Aldi in Russia

Aldi - the chain of hard discount grocery outlets - is coming to Russia. So says this story from a Russian Web site that notes Aldi registered its brand trademark in St. Petersburg in late February. Aldi has about 8,000 stores and about 7,000 in Europe alone.

Here is an insightful blog post about Aldi from a person who experienced Aldi as a status concious child and a penny pinching Mom. From Amy Clark:

My mom laughs at me praising Aldi at the top of my lungs because as a child I was completely mortified and embarrassed that our family had to shop there. I would pray that I would not run into a classmate, ironically who was probably shopping there for the same exact reason as our family, and felt such shame that we could not shop at "normal" stores like other families.

TK: It helps being older and wiser (not to mention richer or poorer) to appreciate the merits of Aldi.

Here is a Business Week story from 2004 asking if Aldi is "the next Wal-Mart?" Aldi clearly isn't done with the U.S.

Aldi aims to open 40 stores a year until 2010, bringing the U.S. total to 1,000. Aldi is even buying up sites from retailers trampled by Wal-Mart. "It is an uncharacteristic weakness of Wal-Mart that it has not recognized how formidable a foe Aldi is," warns Burt P. Flickinger III of New York City-based Strategic Resource Group, a retailing and consumer goods consultant. He expects Aldi to have as much as 2% of the U.S. grocery market by the end of the decade, up from 0.65% now.