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Aldi set to open another 70 stores this year in the UK

Published:  05 February, 2015

Aldi plans to open 70 more stores across the UK and hire 150 store managers, 300 assistant managers and 4,500 store staff in 2015.

The new stores are set to open throughout 2015 will bring the number of UK locations to over 600.

"Aldi has seen rapid growth in recent years, and with even more store openings planned throughout the UK in 2015," said Ruth Doyle, Aldi regional managing director.

Helping to drive the growth is the appeal of the wine offering at both Aldi and Lidl.  A recent Wilson Drinks Report found that discount retailers are also drawing in middle and upper class consumers, not just bargain hunters.

Tim Wilson, managing director of WDR, said: "Our new research confirms that the upper and middle classes are just as happy to grab a bargain. Initiatives like the recent launch of premium French wine in Lidl, endorsed by a Master of Wine, only add to the increasing credibility of the discounters in the minds of the shopper.

"We think that this provides real evidence that any perceived embarrassment of more middle/upper class shoppers being seen shopping at the discounters has now gone."

Despite the ongoing challenges that some supermarket retailers are facing at the moment with the likes of Tesco and Morrisons, other retailers are bucking the trend, growing in the UK and taking a continuously larger share of the market.

Waitrose recently announced plans for 14 new store openings this year. The openings are excepted to add an additional 2,000 jobs across the UK.

Equally, last year Lidl announced it planned on expanding its UK footprint and opening 20 more stores.

Tesco and Morrisons however have decided to slow or cancel their expansion plans in the UK as the grocer giants struggle with the increasingly competitive UK market.

Tesco's chief executive officer, Dave Lewis, announced last month as part of a turnaround plan it would be closing 43 stores and it cancelled plans for 49 new stores it had in the pipeline.

Morrisons also announced in January, following a dismal Christmas trading period, that it planned on closing 10 stores as well as ousting its CEO, Dalton Philips.

Discounters, like Aldi and Lidl, have had a dramatic shift in the grocery retail environment and now have the market players scrambling to hold on to their market share.  For the top four, Tesco, Asda, Sainsburys, Morrisons, the level of competition is 'unprecedented', according to Kantar Worldpanel.

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