The Only US States Without A Single Aldi Location

When my husband first brought up the idea of moving to northern Alabama, the first thing I asked him was, "They have Aldi there, right?" Indeed, the Southern state has several of America's fastest growing and cheapest grocery store locations. If you're like me, you know that the European-based company is life-changing when it comes to your grocery budget, and I'd have a really hard time finding a suitable substitute if I were suddenly living in a state that didn't have a single store. And such states do exist. In fact, there are several of them. As of this writing, Aldi has no presence in 11 American states: Alaska, Colorado, Hawaii, Idaho, Maine, Montana, New Mexico, Oregon, Utah, Washington, and Wyoming.

Like any good business, a lot of consideration and number-crunching goes into the process of opening new locations, and Aldi even lays out its criteria on its website. Among other factors, any potential new stores must be within 3 miles of where most of a city or town's population lives, the location where it's placed must see a commuting count of at least 20,000 vehicles per day, and the store needs to be in what would be considered a "shopping" district. Whether the lack of Aldi in the above 11 states has failed to meet these requirements, we don't know. But, as Aldi continues to grow, there is always hope that every U.S. citizen will eventually be able to discover the Aldi Aisle of Shame and save lots of money, even if it's in a way that employees can't stand.

Aldi first came to the United States by way of Iowa, where the company opened its first American store in 1976. Today, the midwestern state has 41 locations, but it's far from being the state with the most Aldi stores. That honor goes to Florida, which boasts 226 locations at the time of this writing, with Illinois sitting closely behind with 215 stores. California, Michigan, Missouri, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Texas all have over 100 stores.

On the other end of the spectrum, some states have just a few standing Aldi locations, including North Dakota, Nevada, and Vermont, which each have three stores, and Washington D.C., with two locations. Overall, there are 2,466 Aldis in America. Worldwide, the grocery big hitter has over 7,000 stores spread out across 11 countries including China and Australia. Aldi stores tend to be slightly different in each country depending on the local market. For example, plans for Italian Aldi stores (the brand is fairly new to the country) include coffee bars, and German Aldis have gas stations! Meanwhile, in Australia, Aldi hosts a huge, annual sale on ski and snow gear with prices that snow-blow the competition away.