New Supermarket Chain Offers Workers Extra $200 For Vaccine

LONG ISLAND, NY — Lidl, the new supermarket chain that opened its first locations on Long Island in 2020, announced on Wednesday that it will be providing its employees who will be receiving the coronavirus vaccine with an extra $200.

The German grocery store purchased all of the Best Market stores on Long Island and started the process of replacing them with Lidl as well as opening new locations across both Suffolk and Nassau in the past year.

There are currently nine Lidl stores in Lake Grove, West Babylon, East Meadow, Plainview, Huntington Station, East Northport, Center Moriches, East Patchogue and Oakdale. The company announced recently that it was turning two more Best Markets in Riverhead and Shirley into new Lidl.

New York is currently in phase 1B, of its COVID-19 vaccine distribution plan, which in addition to health care workers also includes residents aged 75 and up, first responders, public safety officers, teachers and other school staff, in-person college instructors, child care workers, public-facing grocery store workers, transit workers and people living and working in homeless shelters.

Lidl currently has 618 workers including 257 employees in Nassau and 361 in Suffolk.

The company announced the offer for the additional payment in order to help offset the costs associated with vaccine administration such as travel costs and childcare. The company also stated it will accommodate employee schedules for vaccine appointments.

"We are proud to provide our employees the resources they need to receive the COVID-19 vaccine free of any obstacles," Johannes Fieber, CEO of Lidl US said. "From the outset of the pandemic, we have worked hard to put the health and safety of our employees first. From offering free COVID-19 healthcare to our entire workforce, to installing hospital-grade air filtration in our stores and warehouses to assure cleaner and healthier air, Lidl has made it a priority to adapt our policies to work better for our people during this pandemic. We are proud to do so again today to ensure that every team member who wants to get vaccinated is able to do so as soon as possible."

According to the company, about 8 in 10 of Lidl employees plan to get the vaccine as soon as it became available