ALDI, a discount grocer with stores in the Midwest, is taking aim at Florida, starting in the bay area and Orlando.
By MARK ALBRIGHT, Times Staff Writer
Published August 23, 2006
ALDI Inc., a limited-assortment grocer that hopes to give Save-A-Lot a run for its money, has targeted the Tampa Bay and Orlando areas for its initial landfall in Florida.
The no-frills chain, which has started gathering property for a 2008 or 2009 debut, is all about limited services and low prices that are frequently below those of Wal-Mart.
"We keep it simple," said Dave Behm, vice president the Florida operation.
Customers will hear no Muzak in its Spartan stores. They have to bag their own groceries. They must pay a quarter for a shopping cart, which they get back when they wheel it back to the cart corral in the parking lot.
Such cost-cutting and the limited assortment of mostly private-label products are the formula for prices as low as 35-cent loaves of bread. With 1,300 items, an ALDI stocks about as many types of groceries as a warehouse club. But there is only one brand and it comes only in the most popularly purchased size rather than those big volume sizes. ALDI, which also stocks fresh produce and meat prepacked by a supplier, boasts that all its products are rated at least Grade A Fancy, Choice or US No. 1.
The chain, which spread to more than 800 stores in 26 states, is part of one of the world's largest privately held supermarket empires.
The innovative Albrecht brothers of Germany run more than 5,000 food stores in 16 countries. Theo Albrecht controls Trader Joe's in the United States, a California chain that's moving east and now gathering store sites in Atlanta. It's best known for a constantly changing array of unusual, easy-to-make dishes and inexpensive "two buck Chuck" wine.
An abbreviation of Albrecht-Discount, ALDI is controlled by brother Karl and features its own $2.49-a-bottle Winking Owl wines and inexpensive potted flowers. But its food offerings, tailored for the chain's big presence in the Midwest, are more meat and potatoes.
ALDI also frequently touts deals on such general merchandise as this week's specials: a $19.99 orbital electric jigsaw or a $9.99 sawhorse.
ALDI usually builds its own 16,000-square-foot stores. It's looking for store locations in middle-class neighborhoods where several grocers now compete.
The goal is 100 stores in Florida within a few years. About 20 of them will be in the Tampa Bay area and another 20 in the Orlando area.
