Aldi topples Waitrose to become UK’s sixth biggest supermarket
DISCOUNT store Aldi’s astonishing success story continued yesterday as it overtook upmarket rival Waitrose to become the sixth biggest supermarket in Britain.
The German discounter has won an increasing share of the market since the recession as cash-strapped families look for cheaper alternatives.
It now lags behind only the ‘big four’ – Tesco, Asda, Sainsbury’s, Morrisons – and the Co-operative.
Major supermarkets have slashed prices in recent months to fend off competition from cut-price rivals such as Aldi and Lidl. Despite this Aldi has lifted its market share from 4.6 per cent to 5.3 per cent in the past three months.
Waitrose has 5.1 per cent of the market, up from 5 per cent, according to consumer research firm Kantar Worldpanel. Lidl claimed recently that Britain’s middle classes had become the ‘Lidl Classes’ after sales rose by a fifth in a year. But while Lidl remains eighth behind Waitrose, Aldi is now one of Britain’s mainstream supermarkets.
Between January and the end of March, Aldi sales grew by 17 per cent versus the same time a year earlier. This compares to 3 per cent growth for Waitrose, lifting its share of the market.
The total market share of the ‘big four’ fell below 73 per cent, the low- est for a decade. Aldi – motto Spend a little. Live a lot – stocks virtually all own-branded goods and offers a far smaller selection of goods.
By contrast middle- class rival Waitrose, part of the John Lewis Partnership, focuses on customer service and high-quality produce.
Aldi has 500 stores and hopes to double in size by 2022. Yesterday, it announced it was opening nine more stores in London, creating up to 600 jobs.
Kantar Worldpanel said Aldi had recorded double-digit growth for the past four years. More than half a million new shoppers visited the store in the three months to March 29, compared to a year before.
Lidl saw sales jump by almost 12 per cent over the period to secure a 3.7 per cent market share. This is some way off Tesco’s dominant 28.4 per cent share, followed by Asda at 17.1 per cent.
But Fraser McKevitt, at Kantar Worldpanel, said the success of Aldi and Lidl meant the entire structure of
‘Half a million new shoppers’
the ‘supermarket landscape’ was changing. The price war between upmarket retailers and discounters has led to significantly cheaper food.
The Office for National Statistics says food prices fell by more than 3 per cent in February compared to a year earlier. Aldi began as a small food store opened by miner’s wife Anna Albrecht in the German town of Essen in 1914 to support the family when her husband became ill.