German supermarket giant Aldi opened its third store in Brooklyn last week, this one at Flatbush Junction, as the European emporium of eats continues its march through the city and country.
The 20,000-square-foot store at the Triangle Junction shopping center, 1628 Flatbush Ave., is the grocery store chain’s eighth location in the city; in Brooklyn, there are also locations in Sheepshead Bay and at the Gateway Mall in East New York. Aldi now has locations in each borough except for Staten Island.
The store opened on Sept. 2, the morning after New York faced historic rainfall and flooding which killed 13 people and caused tens of millions of dollars in property damage. Despite that, a company representative said that the opening went on as planned, sans impact from the hurricane. The store will be open from 9 am to 9 pm every day.
The new Brooklyn store is part of what the company calls an “aggressive national expansion” to expand its US footprint: it currently operates over 2,000 stores in 37 states and says it’s on track to be the country’s third-largest grocer, behind Walmart and Kroger, by the end of 2022.
The company, founded in 1946 by German brothers Karl and Theo Albrecht, has been in the US since 1976 but has expanded aggressively in the past decade and change. Since 2017, the company has spent billions of dollars on expansion, aiming to operate 2,500 stores in the US by the end of next year. Aldi also owns Trader Joe’s, which has 16 stores in the city including three in Brooklyn.
As with TJ’s, Aldi is known for eschewing most major brands and mainly selling items made under its own in-house labeling at discount prices.
