VIROQUA, Wis. – A long line of customers circled the parking lot of the new Viroqua ALDI store for a Grand Opening on Thursday. The first 100 customers received giveaways and were eligible for various prizes.
We first reported on the announcement that ALDI would be coming to Viroqua back in March. At that time Viroqua Mayor Justin Running told us the companies goal was to have the store open by the end of the year, and they made that deadline by more than a month.
Running said he worked closely with company representatives over several months last spring to clear some hurdles to make the deal happen, but he said he is pleased that consumers will have another choice.
“I think with the closing of the Quillin’s store people were worried about the options,” said Running. “I am so excited to have them here and be able to offer another options for shoppers in Viroqua.”
Running said the company was great to work with from the city’s perspective and “wanted to be here.”
Doug Young is Operations Manager for ALDI and said they are thrilled to be in Viroqua and their strategy has always been to bring high quality products at the lowest price.
ALDI seems to be a natural fit for the area based on their market strategy. The company has a history of building new stores and recently announced it plans to invest about $9 billion to build 800 new stores in the U.S. in the next five years with about 300 of them in the Midwest. The company currently has about 2,400 stores in the United States.
ALDI is a German company that started after World War II and has expanded worldwide using a model of high quality at discount prices. ALDI stores average around 12,000 square feet. At that size their stores are much smaller than a typical US supermarket of about 40,000 square feet, and more than 90 percent of the brands Aldi sells are its own private labels.
Industry articles related to the recent spike in grocery prices combined with the federal government’s focus on cracking down on price gouging indicate the company may be in a sweet spot of quality, selection, and pricing.
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