Theo Albrecht the United States. Aldi and Trader Joe's, while owned by the brothers, have separate and distinct ownership and operations. Theo Albrecht and his brother Karl revolutionized the German grocery market with a low-cost business model. They had developed the supermarket as an outgrowth of their mother's small grocery store, which she had opened in 1913, in Essen, after Theo’s father had developed emphysema as a miner. Theodor learned the grocery business from his mother, in order to escape the fate of his father in the mines. He and his brother Karl developed Albrecht Diskont, one of Europe’s largest chains of
Plus (supermarket) The Edeka Group and the Tengelmann Group entered a joint venture to acquire the Plus supermarket chain on November 16, 2007, which resulted in 70% of Plus supermarkets being owned by the Edeka Group and 30% owned by the Tengelmann Group. As of January 2009, the stores in the Plus supermarket chain owned by the Edeka group were remodelled into Netto Marken-Discount supermarket chain branches, while the Tengelmann Group's supermarkets were bought by others. Plus (supermarket) Plus was a German multinational discount supermarket chain founded in 1972. It operated 2,840 stores in Germany with an approximate 27,000 employees and about