Aldi to open a string of new stores across Spain this year

GERMAN supermarket chain Aldi has announced a major expansion plan for Spain in 2024, with its distribution centre in Sagunto (Valencia province) set to open next month and a another one on the cards for the north.

Along with this hub in Miranda de Ebro (Burgos province), at least another 50 stores will open nationwide – the bulk of them in Aldi's existing strongholds in popular coastal areas.

Other stores are planned for northern Spain and the Canary Islands in a bid to 'offer more households the option of quality, simple shopping at the best possible price', according to Chief Executive Officer Valentín Lumbreras.

To this end, new branches will be set up this year in the Basque Country, Galicia, Cantabria and Castilla y León, as well as the Canaries, and the existing network of stores heavily concentrated in the Comunidad Valenciana, Catalunya and Madrid will be reinforced.

Over half the company's planned expansion for 2024 is focused on these three regions, home to Spain's three largest cities – Madrid, Barcelona and Valencia, in that order.

Aldi has already started to grow its presence in the land-locked western region of Extremadura, in the Balearic Islands, and the south-eastern region of Murcia, and will continue to do so as the year progresses, Lumbreras reveals.

The forthcoming 50 stores this year come in the wake of the 46 new branches opened nationwide in 2023 – the highest number so far since 2019 – giving Aldi a total of 435 in Spain.

Along with distribution hubs in the northern Valencia-province port town and in Castilla y León, Aldi has five others in Masquefa (Barcelona province), Dos Hermanas (Sevilla province), Pinto (Madrid), San Isidro (Alicante province) and Agüimes in the Canary Islands.

Aldi has managed to increase its customer base by around a third in the last year or so, to approximately seven million.