Mobile shoppers will soon have a third ALDI location to choose from, with the discount grocery chain set to open a new store on Airport Boulevard on Wednesday, Sept. 21.
The new store adds to a wave of ALDI expansion across the Mobile area this year. The Airport Boulevard location follows a store on Schillinger Road that opened June 30 and another in Tillman’s Corner that opened March 3, bringing the company’s Mobile County footprint to three stores in a matter of months.
ALDI, a German-founded grocer with more than 2,000 stores nationwide, has built its business around a no-frills, low-cost shopping model. Shoppers pay a quarter deposit to unlock shopping carts, which is refunded when the cart is returned, and customers bag their own groceries at checkout. The company leans heavily on private-label products rather than name brands, a strategy it credits for keeping prices below many traditional supermarkets.
The growth in Mobile County is part of a larger regional buildout tied to a $100 million ALDI distribution center in Loxley. The company announced the Gulf Coast expansion in July 2020, and construction on the Baldwin County facility began in February 2021. Once fully operational, the distribution hub is expected to support as many as 100 new ALDI stores across Alabama, Georgia, the Florida panhandle and Mississippi, with roughly 35 of those stores slated to be built and running by the end of this year.
The Loxley project marked ALDI’s first major investment in Baldwin County, and stores have since opened in Daphne, Foley and just across the state line in Pensacola. The Airport Boulevard opening extends that footprint back into Mobile, a corridor that has already seen significant grocery and retail investment in recent years.
Along with the new storefront, ALDI is looking to staff up. The company’s hiring portal lists a number of full- and part-time openings tied to the new location, including store associate positions starting at $15 an hour and warehouse roles beginning at $19 an hour. Local job seekers interested in applying can check ALDI’s careers site for current listings ahead of the store’s opening.
For now, the Sept. 21 opening date gives Mobile residents on the east side of town another option for grocery shopping close to home, joining a growing list of discount and specialty grocers that have entered the local market in recent years.