Supermarket chain Aldi are looking increasingly like they want to take the UK’s biggest supermarkets. The budget supermarket has planned to open up 2.5 million sq ft of warehouse space to satisfy what it expects to be future demand.
Aldi’s warehouse expansion is going against the grain of current demand with only Asda looking seeking planning permission for a warehouse in 2014. The warehouse space they were planning was considerably less at 115,120 sq ft than that planned by Aldi.

According to Barbour ABI’s construction data, there have been planning applications for a 890,789 sq ft so far in 2015 with Aldi accounting for 645,835 sq ft of that total.

Competition seems to be heating up in the supermarket sector with consumers increasingly opting for what they perceive as good value. The big supermarkets are finding it hard to compete with the low prices offered by some of their smaller rivals.

All this of course is good news for consumers who will benefit from price wars between the supermarkets. Aldi’s decision to add more warehousing demonstrates a growing confidence in the future of its operations.
In contrast some of the bigger supermarkets are closing down their smaller stores and refocusing their efforts on competing with each other as well as smaller supermarkets chains such as Aldi and Lidl.