Lidl is outpacing Aldi on store openings so far this year, despite scaling back its plans as its rival makes headlines with announcements of continued expansion.
Lidl said in February it would open just 25 stores this year instead of the usual 50, to focus investment on warehouse expansion. The supermarket also made a number of redundancies in its construction department, while a property industry source told The Grocer at the time that only sites already agreed to were likely to be completed.
In the wake of the news, Aldi made three announcements in as many weeks of its expansion ambitions, including one saying it was “stepping up its search for new sites across the country as it aims to continue rolling out new stores at pace”.
However, Aldi’s store number has remained at “over 990” since the start of the year, while Lidl has opened 15 stores. It puts Lidl’s total store number at just 30 shy of Aldi’s, at over 960. A year ago Aldi was about 40 stores ahead of Lidl.
Read more: Nearly 40 proposed Aldi stores being held up by planning objections from rival supermarkets
The 15 new Lidls include branches in Liverpool, Birmingham, Sheffield, Glasgow, Stoke-on-Trent, Carlisle and Cheltenham. All were opened between the start of the year and 13 April.
Aldi is currently projecting its thousandth store – a landmark it had aimed to hit last year before running into challenges including planning permission delays – will come in quarter three of 2023.
It said store openings were typically weighted toward the second half of the year, and in the meantime it had refitted about 25 shops so far in 2023 in the rollout of its latest ‘Project Fresh’ format.
Aldi projects it will open or relocate about 40 stores in the course of 2023.
Here are all the locations of Lidl’s 15 new stores:
- Mottingham
- Wellington
- Kendal
- Cheltenham
- Glasgow
- Ashton-In-Makerfield
- Sheffield
- Tamworth
- Liverpool
- Castleford
- Birmingham
- Stoke-on-Trent
- Norton
- Carlisle
- Watton
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