Aldi, who has announced plans for a store in Lafayette, will open a regional headquarters and distribution center near Mobile, Alabama, to serve its expansion in Louisiana and the Gulf Coast, company officials announced.
The popular discount store plans to open 70 stores by the end of the year and open stores in Louisiana, its 38th state to open a store. Company officials will begin work on the Alabama site in 2021.
Company officials have not announced a start date for construction of the Lafayette store, which will be built on three acres east of the Walmart Supercenter on Ambassador Caffery Parkway. City officials approved a Curran Lane extension for the project earlier this year.
“Each new store is an opportunity to serve another community, which is an honor and a responsibility that we do not take lightly,” said Jason Hart, CEO of ALDI US. “As we continue to expand, we promise to do everything in our power to deliver the lowest prices every day without exception. In fact, as food costs rise across the country, we are lowering prices for hundreds of items to meet our customers’ growing need for savings. ”
The company, which currently does not have a store in Louisiana, recently purchased property in Baton Rouge for a store there and last year it acquired properties in Slidell and Jefferson Parish.
The German supermarket chain, which opened its first store in the US in 1976 and wants to be the third-largest grocery store in the country in 2022 behind Walmart and Kroger, specializes in fast-moving grocery items instead of the great variety that is sold in traditional supermarkets. A typical Aldi will carry around 1,300 items stored in four or five aisles with large boxes and no services like a pharmacy or a store bank.
The property is owned by the Hernandez Family Irrecovable Trust, which announced a 6,200-square-foot shopping mall under construction on the Ambassador Caffery Parkway in October that will feature up to five retail units along with a new location for La Hacienda Mexican Restaurant and Cantina.
Aldi also announced plans to open four stores in the Phoenix market, another part of its $ 5 billion investment in a multi-year national growth initiative to upgrade existing stores and open hundreds of new locations.
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