Kaufland is a German hypermarket chain and part of the Schwarz Gruppe, the retail group that also owns Lidl. The first Kaufland store opened in Neckarsulm in 1984, and the chain now runs more than 1,650 stores across Germany, Czechia, Slovakia, Poland, Romania, Bulgaria, Croatia and Moldova. Kaufland reported revenue of about EUR 35.2 billion and roughly 157,000 employees in 2024. Alongside retail it operates its own bakeries and meat-processing plants, and runs sizeable technology units - Kaufland Information Systems and the Kaufland e-commerce marketplace - which drive most of its tech hiring.