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 Logo of Schwarz Group with various retailer brands | |
Native name | Schwarz-Gruppe |
|---|---|
| Company type | Private |
| Industry | Retail |
| Founded | 1930; 95 years ago (1930) |
| Founder | Josef Schwarz |
| Headquarters | Neckarsulm, Germany |
Area served | Europe and U.S. |
| Brands | Lidl Kaufland |
| Revenue | €175.4 billion (FY 2024) |
| Owner | Dieter Schwarz |
Number of employees | 595,000 (FY 2024) |
| Website | gruppe |
TheSchwarz Group (German:Schwarz Gruppe) is a German multinationalretailer that operates stores under theLidl andKaufland brands. With revenues of €175.4 billion in fiscal year 2024,[1] Schwarz Group is the largest European retailer[2] and the fourth-largest retailer in the world by revenue.[3] The Schwarz Group's stores sell mostlyprivate label brands, and the family-owned group also operates its own production facilities for baked goods,soft drinks andice cream.
The business was founded in 1930 by Josef Schwarz (1903–1977), father ofDieter Schwarz.[4] It is headquartered inNeckarsulm,Baden-Württemberg, Germany. The Schwarz Group is an international trading company with 595,000 employees and operates over 14,200 stores (in 2024) across 32 countries. It is made up of three retail divisions, LD Stiftung and Lidl Stiftung & Co. KG (which trade stores under theLidl brand) andKaufland.
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.[5] With the Dieter Schwarz Foundation, the company supports education, primarily in Dieter Schwarz's hometown ofHeilbronn.[6]
The operational business of Schwarz Group is spread over five groups of companies.[7][8]
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.
LD Stiftung andLidl Stiftung & Co. KG are two food retail companies which together operate around 12,000 retail outlets worldwide under the Lidl brand. LD Stiftung operates the stores in Germany and Lidl Stiftung & Co. KG operates the stores everywhere else where Lidl stores are in. 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 Stiftung & Co. KG is a food retailer with operating approximately 1,600 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 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 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 theSuez Environment waste disposal and recycling operations in The Netherlands, Luxembourg, Germany, and Poland.[9]
In 2021, Schwarz acquired Israeli cyber security companyXM Cyber. In 2023, Schwarz established theSchwarz 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 inAleph Alpha, a German AI startup.[10][11]
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