"The best quality at the lowest possible price." (Image by Alfred Wagg Pictures.)

The Albrecht family has been involved in the grocery business in Germany for almost a century, but it was in the late 1940s that brothers Theo and Karl stumbled onto a business principle that revolutionized their growing company and all consumer businesses: discount shopping. They took a no-frills approach, selling staple items at low prices at small stores and eschewing costly advertising. Products that didn’t sell well were quickly removed from the shelves.

Theo Albrecht, who later started the American chain Trader Joe’s, passed away recently and Spiegel has an article about him, the family legacy and why the brothers were incredibly publicity shy. An excerpt:

“Theo and his brother Karl, who is two years older, laid the cornerstone for what became their discount empire in 1948 when they took over their mother’s small grocery store. In 1961, they changed the name to Albrecht’s Discount–or “Aldi” for short. Within decades, the store became a discount chain worth billions, one which permanently changed the way food retailing was done in both Germany and across the globe.

Aldi’s meteoric rise can be traced directly back to the brothers’ business creed: “The best quality at the lowest possible price.” The two Albrecht brothers are considered the founders of the discount strategy, and even today Aldi stores have little in the way of frills and stay away from expensive marketing strategies.

It is a business model that turned the Albrecht brothers into two of the richest people in Germany, with Theo’s net worth said to have been $16.7 billion (€12.8 billion)…Theo and Karl were in close agreement on other issues as well–particularly when it came to keeping far away from the public eye. Extremely little is known about them. Their last public comments come from 1953 and 1971; the last known photos of the two were shot against their will in the 1980s.

One reason for their silence is the 1971 kidnapping of Theo Albrecht, who was abducted and held for 17 days. He was only set free following the payment of a 7 million deutschmark ransom. At the time it was the highest ransom ever to have been paid in Germany. Half of the money, handed over by then-Bishop of Essen Franz Hengsbach, is still missing today.”