Aldi: Supermarket giant to speed up expansion process after opening Portsmouth store and recording profit rise

The discount supermarket said it was opening 23 stores by the end of the year and revamping another 100 shops as part of the record investment plans. A store opened in The Pompey Centre retail park in Fratton last year.

Plans are still in place to bring the brand to a site in Elettra Avenue, Waterlooville. Aldi is Britain’s fourth largest supermarket with more than 1,020 stores, employing 45,000 people. It said it would spend £1.4bn on expansion over two years as it works towards a long-term plan for 1,500 sites in the UK.

The 23 new locations for stores over the next 16 weeks include Muswell Hill in London and Caterham in Surrey. Details of the investment came as German-owned Aldi said it notched up its highest ever annual UK and Ireland sales growth of 16 per cent to £17.9bn for 2023, up from £15.5bn in 2022. Pre-tax profits more than tripled to £536.7m from £152.6m in 2022, which Aldi said was also down to cost savings across the business.

The group’s UK boss said the firm was launching hundreds of premium range products for shoppers to trade up over Christmas. Giles Hurley, chief executive of Aldi UK and Ireland, said: “For every £1 of profit generated last year, we’re investing £2 this year – opening more stores and building the supply infrastructure to bring high-quality, affordable groceries to millions more families the length and breadth of Britain.”

He added: “As we head towards the Christmas trading period, we’re all set to launch our biggest and best ever seasonal range, including hundreds of premium range products at unbeatable prices for our customers.”