German discount grocer Aldi announced plans today (Jan. 12) to open 50 stores during the next five years in Colorado Springs and Denver and a distribution center in Aurora as part of a $9 billion expansion plan to open 180 stores this year.
Aldi has been among the most requested retailers to expand into Colorado in recent years, based on surveys and reports by multiple media outlets. The chain would add another major competitor to the state’s crowded grocery market that already includes Kroger subsidiary King Soopers, Safeway, Target and Walmart as well as premium players like Sprouts, Natural Grocers and Amazon’s Whole Foods Market unit.
“One in three U.S. households shopped at ALDI this past year, and in 2026 we’re focused on making it even easier for customers to shop our aisles first,” Aldi U.S. CEO Atty McGrath, said in a news release on the expansion. “That means bringing ALDI to even more neighborhoods, upgrading our website and planning additional distribution centers to keep our shelves stocked with the products our shoppers love.”
Aldi plans to boost its store count by 400 to 3,200 by 2028 through expansions into Colorado, Las Vegas, Maine and Phoenix as well as converting nearly 80 Southeastern Grocers locations to the Aldi format. Aldi acquired Southeastern Grocers, owners of the Winn-Dixie and Harvey’s chains, in 2024 but last year sold off the stores to a consortium including Southeastern’s CEO and C&S Wholesale Grocers.
Aldi plans to open the Aurora distribution center in 2029 and two others in Jacksonville, Fla., and Phoenix in 2027 and 2028, respectively that each will employ hundreds of people, the release said. Testimony in Colorado’s antitrust lawsuit to stop the now canceled Kroger-Albertson’s merger revealed that Aldi made an unsuccessful bid to acquire Safeway stores Kroger was trying to sell.
“These strategic investments are all about making sure customers can continue to count on us for the quality, affordable groceries and enjoyable shopping experience they love,” McGrath said in the release. “As we look ahead to our next 50 years in the U.S., we’ll continue to earn shopper loyalty by staying true to what’s made ALDI successful: keeping things simple and delivering real value.”
Aldi traces its roots to 1913, when the mother of the company’s founders, brothers Karl and Theo Albrecht, opened a small store in Essen. They took over their mother’s store in 1945 and began expanding internationally in 1967 and into the U.S. in Iowa in 1976. Aldi acquired Trader Joe’s (which operates a store in University Village Colorado in Colorado Springs, in 1979 and now operates more than 13,000 stores in 18 countries.