The Albrechts had an extremely popular chain of bleak discount stories in Germany: the brothers had divided the country into separate fiefs, with each controlling the market in one half of the territory.īut most people were confident they would fail in Britain, where there was a discernible snobbery about discount stores. Most news reports noted merely that the company belonged to a frugal and spectacularly rich pair of German brothers, Karl and Theo Albrecht, who had both fought in the second world war and whose desire for privacy had reached extremes after Theo’s high-profile kidnapping for ransom in 1970s. Information on Aldi’s owners was as limited as the decor. Customers seeking itemised receipts left disappointed. The store accepted cash but not cheques or cards. The checkout assistants, who had been trained to memorise the price of every item in the store, were so fast that shoppers experienced what some would come to call “Aldi panic” – the fear that you cannot pack your goods quickly enough. A £1 deposit allowed you to borrow a trolley but there were no baskets. Strip lights illuminated the 185 sq metre store, and from the ceiling hung banners listing prices for the goods stacked on wooden pallets or displayed in torn-open cardboard boxes on metal shelves. The managers of this new shop, which was called Aldi, had not bothered to place a single advert announcing its arrival – not even an “Opening soon” sign outside the store. To shoppers accustomed to the abundance of Tesco and Sainsbury’s, which dominated the British grocery sector with thousands of products and brands, delicatessens, vast fridges and aisles piled high with fresh fruit and vegetables, the range would have seemed dismal.
For many products, including butter, tea and ketchup, only a single, usually unfamiliar brand was offered. It only stocked 600 basic items – fewer than you might find in your local corner shop today – all at very low prices. O n a Thursday morning in April 1990, in the suburb of Stechford in Birmingham, a strange grocery chain started trading in the UK.
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