Aldi engages in price war

The discounter Aldi is engaged in a fierce price war with the established chains in Great Britain. As Aldi UK announced, the German food discounter achieved record sales of 17.9 billion pounds (around 21.2 billion euros) last year – an increase of 16 percent compared to 2022. Profits before tax even rose from 152.6 million to 536.7 million pounds. In the current year, however, the triumphant march has slowed somewhat. The market share even fell slightly at times. According to experts, this is also due to the fact that long-established British supermarket chains such as Tesco, Sainsbury’s, Asda and Morrisons have introduced so-called “Aldi Price Match” offers. Products are advertised as being available at the same price as at Aldi. Aldi’s managing director for Great Britain and Ireland, Giles Hurley, announced that in addition to investments, he intends to further reduce prices. He is “quite optimistic” that there will be further price reductions before Christmas. Retail expert Stephan Rüschen does not think it is clever that British supermarket chains are putting “Aldi Price Match” signs on shelves: “This gives Aldi a particularly prominent position.” Such signs can be found in Germany, said the professor of food retail at the Baden-Württemberg Cooperative State University in Heilbronn. In fact, however, there is also a price focus on Aldi. All retailers are aligning their entry-level items with Aldi and adjusting the price to the Aldi price every week. This is even the case for branded items such as Nutella in the fall.