Discount retailer Aldi has opened its 700th store in Kent, in the UK, and announced that its new £60 million distribution centre in Cardiff will become fully operational in April.
The company said that it is investing more than £450 million to increase operational capacity across the UK to keep up with unprecedented demand.
During the last quarter, there were 826,000 new visitors to its stores across the country, compared to the same period last year, and it recently overtook the Co-op to become the UK's fifth-largest supermarket, the company said.
The new distribution hub will boast 46,000 square metres and serve stores across Wales and the south-west of England, creating 400 jobs.
Aldi also opened a milestone 700th store in Whitstable, Kent – one of more than 100 sites the retailer operates in the south-east. It is one of 70 store openings planned by the retailer in 2017, part of Aldi's drive to have 1,000 stores in the UK by 2022.
Matthew Barnes, CEO of Aldi UK and Ireland, commented, “During the last five years, we have invested £1.7 billion in new stores and distribution centres to bring Aldi to the 14 million customers that now regularly shop with us, but there are many more potential customers who don’t shop at Aldi because there isn’t a store near where they live. We want to change this by having a store in every major town and city across Britain.”
Aldi is also investing £150m to expand capacity in the north of England and Scotland by enlarging distribution centres in Darlington and Bathgate.
© 2017 European Supermarket Magazine – your source for the latest retail news. Article by Karen Henderson. Click subscribe to sign up to ESM: The European Supermarket Magazine.
