latimes.com Theo Albrecht dies at 88; German billionaire was co-owner of Trader Joe's Albrecht and brother Karl built their fortunes on Germany's worldwide discount supermarket chain Aldi. A family trust bought Trader Joe's in 1979. Times Wire Services
July 29, 2010
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Theo Albrecht, the secretive co-founder of Germany's worldwide discount supermarket chain Aldi, a co-owner of Trader Joe's in the United States and one of Europe's richest men, has died. He was 88.
The retail machine that Albrecht built with his brother Karl has won over German consumers with their no-thrills but super-cheap offerings, making billionaires of the two and spawning imitation discount stores across Europe.
The company's Aldi Nord division said in a statement Wednesday that Albrecht was the driving force behind Aldi's internationalization, expanding stores to France, Spain, Portugal, Poland and the United States, among other nations.
The company said he died Saturday in his hometown of Essen, Germany, but gave no cause of death.
Even that bare-bones statement marked unusual openness for a company known for its extreme secrecy.
When Forbes featured the brothers in 1992 as two of the world's richest men, the magazine had to use silhouettes rather than photographs to illustrate the article since no pictures of them had been published in many years.
Albrecht was born in Essen in 1922. He and his elder brother Karl both served as German soldiers in World War II and then returned home and took over a grocery store their parents owned.
They flourished as the German economy, in shambles after the war, came back to life in what is often called the "economic miracle."
By 1950, they were already running 13 stores and five years later, they had expanded throughout Germany's western industrial Ruhr basin.
The first Aldi stores - an acronym standing for "Albrecht Discount" - opened in the early 1960s. Those stores were the building blocks of one of Germany's largest food retail chains with a focus on a limited range of goods at bargain-basement prices.
In 1979, a family trust established by Theo Albrecht bought the U.S. specialty grocery chain Trader Joe's from founder Joseph Coulombe. In 1967 he had turned his Pronto convenience stores into Trader Joe's and opened the first one in Pasadena.
In keeping with Aldi's culture of secrecy, Monrovia-based Trader Joe's refused Wednesday to comment on Albrecht or Aldi, even refusing to confirm that the chain is owned by the Albrecht family. The business information provider Hoover's confirms that the billionaire brothers bought the U.S. company in 1979. The chain now has 342 outlets and last year had sales of about $8 billion.
Albrecht quietly managed Aldi Nord until 1993, when he stepped back from its day-to-day operations. But he still wielded huge influence as chairman of a foundation that holds the biggest stake in the company.
The publicity-shy Albrecht kept a very low profile. In 1971, he was kidnapped in Germany and released after 17 days after paying a ransom of about $2 million. The kidnappers were caught but half the ransom was never recovered. Albrecht went to court to have the ransom accepted as a business deduction for tax reasons.
Besides his brother, Albrecht is survived by his wife and two sons.
> Theo Albrecht, the secretive co-founder of Germany's worldwide discount > supermarket chain Aldi, a co-owner of Trader Joe's in the United States > and one of Europe's richest men, has died. He was 88.
It's not so secretive; it's been on Wikipedia for years.
How many here have shopped both ALDI and Trader Joe's?
Talk about two different experiences! But in an odd way, ALDI's kinda fun with their "deposit a quarter" grocery carts, and items stacked low-level on pallets. Cheap, but better quality than I expected.
> latimes.com > Theo Albrecht dies at 88; German billionaire was co-owner of Trader Joe's > Albrecht and brother Karl built their fortunes on Germany's worldwide > discount supermarket chain Aldi. A family trust bought Trader Joe's in > 1979. > Times Wire Services
> July 29, 2010
> Theo Albrecht, the secretive co-founder of Germany's worldwide discount > supermarket chain Aldi, a co-owner of Trader Joe's in the United States > and one of Europe's richest men, has died. He was 88.
> The retail machine that Albrecht built with his brother Karl has won over > German consumers with their no-thrills but super-cheap offerings, making > billionaires of the two and spawning imitation discount stores across > Europe.
It's no-frills shopping, to be sure, but I guess we're also denied the thrills? Aw, shucks!
> The publicity-shy Albrecht kept a very low profile. In 1971, he was > kidnapped in Germany and released after 17 days after paying a ransom of > about $2 million. The kidnappers were caught but half the ransom was never > recovered. Albrecht went to court to have the ransom accepted as a > business deduction for tax reasons.
Wonder if he got it. Kind of hope he did.
I've never been to a Trader Joe's though I've heard of it. I like shopping at Aldi and in Missouri (where I lived from 1981 to 2002) and New Jersey (2002-2009) the stores were either in the same town or a neighboring town and I shopped there often. Here in Iowa the closest one is about 25 miles away and I've only been there once in the 11 months I've lived here.
