The ALDI Story:

While other supermarket groups around the world are struggling, the rise of the udget chain Aldi has been unstoppable.

Aldi's rags to riches story began back in 1913 when Frau Anna Albrecht opened the Karl Albrecht Spirituosen und Lebensmittel grocery store in Schonnebeck, a low-income suburb of Essen, Germany.

Not long after the end of World War II, Anna's sons Karl and Theo took over their mother's business and transformed it into 'the first discount store in the world'.

The brothers founded Albrecht KG in 1948, opening four stores in the local area not long after.

The family as a whole were noted for their thrifty ways. Obsessed with saving money, Theo was said to recycle used pencil stubs, wear old, worn suits and eschew any form of luxury even after he had made his fortune.

However, the thrift-conscious brothers devised a simple yet super-successful business plan: they kept prices rock-bottom by only stocking non-perishable items and quickly removing slow-sellers from the shelves.

To avoid paying expensive overheads and to build their business slowly but surely, Theo and Karl Albrecht decided to concentrate on developing a chain of small supermarkets.

The compact stores' popularity spread through word of mouth – the Albrechts kept costs down by refusing to pay for advertising. By 1950, they owned 13 stores in Germany's Ruhr Valley.

In 1954, keen to innovate, the entrepreneurial brothers made retail history again by opening Germany's first self-service store – with success.

By 1960, Theo and Karl Albrecht owned 300 stores with an annual turnover of millions.

That same year, the brothers split the chain into two separate groups after falling out over whether they should sell cigarettes.

Theo headed Albrecht-Diskont Nord, which sold cigarettes, while Karl became the CEO of Albrecht-Diskont Süd, which did not.

n 1962, the brothers, who were still working together despite their disagreement, decided to name the groups Aldi Nord and Aldi Süd, taken from the first two letters of Albrecht and Diskont.

Aldi Nord took over stores in the north of Germany while Aldi Süd became responsible for stores in the south. The border between the two became known as the 'Aldi Equator'.

The two businesses became financially and legally separate in 1966. By this time, there were 200 Aldi Süd stores in Germany.

The Aldi group made its first forays into the international market in 1967 when Aldi Süd took over Hofer, an Austrian grocery chain.

Aldi Nord joined in when it expanded to Belgium in 1973.

In 1971, Theo Albrecht (second from right, pictured with his family) was kidnapped by a disgruntled lawyer called Heinz-Joachim Ollenburg and his accomplice Paul Kro, and held at gunpoint.

A ransom of DM7 million, which was £1.4 million at the time and the equivalent of £19.4 million ($23.4m) in today's money, was paid and Albrecht was released after 17 days in captivity. 

Possibly as a consequence of the kidnap, the Albrechts became notorious for being extremely secretive about their private lives and Forbes dubbed Theo "more reclusive than a yeti".

The last photo published of limelight-shunning Theo Albrecht alone dates way back to 1971, a day after he was released by his kidnappers, and the last picture of the brothers together was published in 1987.

Aldi expanded to the US in 1976, opening its first store on American soil in Iowa.

Headquartered in Batavia, Illinois, Aldi now has more than 1,800 stores across 35 states and employs over 25,000 people.

The group expanded to the UK in 1990, opening its first store in Birmingham. Aldi now boasts over 620 stores in the UK and opens a new one almost every week.

By 1991, the Aldi group was operating stores in eight European countries and the US. Over the next three decades the group expanded to Ireland, Australia, Spain, Slovenia, Switzerland, Portugal, Hungary and Poland.

One of Aldi's most recent achievements is the expansion to the Far East.

In June 2019, the chain opened its first stores in China. The two Shanghai supermarkets not only look different to its European counterparts, with a more upmarket aesthetic, but also offer a large fresh fish counter in addition to the usual Aldi products, which have been imported from Europe.

This is to attract the Chinese middle class to shop there. Aldi plans to open at least 10 stores in China initially, with 50 to 100 further outlets to follow in the coming years.