DISCOUNT SUPERMARKET chain Aldi is on track to make sales of €500 million this year, 20 per cent more than in 2007.
The German-owned firm, which opens its 62nd Irish store next month, is embarking on a €350 million expansion drive under which it will open a total of 35 new stores by the end of 2011.
Aldi will create 650 jobs in this phase of its expansion, 160 of them in a new regional distribution centre in Mitchelstown, Co Cork. Construction of this €60 million centre starts in March. A total of 14 stores will open next year.
Paul Foley, chief of Aldi’s British and Irish business, said the firm’s ultimate target was to expand in the next decade to a target of 180 Irish stores.
“That’s our long-term goal and I imagine that’s 10 year’s work . . . Our quest is to try and get a store in every single town.”
Aldi, which claims a 4.5 per cent share of the Irish grocery market, maintains that its customers typically save about €60 on a weekly shop that would cost €200 elsewhere.
The company carries a considerably smaller assortment of products than its rivals, using this low-cost system to undercut competitors by as much as 30 per cent in many instances.
Some 99 per cent of products carried trade under a made to order range of own-brand labels unique to Aldi.
The firm was taking some benefit from the tighter economic situation, Mr Foley said. But he added that the growth of the business was well-entrenched before the downturn began in earnest.
“We’ve had very steady growth averaging over 20 per cent over the last three years. We got a little spike in that at the moment, which is I’m sure part of the economic circumstances,” he added.
While the expansion plan was already in advanced development before the economy turned, he also attributed the growth in sales to greater efforts to appeal to Irish tastes. More than 40 per cent of the groceries it sells in Ireland are now sourced locally, he said.
Aldi will open its 60th and 61st outlets this month in Dungloe, Co Donegal, and Carrigtwohill, Co Cork, with a further store set to open next month in Mallow.
In 2009 it will open stores in Portumna, Ballinasloe and Clifden in Co Galway, Drogheda and Dundalk in Co Louth, Wexford, Tallaght Cross, Dublin, Portlaoise, Co Laois, Kilrush, Co Clare, Tramore, Co Waterford, Kilkenny, Kells, Co Meath, Kildare town and Bagenalstown, Co Carlow.
