Supermarket giant Aldi has announced plans to spend £800 million across the UK in its largest annual investment as it reported surging sales and profits.
It will open up 23 stores by the end of the year and revamp another 100 shops as part of the record investment plans. One of those stores has been confirmed as being in Scotland at Castle Douglas.
Towards the end of 2023, Aldi announced Castle Douglas as one of three new stores to come in Scotland along with one in Broughty Ferry and another in Straiton.
Aldi – Britain’s fourth largest supermarket with more than 1,020 stores and more than 45,000 colleagues – said it would also spend £1.4 billion on expansion over two years as it works towards a long-term plan for 1,500 sites in the UK.
Details of the investment came as German-owned Aldi said it notched up its highest ever annual UK and Ireland sales growth of 16% to £17.9 billion for 2023, up from £15.5 billion in 2022.
Pre-tax profits more than tripled to £536.7 million from £152.6 million in 2022, which Aldi said was also down to cost savings across the business.
Read More:
-
Aldi reveals plans for three new Scottish stores as part of £56 million investment
-
Aldi overtakes Morrisons and Sainsbury's to become Scotland's third-largest grocer
-
Grocery price inflation falls thanks to promotions but still 'incredibly high'
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.”
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here