Aldi wades into supermarket war

GERMAN discount supermarket group Aldi is planning a £500m stores push in Britain.

The ninth-largest retailer in Europe, it wants to open up to 200 more stores here over the next five years in a move that is almost certain to intensify the cut-throat price war in the market.

Aldi has won a huge share of the German market and made its name by selling a small range of goods - around 800 compared with 30,000 at Tesco - for a third of the price of its rivals.

The group is run by the fiercely-private Albrecht brothers, Karl and Theo, whose mother founded the chain from a single corner store at the end of the Second World War. They regularly make the Forbes Rich List.

Despite registering £16bn in sales worldwide last year, Aldi has so far failed to make a big impact in Britain, where it has just 278 stores. Discounters make up just 3.4% of the UK market.

Aldi has been reviewing its range in the past four years and relocating stores to more-affluent areas in a bid to grab more shoppers.

But it faces a struggle to achieve this, given the fierce competition between Tesco and Asda that has already hit ailing rivals such as Iceland.