On Jul 29, 4:42 pm, "Nell" <nellybl...@is.invalid> wrote:
> I've never been to a Trader Joe's though I've heard of it.
Most items are priced at around $2.50 for some reason. Frozen foods all seem to contain peas as a main ingredient; okay if you actually like frozen peas. Great tortilla chips, go for the hempseed variety. TJ's habanero-lime salsa is to murder for.
| Avoid Two-Buck Chuck; that's nasty stuff (although we're letting | some age for a few years in the wine rack, just to see if it | becomes drinkable). | | Kris
It will probably get even worse if that's possible. I tried some once and had to pour it down the drain.
In the previous article, Kris Baker <parallelcoo...@ggmail.com> wrote:
> > I've been to one, once. Feh.
> World's. Best. Dark Chocolate. Covered. Almonds. > Excellent frozen foods. > Good fresh grocery.
Quite a good wine selection. AMAZING hand cream that's a hell of a lot better than Lubriderm, and costs about a quarter what that stuff does.
Yes, I've also shopped at many ALDI stores over the years. Can't remember where, exactly, the places I've lived are starting to blend into one another. I always liked ALDI. -- _+_ From the catapult of |If anyone objects to any statement I make, I am _|70|___:)=}- J.D. Baldwin |quite prepared not only to retract it, but also \ / bald...@panix.com|to deny under oath that I ever made it.-T. Lehrer ***~~~~-------------------------------------------------------------------- --
: On Jul 29, 4:42?pm, "Nell" <nellybl...@is.invalid> wrote: :> :> I've never been to a Trader Joe's though I've heard of it. : : Most items are priced at around $2.50 for some reason. : Frozen foods all seem to contain peas as a main ingredient; : okay if you actually like frozen peas. Great tortilla chips, : go for the hempseed variety. TJ's habanero-lime salsa : is to murder for.
There's a Trader Joe's not too far away...never seen an Aldi.
-=-=- The World Trade Center towers MUST rise again, at least as tall as before...or terror has triumphed.
In the previous article, Terry del Fuego <t_del_fu...@hotmail.com> wrote:
> Not much in the way of produce.
The ones in Chicago have a pretty good selection of the basics. Not much exotic stuff. I doubt then-Senator Obama got a lot of arugula at Trader Joe's.
> I finally gave in a couple weeks ago and tried a bottle of merlot.
I am a serious anti-merlot snob, but on my last visit East, my in-laws cracked open a bottle of something called Bettinelli merlot. It was amazing. -- _+_ From the catapult of |If anyone objects to any statement I make, I am _|70|___:)=}- J.D. Baldwin |quite prepared not only to retract it, but also \ / bald...@panix.com|to deny under oath that I ever made it.-T. Lehrer ***~~~~-------------------------------------------------------------------- --
> How many here have shopped both ALDI and Trader Joe's?
Never been to ALDI (although there is one about 10 blocks away) but I have driven the 110 miles to Cleveland to shop Trader Joe's. Cola made with cane sugar ... and pita chips.
I was in Los Angeles in June ... and when I left, I packed a suitcase with stuff from Trader Joe's.
Previously on alt.obituaries (Thu, 29 Jul 2010 16:24:31 -0700 (PDT) to be exact), kafkaesque <ell...@gmail.com> wrote thusly:
>We aren't at a loss for food here in the city, but we don't have >affordable groceries. So the opening of a new store that has >moderately priced food is a big thrill.
Back in the days when I was involved in buying and selling organic foods, one of our suppliers was a lovely old rascal named Chico. He not only supplied our Back To Eden warehouses with organic produce, but would also treat me and my partners with the most beautiful table grapes imaginable.
Chico was an Italian-American and his gardens, orchard, cheesemaking room and vineyard were up on a flat plataue above Zuma Beach in Malibu, CA. His grapes were far too expensive for us to buy for resale, but we were sometimes able to buy some of the "seconds" for our own consumption. The reason they were so expensive was that all of his "premium" grapes were bought a premium prices for sale in New York City.
In addition to being plump and sweet, the fact that they were grown so close to the sea meant that they also had a slight salty taste which made them unique. So his grapes were always in high demand. In fact, nearly ALL of the best California produce was sent back to New York City.
********
"No, I was premature by almost 2 mo., so I was born with the defect. It hasn't helped me any, so you don't have to rub it in, you POS."
> Not so. His social skills suck because he's just fucking > nuts. Normal looking 50+ guy, who is bald.
"Not completely bald, you ignoramus! Didn't I tell you I look like Larry (Fine) with most of the hair from the sides, but a little still on top."
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