While the major supermarkets dozed, convinced that many people would not be seen dead in a discount store, the German chains quietly turned the sector on its head. By 2009 вЂ“ after nearly two decades вЂ“ AldiвЂ™s market share was just 2%, similar to that of Lidl, its German rival and imitator, which had launched in Britain soon after Aldi.Д«ut today, the boasts of Tesco and SainsburyвЂ™s read like a classic example of business hubris. German shoppers, notoriously, took this to extremes: one of the countryвЂ™s biggest electronics retailers, Saturn, even adopted вЂњThriftiness is sexyвЂќ as a marketing slogan. In 1999, when Walmart bought Asda, the UKвЂ™s third biggest grocery chain, the Financial Times noted that Aldi had made вЂњlittle impact in BritainвЂќ because customers were not as price-sensitive as Americans or continental Europeans. вЂњWe can live quite happily in our part of the market and they can live in theirs.вЂќДЇor a long time it looked like he was correct. вЂњWe welcome the advent of Aldi and others to come,вЂќ said Tesco managing director David Malpas. SainsburyвЂ™s remarked on the absence of service, which was important to British customers. The British supermarket giants, whose 7% profit margins were the worldвЂ™s highest, were even more dismissive. вЂњOne looks in vain for avocados or kiwi fruit.вЂќ When a reporter from the Times visited an Aldi store in Birmingham the following year, he thought it represented the вЂњanonymous, slightly alarming face of 1990s grocery shoppingвЂќ, without any pretence of sophistication. The Albrechts had an extremely popular chain of bleak discount stories in Germany: the brothers had divided the country into separate fiefs, with each controlling the market in one half of the territory.Д«ut most people were confident they would fail in Britain, where there was a discernible snobbery about discount stores. Most news reports noted merely that the company belonged to a frugal and spectacularly rich pair of German brothers, Karl and Theo Albrecht, who had both fought in the second world war and whose desire for privacy had reached extremes after TheoвЂ™s high-profile kidnapping for ransom in 1970s. Information on AldiвЂ™s owners was as limited as the decor. Customers seeking itemised receipts left disappointed. The store accepted cash but not cheques or cards. The checkout assistants, who had been trained to memorise the price of every item in the store, were so fast that shoppers experienced what some would come to call вЂњAldi panicвЂќ вЂ“ the fear that you cannot pack your goods quickly enough.

A ВЈ1 deposit allowed you to borrow a trolley but there were no baskets. Strip lights illuminated the 185 sq metre store, and from the ceiling hung banners listing prices for the goods stacked on wooden pallets or displayed in torn-open cardboard boxes on metal shelves. The managers of this new shop, which was called Aldi, had not bothered to place a single advert announcing its arrival вЂ“ not even an вЂњOpening soonвЂќ sign outside the store. To shoppers accustomed to the abundance of Tesco and SainsburyвЂ™s, which dominated the British grocery sector with thousands of products and brands, delicatessens, vast fridges and aisles piled high with fresh fruit and vegetables, the range would have seemed dismal. For many products, including butter, tea and ketchup, only a single, usually unfamiliar brand was offered. It only stocked 600 basic items вЂ“ fewer than you might find in your local corner shop today вЂ“ all at very low prices.

O n a Thursday morning in April 1990, in the suburb of Stechford in Birmingham, a strange grocery chain started trading in the UK.

Aldl in cars