What was claimed
Lidl is giving away free food boxes worth £40 to people who like and comment on a Facebook post.
Our verdict
False. A spokesperson for the retailer confirmed this is not a genuine offer.
Lidl is not giving away free food boxes to people who like a Facebook post
A Facebook post falsely claims that the supermarket Lidl is giving away free food boxes to people who like and comment—but this is not a genuine offer from the retailer.
The post claims to be written by “Jack Merchant [...] Lidl CEO” and that the value of the “free box of essential foods” is £40.
However, Lidl’s UK CEO is Ryan McDonnell, and Gerd Chrzanowski is the CEO of the Schwarz Group, the parent company of Lidl.
A spokesperson for Lidl confirmed to Full Fact that this post is not an official Lidl competition.
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Posts offering fake deals are very common on Facebook, and we’ve fact checked many similar posts, including other fake offers supposedly from Lidl, as well as other retailers like Argos, Amazon and Morrisons.
It is always worth checking posts sharing offers that seem too good to be true. One way to verify this is to see whether the offer has been shared by the company’s official page—this will often have more followers, a verified blue tick on platforms like Facebook or Instagram and a longer post history.