The shopping habits of British consumers have changed

When in April 1990 Aldi arrived in the United Kingdom, British supermarket chains were confident that they had nothing to worry about. Back in 2009 Aldi’s market share was still only 2 percent in the UK. However, slowly but steadily British shoppers started to frequent Aldi stores. Today two thirds of British households visit an Aldi or Lidl stores minimum once in every 12 weeks.

In 2007 Aldi took over Co-op in the UK and became the fifth biggest grocery retailer in the country. Currently Aldi’s market share is 7.5 percent. The fourth biggest player in the market is Morrisons with a 10.6-pecent market share. Lidl is at 5.3 percent at the moment – this share is bigger than that of British company Waitrose. The two discount supermarket chains keep expanding rapidly in the British market: on average one of them opens a new store every week.. //