New drive to deal with hygiene poverty

Products bearing the ‘Good to Give mark can be donated at the company’s in-store collection points. (Google)

The move is an expansions of the company’s ‘Good to Give’ trustmark to include hygiene products, which is available in stores in Angus and nationwide.

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 and will be collected by charity volunteers who already pick up food donations weekly.

The retailer originally launched the scheme in partnership with Neighbourly last year to help diversify and increase food bank donations. This new move follows research revealing that demand for toiletries is now soaring alongside food, with 72% of local charities reporting both of these categories as being vital to support communities through the cost of living crisis.

In fact, 81% of teachers have said that there are children in their school who don’t have regular access to toothpaste, while it has been reported that 1 in 2 children isolate themselves because of oral hygiene issues.

Since introducing the Good to Give trustmark last June, Lidl has seen in-store customer food donations for local charities increase by an estimated 25% – the equivalent to over 250,000 additional meals between June and December. This support from customers contributed to the donation of more than six million meals last year.

Lidl is also providing £50,000 of grants for local organisations working to tackle hygiene poverty in their communities.

Mark Newbold, senior CSR manager, said: “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 reality for over 3.2 million adults, 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.”