Aldi Süd is building daycare centers: 900 new places for families in the Stuttgart area!

Aldi Süd is building daycare centers: 900 new places for families in the Stuttgart area!

ALDI SÜD is pushing ahead with the expansion of childcare places for children and has already created over 500 daycare places. The company's goal is to position itself close to the customers' routines. Jan Riemann, spokesman for the Real Estate division, emphasizes that ALDI SÜD is increasingly combining its branches with other uses in order to develop multifunctional living spaces. This initiative aims to cover the need for care in urban areas, especially in the Stuttgart area.

Since opening the first daycare center above an ALDI SÜD branch in 2012, the company has intensively addressed the issue of daycare provision. Over 900 childcare places have now been created, are under construction or are planned. In the Stuttgart area, three new daycare centers with a total of 290 places are currently planned in the communities of Leutenbach, Steinheim an der Murr and Sachsenheim. These measures specifically respond to the increasing need for care in the region, which has increased significantly, as studies have shown.

Intelligent internal compression

ALDI SÜD relies on intelligent internal consolidation and multiple use of existing areas. This strategy not only supports the development of daycare centers, but also addresses the housing construction that the company is promoting. In recent years, 550 apartments have already been built above the branches, and a further 2,000 residential units are planned in the next few years. Depending on the location, these can either be rented or sold and thus contribute to improving the living situation in the respective regions.

The urgency of these developments is made clear by a current analysis by the German Economic Institute, which points to a Germany-wide shortage of daycare places. There is currently a lack of around 306,000 places for children under the age of three. The situation is particularly serious in poorer urban districts, where the distribution of daycare places is unequal. Wealthier neighborhoods are better supplied, while socially disadvantaged areas experience acute shortages.

Inequality in daycare provision

A study shows that daycare provision in wealthy districts is 16% above the city average, while districts with high basic security rates have 5% fewer daycare centers. This unequal distribution could entrench socio-economic inequalities of opportunity, researchers warn. Cities like Heidelberg offer the best conditions with 61 children per daycare center, while Gelsenkirchen and Krefeld have the highest load with 166 children per daycare center each.

The ALDI SÜD initiative is therefore a step in the right direction to meet the need for daycare places, especially in urban, and often disadvantaged, areas. The company shows that a close integration of retail, living and childcare is possible and can also make a positive contribution to society.

For more information see: IZ, ALDI SOUTH, daily news.