Aldi has legions of dedicated fans all around the world, and with 12,000 stores (give or take) and 203,600 employees (also, give or take), the story of the family-owned business is a pretty wild one. One thing to know about Aldi's German heritage is that the first was a little store in Essen, Germany, and brothers Karl and Theo Albrecht took over from their mother, Anna, in 1946. Today, if you head to Europe, you'll find two different Aldis.
Depending on which country you're in, you'll either see the logos for Aldi Nord or Aldi Sud. At the same time they adopted the name Aldi, the brothers also divided the company in half in what's called the "Aldi equator." It passes between Essen and Mulheim, and they did it because they couldn't agree on whether or not they were going to sell cigarettes.
Karl took over Aldi Sud, which didn't sell cigarettes and now operates in South Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Slovenia, Hungary, Italy, Ireland, the U.K., the U.
S., Australia, and China. Theo took Aldi Nord and sold cigarettes — along with his discount goods — in northern Germany, Belgium, Denmark, France, Luxembourg, The Netherlands, Portugal, Poland, and Spain.
Early photos of the store's locations show that it was identified by the family name of Albrecht, and it wasn't until the early 1960s that the brothers officially adopted the name Aldi. The reason was pretty straightforward: It's a shortened version of "Albrecht Diskont." "Diskont" is exactly what it sounds like and simply me.