Budding young farmer and star of The Late Late Toy Show Sheamie Garrihy has joined forces with Lidl to officially open ‘The Lidl Farm’ for the 2024 school season.

Lidl offers a free farm experience where school children can trace the farm to fork story, beginning with the soil, through an outdoor classroom experience at Lidl’s regional distribution centre in Newbridge, Co Kildare.

Set across 8.5ac of farmland, the experience provides students with an insight into how everyday products grown and harvested locally by Lidl’s network of Irish suppliers make their way from the farm to the shelves of their local Lidl store.

Led by Agri Aware’s education officers, students participate in a combination of hands-on activities and discussions, seeing first-hand how crops are grown and learning the best practice of livestock farming.

Train ride

Each educational experience ends with a train ride through Lidl regional distribution centre where students learn about the retailer’s quality check process and how fruit and vegetables are stored to ensure that produce is fresh when it arrives to a Lidl store.

Speaking at the launch, Clare-native Sheamie Garrihy said his highlight was the train ride.

“While I’d know my way around a farm, I wouldn’t know how everything is stored in the warehouse and how it gets delivered to Lidl stores so the train ride through the warehouse was a highlight for me.”

Commenting on the success of The Lidl Farm, Agri Aware chair, Shay Galvin said that it is positive for agriculture and that since the tours are free, it is “an affordable school trip which has been welcome news for many schools and parents”.

Schools

Lidl Ireland launched its farm experience in October 2022 as part of its overarching sustainability strategy. Lidl is the only supermarket retailer in the country to provide this hands-on farm-to-fork educational programme which has been guided by the SESE curriculum.

Since its launch, the farm has welcomed more than 4,000 school children and 400 teachers from primary schools across Ireland.

Tours run on farm twice a year - from March to June, and from September to October.