Aldi Plots 225-Store Expansion After Buying Winn-Dixie, Sells 170 Stores Back To Former Owner
Aldi is planning a major expansion while it sells some stores it purchased in 2023 back to prior owners.
Aldi plans to open 225 new stores in 2025, which the company said is the fastest expansion in the company’s history. Part of the growth will come from new store openings while others will be conversions of Winn-Dixie and Harvey’s Supermarket locations.
Aldi acquired the two chains, which operate about 400 locations across the American South, in 2023. Roughly 220 of those stores will be converted to Aldi locations, while a group that includes the former owner of Winn-Dixie and Harvey’s is buying roughly 170 stores that won’t be converted back from Aldi.
C&S Wholesale Grocers and Southeastern Grocers have already reassumed day-to-day operations of the locations it repurchased.
"When we announced our acquisition of Southeastern Grocers, we shared that we intended for a meaningful number of Winn-Dixie and Harveys Supermarkets to continue to operate, and we're delivering on that promise while also supporting ALDI growth,” Jason Hard, the company’s CEO, said in a statement.
Aldi will convert and reopen 100 Winn-Dixie and Harveys locations by the end of 2025 with the remaining conversions set to be completed by 2027. Southeastern Grocers is operating the stores slated for conversion on behalf of Aldi ahead of their temporary closures.
Aldi plans to continue growing along the East Coast and Midwest while also pushing into new markets like Las Vegas. Last March, it said it was plotting a $9B expansion that would see 800 new locations open by the end of 2028.
The shuffling of stores and strategies follows the collapsed $25B merger of competing grocery chains Kroger and Albertsons that would have seen C&S Wholesale Grocers buy 579 locations from those chains for $2.9B in cash.
Those stores were to be sold to help assuage the antitrust concerns of federal regulators and consumer advocacy groups.
The Federal Trade Commission sued to block the merger, and the deal collapsed dramatically in December when Albertsons sued Kroger for more than $600M for breach of contract. Kroger has called the lawsuit baseless and the case continues to wind its way through the court.
Executives at the grocers didn’t cite the failed merger as part of the genesis of the latest moves. But C&S CEO Eric Winn said the store buybacks were part of its aggressive growth strategy.
“Our unrelenting focus on long-term growth continues with an exciting opportunity for C&S to invest in and collaborate deeply with the retail market,” Winn said.
