Tesco, Aldi UK battle on prices as Aldi posts record sales

U.K. retailer Aldi achieved a new sales record in 2022, and its competitor Tesco announced it will price-match more than 600 staple products on a wide range of food items.

Not long after announcing it would open 500 additional stores in the U.K., Aldi said its annual sales increased by nearly GBP 2 billion (USD 2.4 billion, EUR 2.3 billion) to reach GBP 15.5 billion (USD 19.9 billion, EUR 17.8 billion) in 2022 – a new record in its 33-year history. The Atherstone Warwickshire, U.K.-based company also recently opened its 1,000th store.

“Although inflation is easing, households are still under real pressure from higher living costs. As a result, Britain is shopping very differently to how it did 18 months ago – fewer trips, more own-label products, and switching supermarkets in search of better value,” Aldi UK and Ireland Chief Executive Officer Giles Hurley said.

Aldi executives are seeing “a new generation of savvy shoppers who’ve turned their backs on traditional, full-price supermarkets in favor of transparent, low prices, which is what we’re famous for,” Hurley said. “That’s why we’re still welcoming more and more customers through our doors – people who come to us for our low prices but stay for the award-winning quality of our exclusive brands.”

In fact, Aldi UK has attracted around 1 million more customers to its stores over the past year, the company said. Aldi UK overtook Morrisons last year to become Britain’s fourth-biggest supermarket, and two-thirds of British households now shop at its stores.

Over the next two years, Aldi is hiking its investment to GBP 1.4 billion (USD 1.7 billion, EUR 1.6 billion) in new and improved stores and distribution centers, "creating thousands of jobs for our colleagues and more opportunities for our 5,000 British suppliers,” Hurley noted.

Meanwhile, Welwyn Garden City, U.K.-based Tesco plc is locking the price of more than a thousand everyday products until 2024 and is price-matching more than 600 staple products to Aldi weekly.  

“We know that this has been a year of budgeting carefully for shoppers, with customers wanting to make sure they are getting great value on their shop,” Tesco UK CEO Jason Terry said. “By locking more than 1,000 prices, our customers know exactly how much they will pay for those items today, at Halloween, at Christmas, and into 2024.”

Price reductions span a wide range of food and non-food items, including toilet paper, the company said.

Tesco did not respond to a request for comment from SeafoodSource. 

Photo courtesy of Tesco