John Clear, a director in global advisory firm Alvarez & Marsal’s Consumer and Retail Group, shared his insights on Aldi’s protein products and marketing strategy. Clear worked for Lidl for 10 years, including five years for in Ireland and five years in the U.S. As Aldi was the main competitor of Lidl during Clear’s tenure, he has insight into Aldi's operations and strategy for their protein products.

Clear said that Aldi's protein product offerings are certainly a driver for sales. “They’re probably a bigger driver than people would expect for a discounter.” He noted that Aldi’s protein offerings have expanded over the last few years.

Clear said that these protein offerings are meant to drive traffic to the store, and then customers will hopefully spend their dollars elsewhere in the store. He said that the store has a good-better-best structure to their private-label protein products. Though the store does sometimes carry branded products, Aldi primarily offers private-label protein products.

Looking at fresh protein in particular, Aldi has emphasized that consumers can get quality proteins for less money, Clear said. He noted that Aldi has always had low pricing for their frozen products, but now they are offering various alternative meat and better-for-you products. “Sometimes I think people think those meat alternatives have to be expensive, but Aldi are offering you a great alternative of a really aggressive pricing that you just don’t see in mainstream retailers,” he said.

Clear mentioned that though Aldi and others in the hard-discount space might not offer certain products consumers are looking for, they can offer the products they do have at a lower price point than other stores. This allows consumers to get some products for a cheaper price point, then finish their shopping elsewhere.