Aldi, a German-owned, no-frills grocery chain that claims to offer the lowest prices available, will open a 16,000-square-foot store at Wooded Acres and Valley Mills drives.
Waco real estate developer Gordon Harriman III has sold Aldi about 2 acres where crews are tearing down the former Waco Dodge complex. Harriman said the store likely will open in November.
Aldi dotes on austerity and slashing overhead to keep prices low. Shoppers are urged to bring their own shopping bags, though Aldi has them for sale.
Shoppers also pay a 25-cent deposit on shopping carts, which they get back when the cart is returned. This process eliminates the need to hire people to round up carts in the parking lot.
The chain primarily sells its own house brands, which it displays in cardboard boxes.
“The typical Aldi store will hire a handful of people: a manager and a few others. Probably fewer than one would find in a deli or bakery at H-E-B,” said Mark Humstra, who follows trends for Supermarket News.
Harriman said Aldi contacted him through real estate agent Mike Meadows about acquiring 2 acres on North Valley Mills Drive.
He said the chain’s operating approach is nothing like that of the local dominant chain, H-E-B, which has six locations in the Waco area and whose largest store locally covers 112,000 square feet in Bellmead.
H-E-B has leveled the former University Middle School at South Valley Mills Drive and Interstate 35 South, where it plans to build a regional store that would become the largest locally.
It also is weighing the merits of building a store at Lake Shore Drive and North 19th Street, where it bought a 25-acre tract near the River Bend shopping center.
H-E-B spokeswoman Tamra Jones said the chain would have no comment on Aldi’s arrival in Waco.
Grocery rankings
Humstra, with Supermarket News, said H-E-B ranks 13th on the list of the largest grocery chains in America, enjoying estimated sales of $18 billion last year. It has 335 stores, including several in Mexico.
Aldi ranks 25th on that same list, and its 1,215 U.S. stores generated an estimated $7.3 billion in sales.
“It is one of the fastest-growing grocery chains in the United States. Its stores are relatively small, but they have among the best sales-per-square-foot numbers in the industry,” Humstra said of Aldi. “They began to perform especially well during the recession, and they typically siphon away some business from existing stores.”
By offering only 1,400 items, compared with 60,000 at its larger supermarket rivals, Aldi focuses on buying power. That makes Aldi 30 to 50 percent cheaper than traditional supermarkets and 15 to 20 percent cheaper than big-box discounters like Walmart, according to statistics the company provided.
Charlie Rice-Minos, an Aldi spokesman, said the chain has 37 stores in Texas, most of which are located in the Dallas-Fort Worth area. But it has announced plans to build 30 stores in the Houston area within three years.
It opened 75 stores in the United States in 2011 and plans to open more than 80 stores this year.
Rice-Minos said more than 20 million customers each month shop at Aldi locations nationally.
Privately held Aldi was founded in 1913 but expanded rapidly after World War II. Brothers Karl and Theo Albrecht — Aldi is an abbreviation for Albrecht Discount — launched the deep-discount concept in 1961.
Based in Essen, Germany, Aldi operates about 8,500 stores in Europe, the United States and Australia, with the U.S. its second-largest market behind Germany. It enjoys annual sales of more than $60 billion internationally.
The Waco store will open next to an 8,500-square-foot mixed-use development on which Harriman’s Crawford Austin Properties soon will begin construction. Harriman said he is negotiating with three national restaurants and two national retailers, all without a presence in Waco, who have an interest in his Lakewood Center.
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Source: www.wacotrib.com
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