Aldi UK: Plan to open 100 new UK stores creating 4,000 jobs as profits surge by 49% in a year

Aldi will open 100 new stores and create 4,000 jobs after profits surged by 49 per cent in a year, it has revealed.

The discount supermarket plans to pump £1.3 billion of investment into the stores by the end of next year.

The expansion is part of a long-term plan to grow from 894 to 1,200 locations in the UK by 2025. 

The funding – Aldi’s biggest investment in the UK in its 30 years in the country – will go into upgrading existing stores, distribution centres and innovation across its operations, it said. 

The update came as Aldi reported sales increased by eight per cent to £12.28 billion in 2019. It saw pre-tax profits jump by 49 per cent to £271.5 million for the year.

The retailer, which has seen sales continue to grow through the pandemic amid strong demand for groceries, committed to keeping its prices ‘the lowest in the market’ amid pressure on household budgets. 

Major grocery rivals, including Tesco and Morrisons, have lowered their prices in recent months in a bid to stem strong growth by Aldi and fellow German discounter Lidl.

However, both Aldi and Lidl failed to benefit substantially from the surge in demand for online orders and home deliveries since the pandemic fully impacted the UK.

Earlier this month, Aldi expanded into click and collect orders for the first time, with a store in the Midlands.

In May, Aldi revealed plans to deliver groceries to homes in the UK for the first time through a partnership with Deliveroo.

Giles Hurley, chief executive for Aldi UK and Ireland, told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme that he will be announcing an extension of Aldi’s click and collect scheme into 15 more stores in the next few weeks.

‘We’ve had a tie-up with deliveroo across 20 stores trialling rapid delivery of groceries to customer’s homes,’ he added.

‘We’ve announced our first click and collect store which is a project I’m really excited about. 

‘I’m very very confident this is a model we can scale sucessfully. We started with one store but within the next weeks I hope to annouce an extension to a further 15 stores.’ 

Mr Hurley confirmed Aldi had noticed more demand for products such as pasta and toilet roll as the country heads towards a second wave of coronavirus – but said he was confident the supermarket could keep up.

‘We’ve got really good availability across all the products in our range but we have definitely seen a bit of an uptick in demand for certain items. The overriding message should be to customers to buy exactly what they need.’

A basket of 33 everyday items at Aldi is on average 14 per cent cheaper than the Big 4 supermarkets, according to The Grocer magazine. 

Earlier this year, Aldi maintained its position as the UK’s best-paying supermarket by increasing the minimum hourly rates for store colleagues to £9.40 nationally and £10.90 inside the M25. These rates increase to £10.41 nationally and £11.15 in London after two years.

Susannah Streeter, senior investment and markets analyst at Hargreaves Lansdown, said consumers tend to hunt around for the best value supermarkets ‘when times are tough’ – putting Aldi at an advantage.

She added: ‘Supermarket chains have been the big winners during the pandemic, as people raced to stock up on lockdown supplies and Aldi’s position as a value retailer, has made it more resilient at a time of deep economic uncertainty.’