Aldi releases list of 30 sites where it wants to open stores – is one of them near you? 

Aldi has revealed it will be opening 40 new stores over the next year and has named ‘priority’ locations of where it wants 30 of the branches to be. 

The budget supermarket already has more than 990 stores and employs around 40,000 people but wants to reach 1,200 sites.

This year, it plans to open 40 new branches in the UK in a move expected to create 6,000 jobs, The Mirror reports. 

Aldi plans to invest more than £400 million in store development over the coming year as it targets new and refurbished stores across the UK, including in the Midlands, North West, North East, Yorkshire and coastal towns. 

Locations where it wants the new supermarkets to be include Birmingham, Liverpool, Oxford, Bath, Wigan, York and St Albans. Tunbridge Wells, Dorchester, Scarborough and Sunderland are also on the list. 

The budget supermarket already has more than 990 stores and employs around 40,000 people (stock image)

It says new stores are as a result of high demand for low cost groceries. 

Giles Hurley, Chief Executive Officer at Aldi UK, said: ‘Demand for Aldi has never been higher here are still some towns and areas that either don’t have access to an Aldi or have capacity for additional stores.

‘To meet that demand, we need to open more stores and it’s our mission to keep driving our ambitious expansion plan to achieve that.’

Aldi is on the lookout for suitable sites for the new stores and previously said it is targeting empty office blocks and new housing locations as well as freehold town-centre or edge-of-centre sites suitable for property development.

It said it needs sites with good visibility and access and around 100 dedicated parking spots. 

The supermarket offers a finder’s fee for agents who recommend a site, which is either 1.5 per cent of a freehold price or 10 per cent of the first year’s rent for leasehold sites. 

The supermarket is also currently recruiting for 450 jobs across its 11 Regional Distribution Centres around the UK. 

Store Assistants at Aldi receive a starting pay of £11.00 an hour nationally, rising to £11.90, and £12.45 rising to £12.75, within the M25, with the supermarket also paying for breaks. 

Aldi also said it recently increased pay rates for around 7,000 warehouse colleagues, with Warehouse Selectors now receiving a minimum starting salary of £13.18 per hour. 

The announcement comes after MailOnline reported that budget supermarket food, which millions have turned to through the cost of living crisis, is seeing average annual price rises of an astonishing 21.5 per cent.

The figures came from consumer champions at Which?, who say they demonstrate that it is the poorest households which are being worst hit by soaring food bills.

In January, the consumer champion’s price tracker analysed inflation on more than 25,000 food and drink products at eight major supermarkets – Aldi, Asda, Lidl, Morrisons, Ocado, Sainsbury’s, Tesco and Waitrose.

It found that overall inflation at the supermarket in January was at 15.9 per cent compared to the same calendar month last year, while the figure for value items rose 21.6 per cent.

Aldi and Lidl remain the cheapest supermarkets, however they are posting the fastest increase.

The Which? tracker found that prices were up by 23.6 per cent at Lidl and by 22.5 per cent at Aldi. 

An Aldi spokesperson earlier said: ‘We are working hard to shield shoppers from industry-wide inflation, and our promise to our customers is that we will always provide the lowest grocery prices in Britain. 

‘That’s why Which? named us as the cheapest supermarket in 2022 and why it has again confirmed that we were the lowest-priced in January 2023 as well.’