A Maidstone mum is a marketing term to describe dwellers in 'Middle England' who are deserting Tescos and Morrisons to shop at discount supermarkets Lidl and Aldi.
The term was first used by Ronny Gottschlich the Lidl CEO on 2 December 2013 who said:
'he wants to target ‘Maidstone mums’ who are ‘no longer afraid to be seen in a Lidl store'
Lidl and Aldi are providing serious competition to traditional rivals Tesco, Sainsbury, Asda and Morrisons. Lidl, the cut-price chain will more than double the number of stores it has in the UK in an attempt to push itself into traditionally Middle England territories. Lidl last year posted an 18 per cent rise in sales in the UK to £3.3bn. In stark contrast, Tesco last year saw like-for-like UK sales fall by 0.3 per cent to £48bn.
A vox pop in Maidstone Kent, found a former president of Farleigh's Women's Institute (WI) who confirmed he was correct:
To start with I was a little uncomfortable – I always thought it was cheap and cheerful, and up until then I had always shopped in Waitrose and Sainsbury’s, but I found I would keep bumping into people I knew, I started thinking… everyone I know shops here.
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Maidstone mums joins the White Van Man, Pebbledash People, Worcester Woman and Mondeo man as one of the advertisers' target groups.