Aldi doesn’t win praise for its produce merchandising prowess.
As a food retailer, however, the German discount chain is a force to be reckoned with.
Aldi is recently in the news, having announced it would open 100 more stores in 2021, focusing on California, Florida, Arizona and the Northeast.
The Packer’s coverage also observes the company is also expanding its e-commerce services, with grocery pickup expected to be available at 500 more locations by the end of the year, bringing the total number of stores with that option to 1,200.
Right now, Aldi has more than 2,000 stores across 37 states and expects to be the third-largest grocery retailer by store count in the U.S. by the end of 2022.
The latest round of expansion for Aldi includes a new regional headquarters and 564,000-square foot distribution center in Loxley, Ala., its 26th in the U.S.
That facility will supply up to 100 stores in Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana and parts of Georgia and Florida.
Aldi said expects to open as many as 35 stores in the Gulf Coast area by the end of 2022, with the first ones coming to Tallahassee later this year.
In a recent conversation I had with former Walmart produce executive Bruce Peterson, president of Arkansas-based Peterson Insights, he said Aldi’s announcement about the 500-store expansion in curbside pickup was notable.
“I think that (they) recognize that they have a little bigger opportunity in that space than perhaps they originally thought,” Peterson said.
Peterson said that retailers today must excel at more than one aspect of food retailing.
“You couch this whole conversation around omni-channel,” he said. “That is the essence of retail right now; it’s not about home delivery, it’s not about in-store shopping, it’s not about pickup, it’s about all those things.” Retailers who are experiencing growth are focusing on an omni-channel view of sales, he said.
Peterson calls Aldi “the most amazing retailer that nobody talks about,” and predicts the German chain with U.S. sales upward of $150 billion will continue to grow.
“I think the bigger question really centers around brick and mortar retail in general,” Peterson said. “I think there has been a push by all retailers to smaller formats, and whether it be Walmart’s Neighborhood Market or Publix... everybody’s moving toward a smaller footprint,” he said.
Since Aldi already operates from a small-format platform, Peterson said that will give the chain the opportunity to expand their physical presence.
“Again, I think the broader question becomes how much opportunity in brick and mortar is there vis-à-vis other channels,” he said. “From a market share standpoint, Aldi is certainly in a position to grow for quite some period of time. I do think that the type of growth of where that growth is coming from will not be just exclusively in stores per se. But I think that they are going to do a number of things from a omni-channel standpoint, and they are good enough to do it.”
More than good enough, it seems.
