It is made up of the two retail divisions,

and

. In addition to the retail business, the Schwarz Group also owns brands in the beverage, baked goods, sweets and ice cream sectors. The Schwarz Group has been involved in the collection, sorting and recycling of recyclable materials for many years. With the Dieter Schwarz Foundation, the company supports education, primarily in Dieter Schwarz's hometown of

Heilbronn Heilbronn () is a List of cities and towns in Germany, city in northern Baden-Württemberg, Germany, surrounded by Heilbronn (district), Heilbronn District. From the late Middle Ages on, it developed into an important trading centre. At the begi ...

Operating structure

The operational business of Schwarz Group is spread over five groups of companies. This structure, often referred to as a conglomerate, is not a corporation under commercial law. As such, no consolidated balance sheet is produced. It has an intricate and complex investment structure. A conglomerate, as used colloquially, requires main companies which operate in a diverse range of sectors and are not in competition with each other. This is not the case of the Schwarz Group's main companies, Lidl and Kaufland, which are rival food retailers.

Lidl

Lidl Stiftung & Co. KG (Lidl stores in Europe and the US) and LD-Stiftung (Lidl stores in Germany) are two food retail companies which together operate around 12,000 Lidl retail outlets worldwide. Regional warehouse operations and the sizeable real estate business are managed by regional and national branches of the companies respectively. Tailwind Shipping Lines, a container shipping provider, is a subsidiary of the business.

Kaufland

Kaufland Stiftung & Co. KG is a food retailer with operating approximately 1,450 branches. The regional warehouses and real estate business fall under the regional and national companies while the five meat processing plants are operated as separate subsidiaries.

Schwarz-Produktion

Schwarz Produktion Stiftung & Co. KG is a food production company specialising in the manufacture of private-label products for the Lidl and Kaufland supermarket chains. They also produce a limited quantity of goods for third parties. Their operations include the reuse, recycling and production of new plastic beverage bottles.

PreZero

Prezero Stiftung & Co. KG is a global environmental service provider specializing in waste management and recycling, with a strong presence across Europe and the United States through its extensive network of 430 locations. While primarily serving the waste disposal needs of entities within the Schwarz Group, such as Lidl and Kaufland, Prezero also engages with external clients, offering tailored waste management solutions to a diverse range of third-party businesses. In 2021 Prezero acquired the Suez Environment waste disposal and recycling operations in The Netherlands, Luxembourg, Germany, and Poland.

Schwarz Digits

In 2021, Schwarz acquired Israeli cyber security company XM Cyber. In 2023, Schwarz established the Schwarz Digits division, offering cloud computing services, operating under the STACKIT brand. The cloud service was born out of internal needs of the retail business, but was opened up to external customers following sharp growth and a market demand for non-US cloud services. Schwarz also holds a minority stake in Aleph Alpha, a German AI startup.

References

Privately held companies of Germany Retail companies of Germany Companies based in Baden-Württemberg Companies based in Neckarsulm Family-owned companies of Germany German companies established in 1930 Retail companies established in 1930 {{Germany-company-stub