The chain broke ground for a $40-million distribution center in Haines City and mapped its first 25 stores in Central Florida, including the first seven in the Tampa Bay area.
"You can expect to see a lot more," said David Behm, Florida division vice president of the Batavia, Ill., chain. Aldi is the bigger corporate cousin of Trader Joe's, a more eclectic style of budget-priced food store that has moved as far into the Southeast as Atlanta.
While Trader Joe's is a West Coast phenomenon that in recent years brought more easy-to-make meals east into trendy, urban neighborhoods of New York and Washington, D.C., 900-store Aldi grew out of the Midwest as a no-frills option more for the meat-and-potatoes set.
Potted flowers are another signature item. Aldi's version of Trader Joe's $2 Charles Shaw Wine "Two Buck Chuck" to the cognoscente is Winking Owl priced at $2.49 a bottle.
Claiming prices about 15 percent below Wal-Mart or Target Supercenters, the chain is among the few to flourish right in the face of discount store supercenters. It's drugstore-sized stores stock 1 percent of the selection of a Wal-Mart in a tenth of the space.
"We want to be close to where most people shop," said Behm.
Aldi enters a Florida food market fighting to stabilize as Wal-Mart continues to challenge the traditional four big players and feisty natural/gourmet food retailers try to pick off more high-end shoppers.