The Food Collection in Austria took place from 10 to 22 of August 2020. It was organized by Wiener Tafel in LIDL stores without any volunteers. Clients could buy voucher cards at the cash desk and LIDL doubled the amount for the benefit of Wiener Tafel.
Wiener Tafel started organizing Food Collections two years ago in 15 LIDL stores in the Vienna region and then they expanded with 200 stores in the entire country.
They used to have elderly and school-age children as volunteers and, therefore, due to the COVID-19 situation, they had to reconsider their organization. Consequently, they contacted LIDL to build together a digital Food Collection. The digital Food Collections with cards were already organized last year by Food Banks in Germany (Tafel Deutschland) and Switzerland (Swiss Food Bank) in cooperation with LIDL.
Customers in the supermarkets could choose between a variety of 7-8 products ranging from 30 cents to 2 euros (at retailer prices).
LIDL decided to double the number of donated products and organized the transportation to the warehouse of Wiener Tafel. One week after the collection, the food was delivered to the warehouse in Vienna and then transferred to the local Food Banks in the country.
LIDL managed the promotion and Wiener Tafel enforced it through their social media channels. 250 stores were involved for a total of more than 60.000 food and hygiene products collected (worth over 50.000 €).
The feedback both from LIDL and from Wiener Tafel was extremely positive.
Wiener Tafel would like to continue the path on these digital Food Collections – as long as the pandemic crises continues without volunteers. When the pandemic is over, engaging one volunteer at the entrance of each supermarket could be a further development of this food collection to involve even more consumers.
