Aldi has announced plans to build a new distribution centre in the southeast of England to supply the German discount supermarket chain’s expanding British network.
The German company has earmarked more than £75m to build a centre in Bedford on a site covering an area equivalent to 20 soccer pitches, creating 400 jobs.
Reuters reported that over the past ten years fast-growing discounters Aldi and Lidl have forced market leaders such as Tesco and Sainsbury’s to cut prices.
And the Guardian wrote last month that ‘Aldi and Lidl account for £1 in every £8 spent in UK supermarkets, with two-thirds of British shoppers visiting the discounters over the past three months.
According to the Guardian ‘Aldi’s sales gained 15.6%, taking its market share to 6.9%. The supermarket has widened its lead on the Co-op, where sales fell for the second month in a row after it sold 300 small stores to McColl’s.’
Aldi last month reported a third straight year of falling profit but reiterated its commitment to expansion in Britain. Already the UK’s fifth-biggest supermarket chain, Aldi aims to lift the number of its UK stores to 1,000, from 726, by 2022.
Matthew Barnes, chief executive of Aldi UK and Ireland: “More than half of all UK households now regularly shop with us and many more prospective customers tell us they would switch supermarkets if there was an Aldi nearby.”
“This gives us the confidence to continue investing in our operations and infrastructure.”
The UK’s biggest digital manufacturing show!
Liverpool and the North West’s advanced manufacturing is in the spotlight as the region plays host to 4000 manufacturers from across the country at Smart Factory Expo – the biggest digital manufacturing show in the country.
The UK’s largest standalone 4IR expo coincides with the government’s much anticipated Industrial Strategy, and features:
Dedicated Exhibition Zones – Industrial Automation, Digital Transformation, Smart Factories, Industrial Internet
Free conference content – 96 presentations from world-class manufacturers and technology experts over two days
Innovation Alley – lifting the lid on the UK’s manufacturing tech start-up scene
Hack & Pitch – real engineers, tackling real problems, in real time!
