If you want to support Irish this Christmas then head to your nearest Lidl store where there is a selection of some of the finest purveyors of food and drink, all hand-selected by its buying team. Lidl’s local Irish businesses range from butchers to bakers, brewers to Christmas tree growers.
With more than 400 Irish suppliers secured over two decades of relationship building the grocer has good reason to be proud.
Foodies are in agreement. Lidl was the most decorated discounter at Blás na hÉireann 2023. Lidl’s quality-committed suppliers won 47 awards, including 11 golds and 20 silvers.
There were record-breaking results at the Great Taste Awards 2023 too, with the chain winning several dozen one- and two-star awards for Irish-made food and drink products. Lidl also took home the most three-star wins of any Irish retailer.
Credit where credit is due. The success of these awards is down to the brilliant suppliers and producers Lidl works with. Within Lidl’s Deluxe range, which offers gourmands a range of savoury and sweet ready-to cook and ready-to-eat options, 54 of the foods are from Irish suppliers.
Christmas Day classics
Lidl’s Christmas turkeys are sourced from father-and-son team Pat and Séan McCaghey in Co Monaghan. As third-generation poultry producers, they know what they’re at, and apply farm-to-fork expertise to their Bord Bia Quality Assured fresh turkeys which come in sizes to fit every gathering. Lidl’s fresh whole turkeys start from €8.99. If you like something more oven-ready then treat your Christmas table to Lidl’s Blas na hÉireann gold star-winning Irish Bronze turkey crown, which is served with cranberry, apricot and cinnamon stuffing and wrapped in a streaky bacon lattice. Priced at €32.99 it is available in-store from today, Wednesday, December 20th.
Ham is the traditional accompaniment to turkey. Lidl’s hams come from the Crow family and Bretts Oakpark in Co Tipperary; Callan Bacon in Co Kilkenny; Oliver Carty and Family in Co Roscommon and Connolly Meats in Co Monaghan.
One of the stars of this year’s Great Taste Awards is Tipperary’s finest dry-cure cherrywood smoked horseshoe joint, €19.99, from Lidl’s Deluxe range. It is delicious when accompanied by Blas na hÉireann gold-starred cranberry sauce with orange, €1.69.
Alternative luxury meats
Lidl has a whole menu of luxury meats that offer alternatives to tradition too. You could opt for Monaghan’s finest, the Deluxe range easy-carve duck, €19.99, which comes with rosemary, apricot and raisin stuffing. For a bolder change, consider some stellar Irish beef from Ciaran Beirne’s Liffey Meats, in Co Cavan. His Irish Angus beef picked up a pair of coveted three-star Great Taste Awards; one for the Deluxe 40-day matured three-rib roast on the bone, €19.99 per kilo, and one for the 28-day matured rib roast on the bone, €16.99 per kilo.
And if you want to wow pescatarian guests, put your faith in Colman Keohane of Keohane Seafoods in Bantry Bay. The Deluxe choices include Irish mussels in an Irish stout sauce, €2.99, or a whole salmon side with lemon and dill, €11.99.
Start as you mean to continue
You can go full Irish with your Christmas meal, buying all you need from Lidl. Start perhaps with a Deluxe creamy chowder, €3.99, from Andrew Keegan of Co Galway’s Galmere, served with slices of fresh Irish oat and honey loaf bread, €2.99, from Michael Hassett and Noreen Foley in Hassetts Bakery, Co Cork, or a Deluxe wholegrain rye boule, €2.99, freshly baked in Longford.
When it comes to ready-to-eat side dishes Lidl has scoured the island to source the best, which gives you more time to hang out with the family rather than being stuck in the kitchen prepping. You can cut down on cooking time without compromising quality. Standout suggestions include Deluxe potato gratin with a Parmesan cheese crumb, €3.49, made in Co Down, or Deluxe poultry gravy, €1.99, made in Co Armagh.
Farmhouse heroes
The Lidl Deluxe cheese range includes some of the best of the Irish farmhouse sector, including the hard-to-better classic, Cashel Blue, €3.29. Its Gortnamona goats’ cheese, €1.99, and Tipperary farmhouse brie, €2.99, are both crafted at Cooleeney Farm by the fourth-generation dairy farming Maher family. Add several pots of its Irish apple and fig chutney, which shone at both the Great Taste and Blas na Éireann awards, and you have a winning combination.
Sweet and very special
Lidl’s Deluxe mini mince pie selection box, €4.79, offers mince pies aplenty. Baked in Co Down, every imaginable style is covered, from classic all-butter pies to frangipane, chocolate sundae, ppistachio and brandy butter-cream toppings.
At Seerys in Co Carlow, Lorraine and Brian Seery continue the proud tradition started in 1989 when Philo and Olivia Seery set up a bakery shop in their kitchen, and that home-baked flavour and attention to detail carries through into all of their award-winning Christmas puddings. Choose from the rich dark flavours of a six-month matured Irish Christmas pudding with Dundalgan Irish whiskey, €7.99, or an Irish Christmas pudding infused with Armagnac brandy and jewelled with whole nuts and fruit, €13.99.
For extra indulgence top it with Baileys Original freshly whipped cream, €3.99, or Seerys’ own Deluxe Irish ice cream, €3.49, in seriously decadent flavours: think brandy butter ice cream with brandy sauce, or Millionaire ice cream with salted caramel sauce.
For those that don’t indulge in traditional Christmas pudding a slice of Irish cream liqueur cheesecake, €3.99, is another way to serve up festive flavour.
Hassetts Bakery’s Blas na hÉireann gold award-winning Deluxe handcrafted chocolate and vanilla hazelnut bûche, €14.99, pictured, is another. Made in Co Cork using 100 per cent Irish ingredients, it is on sale from today, Wednesday, December 20th.
Handmade heaven
Lidl sells top quality chocolates. Master chocolatier Ann Rudden of Áine’s Handmade Chocolates in Co Cavan produces a special selection of her Rainforest Alliance Certified truffles, €4.49, which is exclusive to Lidl and uses sustainably sourced cocoa beans from West Africa, filled with a smooth Irish cream liqueur filling. With flavours like biscotti and salted caramel Ann’s Deluxe Luxury Irish chocolate collection, €6.99, is filled with the purest, freshest, most natural ingredients, yet ooze with indulgence.
Magical drinks pairings
Lidl’s own range of premium Irish whiskey is distilled by West Cork Distillers and matured in a variety of different casks, including a range of Dundalgan Single Malts finished in IPA, stout or sherry casks, and a Dundalgan charred cask whiskey for lovers of a smoky drop, all €27.99.
Lidl’s range of craft beers includes Great Taste award-winning Irish craft saison or stout, pale ale or brown ale, all €1.99, and all brewed exclusively by The Crafty Brewing Company.
Enjoy the digestifs by the light of your twinkling Forest Fresh tree from Wicklow’s Joe Downey, the first Christmas tree grower to achieve Bord Bia’s Sustainable Horticulture Assurance Scheme (SHAS) certification.
Now that’s a magical Christmas moment worth going full Lidl for.
For all you need this Christmas shop at Lidl