When Aldi opened here last decade, the supermarkets sent teams overseas to study the competition. Woolworths chairman Ralph Waters recently described Aldi as "increasing competition but ... not new competition", but
Dick Smith, the entrepreneur who sells Australian-made food to Woolworths, Coles and Metcash, makes the bold prediction Aldi will wipe out Woolies and Coles within 15 years.
"Both of them will go broke," he said. "We'll end with two of everything - Aldi and Walmart."
Smith says Aldi should be required to release its figures.
"If they're going to allow them in here - and that's reasonable - they should say, 'We're not a secret society, you have to comply with our culture.'"
Smith said he said as much in separate meetings with Mr Daunt and Stefan Kopp, group managing director of Aldi Australia.
The pair approached Smith after he had publicly criticised Aldi's secrecy.
"I've never had the Coles and Woolies managing directors come and see me at [Sydney's] Terrey Hills," Smith said.
"The argument was that all profit goes to a trust in Germany," he said.