Aldi eyes expansion in Britain

Budget supermarket Aldi is aiming to boost its presence in Britain, a senior manager said on Tuesday, as the firm bids to take advantage of more cautious consumers amid the economic crisis. Aldi, which already operates close to 500 supermarkets in Britain, expects to open between 35 and 40 new stores annually in the years to come, joint managing director Roman Heini told the Financial Times Deutschland. On the British high street since 1990, the group opened 29 new shops there in 2011 and hopes to open 40 more by the end of next year, with a total investment of £181 million (226 million euros), Heini added. Aldi is aiming to profit from a recession in Britain by attracting shoppers to its "hard discount" products, the FTD noted. But the notoriously media-shy firm is also hoping to pull in more discerning consumers, offering for example, bottles of wine for up to £25. Britain fell into recession at the end of 2011 and shrank by 0.4 percent in the second quarter of this year but analysts expect the economy to be back in the black in the third three months of the year.