Beate Heister (born 5 October 1951) & Karl Hans Albrecht Jr. (born 1948) are German billionaires. They are the children of Karl Albrecht, who founded Germany's largest discounted supermarket chain Aldi with his brother Theo.

At the head of a retail multinational with over 8,000 points of sale is the brother-and-sister team of Beate Heister and Karl Albrecht Jr., siblings who keep a low profile while furthering the fortunes of their Essen-headquartered supermarket empire.

More than 8,000 stores in a baker’s dozen of countries, uninterrupted growth, and a strategy of keeping product prices and operating costs to an absolute minimum, Aldi ─ aka Albrecht-Diskont ─ has reigned supreme in the lucrative German low-cost supermarket sector for decades. Propagating the discount revolution in German retailing, they built their Aldi supermarket chain based on a low-price strategy similar to Wal-Mart.

Established in the years following the Second World War in a broken Germany mired in recession, where rationing and food shortages were commonplace, Aldi is today the leader of the 'limited brand supermarket sector. How did it get from there to here?

It was in Essen in 1946 that Théo and Karl Albrecht took over the running of the family grocery store and, in the years to come, transformed Aldi into a license to print money.

Their revolutionary business model was born of post-war austerity ─ they only kept non-perishable items and stocked their shelves with whatever sold the most while removing slow-sellers altogether. This allowed the brothers to keep prices below those of a traditional supermarket.

The formula proved an immediate hit. By mercilessly culling underperforming items, the number of products that could be sold at a low, low price continued to grow ─ and the clientele grew too; by 1955, as the German economic miracle took hold, the brothers had 100 stores throughout the land.

Although Aldi pioneered the own-brand product ─ anathema to name-brand addicted western shoppers until the end of the 20th century, but now a common sight on store shelves the world over ─ the company began sprinkling in a number of strategic ‘big name’ products, such as Coca-Cola, in 2012. Yet this did not mean that suddenly Aldi stocked a plethora of products – you will not find eight kinds of olive oil here.

Shoppers in the UK are aware of store advertising jingles and supermarket slogans such as ‘pocket the difference’ or ‘every little helps’, but they would be hard-pressed to recall an Aldi equivalent. That’s because Aldi spends next to nothing on advertising, preferring to let their low prices speak for themselves.

In 1961, the brothers split ownership: Karl Sr. took the stores in southern Germany, plus rights to the Aldi brand in the U.K., Australia, and the U.S. Theo Sr. got the stores in northern Germany and the rest of Europe. In 1971, he bought U.S. grocery chain Trader Joe's.

The duo is believed to hold the 23rd position amongst the riches of the world today with a net worth of US$39.2 billion, as of March 2021.

The Aldi recipe for success has evolved alongside the tastes of shoppers and it’s clear that, in the era of coronavirus, where people are watching what they spend more than ever and that bodes well for Heister and Albrecht Jr.