By NEAL WAGNER / Managing Editor

ALABASTER – Shoppers will have a chance to sample products and enter sweepstakes while they tour Alabaster’s newest grocery store during Aldi’s grand opening ceremony in December.

The grocery store will hold a ribbon cutting ceremony at 9 a.m. on Wednesday, Dec. 17, before opening to the public for the first time.

Crews began working on the 17,651-square-foot Alabaster Aldi in June, and nearly have the store ready to open. The Aldi store is at 113 Simmsville Road behind the city of Alabaster’s welcome sign and flags at the intersection of U.S. 31 and Shelby County 11.

The Ohio-based Deerfield Construction and the Chattanooga, Tenn.-based Morgan Construction Company are the contractors for the project.

“As Aldi continues to grow in the Birmingham area, we are pleased to open this new location to help more customers stretch their dollars even further,” Troy Marshall, Aldi’s Mount Juliet division vice president, wrote in a news release. “As important as price is, there’s only one way to attract and keep shoppers: You have to have quality products. When people try our Aldi exclusive brands, they are surprised by the savings and impressed by the quality.”

The public is invited to attend the ribbon cutting ceremony, and will have a chance to tour the store, sample products and enter for a chance to win Aldi gift certificates.

The Alabaster location will be open from 9 a.m.-8 p.m. Monday through Saturday and from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. on Sunday. The store will accept cash, debit and EBT/Quest cards.

“The Alabaster store showcases the new look of Aldi,”read the news release. “With higher ceilings, improved natural lighting and environmentally friendly building materials – such as recycled materials and energy-saving refrigeration and light bulbs – the store will offer customers a simple and easy-to-navigate shopping experience.”

The Alabaster store will be Aldi’s second in Shelby County and its eighth in the Birmingham metropolitan area. The company opened a 17,500-square-foot store off U.S. 31 in Pelham in March 2011.