Lidl, Cora and Rewe quit leaflets: is it a dying breed?

The leaflet is the only animal we should allow to get extinct, is the remarkable message French hypermarket chain Cora has for its customers. With paper costs rising rapidly, more and more supermarkets are discontinuing their paper leaflets. See also: Rewe in Germany and Lidl in the Netherlands.

More customers without leaflets

Cora will post its last leaflet on 10 January, and as such is the first chain brave enough to stop paper leaflets completely. In fact, a year-long test in seven hypermarkets showed that it can do just fine without them. Even more: by switching to new communication media, the chain reaches more and new customers.

It has to be said, Cora is switching mainly for very pragmatic reasons. The price of paper pulp has been rising since 2020, while fewer and fewer people accept leaflets in their letterbox. As such, leaflets are becoming both more expensive and less effective, general manager Ludovic Chatelais told Olivier Dauvers.

Sustainability considerations obviously add to this: Cora prints more than 15,000 tonnes of paper a year, which will decrease by 99 % without leaflet printing. However, the hypermarket formula is still considering themed printing, such as for wine fairs or Christmas toys, but these will not be delivered door-to-door.

Franchisees resist

The same reasoning is used at German supermarket chain Rewe, which announced last summer that it would stop its weekly leaflets, mainly in response to the energy crisis. On 1 July 2023, it will be over and done with paper leaflets – or that was the idea.

However, the news was met with criticism from franchisees. Since they own more than half of all shops, Rewe had to take a more nuanced approach: independent operators will be allowed to choose whether they want a leaflet. Subsidiary chains Netto and Billa are also continuing paper printing as usual.

Lidl, in turn, is conducting a pilot project in the Netherlands: in the province of Utrecht, leaflets will no longer be distributed from next month, Distrifood reports. However, whether here too the leaflet really is the “only species allowed to get extinct”, to use Cora’s words, remains to be seen.