Aldi chief promises to keep prices low as chain reveals plan to open 70 new stores
Supermarket's chief executive Matthew Barnes has assured customers rates will stay the same despite national expansion project
ALDI'S UK chief executive pledged yesterday that its prices will always beat competitors, even as it reported a slide in profits for 2015, as a result of the supermarket price wars.
The German-owned discounter said that its sales had risen 12 per cent to a record £7.7bn in 2015, but operating profit dropped by 1.8 per cent to £255.6 million as the retailer cut prices on 30 per cent of its lines last year.
Matthew Barnes, Aldi’s chief executive for the UK and Ireland, said: “Our customers will always pay the lowest grocery prices in the UK.”
The retailer, which does not disclose like-for-like sales figures that strip out the effect of new stores openings, said it had attracted 750,000 new customers during the year - as many as the population of Leeds.
But Mr Barnes added that with half the country’s population still not shopping at the store, there was still lots of potential to open new stores.
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Aldi intends to open 70 new shops this year and next and said it was seeing no impact in terms of rising costs, because of the fall in the value of the pound caused by Brexit.
“We source 77 per cent of our fresh produce from British suppliers. We are no more exposed to currency fluctuations than anyone else in the sector,” Mr Barnes said.
In the past five years, Aldi has invested £1.6 billion in the UK. Aldi has announced a new £300 million investment in sprucing up existing stores, with more space being devoted to food-to-go, increased chill space and new fixtures for beers, wines and spirits.
Aldi expects to open 1,000 stores by 2022. Currently it has 659 stores.
The big four supermarkets have all lost share to the German discount stores, Aldi and its rival Lidl, over the last five years.
However, yesterday’s numbers show that Aldi is determined to keep opening new stores, despite seeing its profits and margins fall. The retailer sponsored Team GB at the Olympics this summer and has renewed its sponsorship of the team through to the 2020 games in Tokyo.