Aldi

Aldi is a discount grocery chain whose United States operations are run by Aldi Süd, one of two family-owned German companies that trace back to a grocery store operated by the Albrecht family in Essen, Germany. Brothers Karl and Theo Albrecht took over the store in 1946 and built it into a discount empire, splitting the business in the early 1960s into Aldi Nord and Aldi Süd, with the Aldi name coined from 'Albrecht Diskont'. Aldi Süd opened its first US store in Iowa in 1976 and now operates from its US headquarters in Batavia, Illinois. The chain has grown to more than 2,400 stores across roughly 40 states, making it one of the fastest-growing grocery retailers in the United States, with plans to expand toward 3,200 stores by the end of 2028, partly through its acquisition of the Winn-Dixie and Harveys supermarket chains. Aldi's model relies on a limited assortment of mostly private-label products, small store footprints, quarter-deposit shopping carts, and customers bagging their own groceries, all of which keep operating costs and prices low. Around 90 percent of its products are exclusive Aldi brands. Globally, the Aldi Nord and Aldi Süd groups together operate more than 13,000 stores across Europe, the United States, Australia, and China.