Lidl is pushing forward with plans to expand its New York footprint even as mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani promotes a proposal for city-owned grocery stores aimed at lowering food costs.
The German grocer, which wants to boost its presence in the U.S., opened three stores in New York this year including one in Lower Manhattan earlier this month. Lidl U.S. CEO Joel Rampoldt told FOX Business the company plans to open four more in the “near future.”
If elected in November, Mamdani, a New York State assemblymember who is a self-identified democratic socialist, has said he would redirect city funds from corporate supermarkets to city-owned grocery stores “whose mission is lower prices, not price gouging,” according to a video posted on his campaign website.
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The announcement hasn’t changed Lidl’s expansion plans over the next five years.
“We’re going to continue to invest in New York. We’re going to continue to open stores there,” Rampoldt said, noting that if Mamdani is elected and his plan materializes, “then we’ll deal with it just like any other situation, but it’s not changing our plans in terms of opening more stores in New York and serving more New York customers.”
The company currently operates 190 stores in the U.S., 35 of which are in New York state. As of Thursday, there are nine in New York City’s five boroughs.
Still, it is focusing on adding more stores in its three core markets: the New York Metro, the Washington DC Metro, and Atlanta as it tries to boost its U.S. footprint.
Rampoldt didn’t offer an exact number of stores it plans to open over the next five years, though he explained the company will be “adding stores steadily.”
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It’s an about-face from other grocery executives, specifically John Catsimatidis, the CEO of grocery chain Gristedes, who has threatened to sell or close the business if Mamdani is elected. Catsimatidis has argued that his business couldn’t compete in the market if there were city-run supermarkets.
But Mamdani’s candidacy has proven controversial with several members of the business community, notably Wall Street’s Jamie Dimon, due to the fact that he ran on a number of controversial policy proposals that could prove costly for the city’s finances. Aside from government-run grocery stores, Mamdani has also campaigned on things such as rent freezes and higher taxes on corporations and the wealthy.
Still, Dimon, who opposed his progressive platform, calling him “more of a Marxist than a socialist,” had a reportedly friendly phone call with the mayoral candidate last week as he maintains a solid lead in the NYC mayoral race heading into the November general election.
Mamdani is going up against a crowded field that includes former governor Andrew Cuomo and incumbent mayor Eric Adams, both running as independents, Republican nominee Curtis Sliwa, and defense lawyer–turned–independent candidate Jim Walden.
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