Aldi plans £900m investment and 40 new stores in 2027

Aldi said on Monday it plans to invest £900m in 2027 to open 40 stores and continue work on its distribution network. The expansion would extend its reach as households face pressure from food costs, according to the supermarket. It is a plan for next year: the announced spending and openings have yet to take place.

The company currently operates 1,092 stores in the UK and Ireland. Its £900m commitment covers both shops and distribution centres, but Aldi did not give a breakdown of how much would go to each. The Guardian reported that the planned investment is about £100m more than this year’s level.

Where Aldi plans to expand

Before the 2027 programme begins, Aldi expects to open 30 stores in the 10 weeks following the announcement. It named Dumbarton, Newport and Willesden in London among the locations. Those near-term openings are distinct from the 40 stores included in its plan for next year.

Aldi has also set a longer-term goal of 1,500 stores. It says its expansion will focus on communities where limited local choice or competition makes affordable groceries harder to access. The company has not established in this announcement when it will reach that larger target.

Sales rose while profit edged down

The investment announcement came alongside results for the year ended 31 December 2025. Aldi reported turnover of £19bn, a 5% increase from the previous year and a record for the business. It said more customers bought more products across its expanding store network.

Operating profit was £432.9m, compared with £435.5m in 2024, a decline of £2.6m. Aldi described profit as broadly flat. Its operating margin narrowed from 2.4% to 2.3%, which the company attributed to spending on lower prices, infrastructure and staff pay. The Independent separately reported that pre-tax profit fell 3.8% to £400.5m.

The sales figure does not show how much growth came from existing shops. The Guardian reported that Aldi does not publish sales performance for stores open longer than a year, making it difficult to separate the contribution of new locations from growth at established ones. That limits what can be concluded about underlying store performance from the record turnover figure alone.

Aldi cited Kantar Worldpanel data through 6 September 2026 that put its share of the UK grocery market at 10.6%. The company’s share figure is an estimate drawn from industry data; it is separate from the annual turnover and profit figures in Aldi’s results.

Prices and suppliers in the plan

Aldi said it had invested £340m in price reductions on more than 1,000 products so far in 2026, including orange juice, butter, fresh meat and frozen fish. It pledged further cuts before Christmas. Those are company figures and commitments; the announcement does not measure their effect on a typical household’s total grocery bill.

Hurley said food costs remain a major pressure on households. He argued that droughts in Britain and events overseas have exposed weaknesses in food supply, and called food security a long-term national priority. Aldi presented its store investment, price cuts and supplier agreements as parts of its response.

The supermarket said it aims to source at least half its products through long-term supplier agreements by 2027. It says such contracts could give producers more confidence to invest in domestic production. That is a stated aim; the sources do not establish how much additional output the agreements will produce.

Aldi said it spent £14bn with British suppliers in 2025 and that around 80% of its sales came from them. It also said all its everyday fresh beef, pork and poultry came from British farms. These figures describe its existing supplier relationships, while the 2027 contract target describes what it still intends to do.

The next measurable steps are the 30 stores Aldi expects to open in the coming weeks and, later, the delivery of its 2027 spending and 40-store target. The announced programme gives no guarantee that every proposed site will secure approval or open on schedule.