Denver’s grocery landscape is constantly evolving, with new store openings, expansions and several closures.
Despite a strong call for a store in Colorado, and aggressive expansion plans by the company, supermarket chain ALDI says it won’t be opening a location here anytime soon.
A recent survey from financial media company MarketBeat found that Coloradans overwhelmingly want ALDI to enter the state, highlighting rising food costs and broader cost-of-living pressures.
This desire comes as discount and specialty grocers gain momentum and consumer grocery shopping habits evolve as they search for lower grocery prices post-pandemic, according to JLL’s 2025 Grocery report.
The German-based discount chain has added more than 2.3 million square feet through 105 new stores in the U.S.
Just not in Colorado.
ALDI’s foot traffic rose from an average of 600 million visits between 2019 and 2021 to more than 900 million in 2024, a 51.2% increase, the report stated. Specialty chains such as Trader Joe’s have also benefited from this trend, with visits reaching nearly 390 million in 2024, a 24.7% rise from 2019.
For shoppers who have lived near an ALDI store, affordability is the draw as prices for overall food in the U.S. are predicted to increase 2.7% in 2026, according to data from the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Food Price Outlook.
Highlands Ranch resident William Spencer, who first discovered the supermarket chain 16 years ago in northern Georgia, said ALDI became a staple for his family.
Although his first visit felt “disorganized” with long checkout lines, a later trip changed his mind. He said he noticed more staff, the addition of self-checkouts and smoother operations, along with noticeably lower prices than Publix or Kroger.
For example, Spencer said stuffed cheese-filled olives cost nearly $10 at a specialty store, but at ALDI, they were $3.89.
“ALDI is sorely missed by us for the six months we’re in Colorado,” Spencer said, who spends half the year in Florida and shops at one of the ALDI stores there.
“Occasionally, I’ll go into a Safeway, a King Soopers, but they’re all overpriced, every one of them. If ALDI can deliver, there’s just no excuse for our big box, famous King Soopers and Safeway not to be able to do the same thing.”
King Soopers spokesperson Jessica Trowbridge offered pushback on the notion that the chain isn’t competitive in its pricing.
“We’ve been Colorado’s family grocer since 1947 due to our ability to be dynamic in any operational environment, while meeting our customers’ evolving needs,” she said.
“King Soopers has a proven history of providing value to our customers through compelling promotional offers that meet their expectations and stretches their dollar.”
Representatives from Safeway did not respond to requests for comment.
Where is ALDI?
Littleton resident George Sato shares the same sentiments as Spencer and said ALDI needs to step up the pace.
“Their expansion is just too slow. They should have been here by now,” he said.
“The longer the wait, the more difficult it is to gain market share from established competitors like Safeway and King Soopers, or even Walmart or Target.”
Rumors about ALDI scouting Colorado locations have circulated for years, fueled by community chatter on social media and speculation on vacant real estate sites. But none have materialized.
Earlier this year, speculation intensified when a site at 2839 S. College Ave. in Fort Collins was believed to be an ALDI.
The location will instead become a Natural Grocers.
“We acquired the property earlier this year and are currently working through the planning process. While we don’t have an estimated completion date yet, we’ll continue operating at our current Fort Collins location through 2026,” said Katie Macarelli, director of public relations for Natural Grocers.
“When the time comes to relocate, the new store will follow the same thoughtful approach we bring to all our relocations, remodels and grand openings. Vigilant about our environmental impact, we’ll be upgrading the existing space using sustainable building features and energy-saving innovations, such as non-toxic building materials and 100% LED lighting.”
The store will also feature a contemporary design layout, Macarelli said.
An ALDI spokesperson told The Post in an October email that no Colorado stores are currently planned, and the company did not respond to additional questions about its expansion plans.
ALDI has not said why it has avoided Colorado, but geography, location availability and company priorities may be a factor.
“There’s really no regional supply chain footprint here yet, I think that is a major driver,” said Lauren Chenarides, assistant professor in the Department of Agricultural and Resource Economics at Colorado State University.
She said ALDI uses a “hub and spoke” system similar to Walmart, meaning the company establishes a regional warehouse and then opens clusters of stores around it.
Research from Johns Hopkins University notes that large supermarkets, chain restaurants and food service providers for schools, hospitals, and other institutions depend on distributors to help supply the wide range of foods and ingredients they need to operate.
Without a regional warehouse, supplying Colorado stores would be costly and inefficient, according to Chenarides. Transportation is also a major operating cost, and long distances between stores and distribution centers can drive up consumer prices.
ALDI has 26 divisions across the country, according to its website. The closest distribution centers to Colorado is in Moreno Valley, Calif., which serves Arizona and California, and Denton, Texas. Arizona has 15 stores, California 109 and Texas 129.
Chenarides said if ALDI’s main business goal is keeping costs and prices low, it needs to keep its own operating costs low as well.
“Being far away from the California distribution center, being far away from the Texas distribution centers, would impact their ability to serve the state of Colorado efficiently,” she said.
So, entering a new market like Colorado is more complex that just opening a new store.
As a specialty discount grocer, ALDI’s criteria for a new grocery store typically include about 22,000 square feet of space, a minimum of 95 parking spots, a 2.5-acre development pad, zoning that permits grocery use, convenient access to community and regional shopping districts, daily traffic counts exceeding 20,000 and additional site-specific requirements.
Nationally, ALDI continues to expand. Earlier this year, the company announced plans to open more than 225 new stores this year. This is the most it has added in a single year in its nearly 50-year history in the U.S., according to a February news release.
The openings are part of a five-year growth strategy to build 800 stores by 2028, supported in part by its acquisition of Southeastern Grocers.
About 220 Southeastern Grocers locations will be converted into ALDI stores through 2027, while roughly 170 Winn-Dixie and Harveys Supermarket stores that are not part of the ALDI conversion plan were divested to a consortium to streamline the company’s Southern portfolio.
“Converting the remaining locations to the ALDI format is critically important to our nationwide commitment to help shoppers fill their carts with quality groceries for less,” said former ALDI CEO Jason Hart in a news release earlier this year.
“As shoppers continue to feel sticker shock at the checkout, the value ALDI delivers cannot be beat.”
Grand openings for the first several converted Southeastern Grocers stores are underway. About 100 converted locations are set to reopen as ALDI stores by the end of 2025.
The company is also expanding in the Northeast and Midwest, adding more stores in Southern California and Arizona, and entering new markets such as Las Vegas.
“I don’t think it’s anything that Colorado lacks,” Chenarides said, explaining that ALDI has been concentrating on areas with faster population growth.
She pointed to places like Arizona’s Maricopa County, where “population growth is skyrocketing,” and said that the influx of people from California helps explain why the company is targeting those markets before Colorado.
She also mentioned ALDI’s recent growth in the Southeast and its acquisition of Winn-Dixie and Harveys, which she said play a significant role in shaping the company’s expansion strategy.
Overall, she said, the company has “been busy elsewhere and hasn’t been able to devote their time here yet.”
Founded in Germany in 1913 and launching its first U.S. store in Iowa in 1976, ALDI now operates thousands of stores in more than 10 countries. The supermarket chain said more than one-in-four American households shop at ALDI, which is double the amount from just six years ago.
Today, the chain operates more than 2,600 locations across 40 states, and expects to reach nearly 3,200 U.S. locations by 2028. Whether any of those stores will finally land in Colorado, however, remains an open question.
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