Small-time food and drink makers pitch their new ideas to one of Britain's biggest supermarkets

Discount retailers’ tried-and-trusted approach tends to be doing things in bulk – making large quantities of the products so that costs are kept to a minimum and savings can be passed on at the checkouts.

Every year, Britain’s fourth largest supermarket Aldi commissions dozens of new products before getting the people and companies making them to scale up and provide hundreds of thousands of units for their stores.

The first series of Aldi’s Next Big Thing went out in Autumn 2022, and it followed 36 artisan food-and-drink producers as they all bid for a life-changing opportunity to stock their products in Aldi’s 1,000 stores.

A mash-up of MasterChef, Dragons’ Den, The Apprentice and Inside the Factory, it saw presenters Anita Rani and Chris Bavin meet a host of creative and ambitious British suppliers with products ranging from edible bugs and camel milk to Yorkshire pudding beer and rum cake.

But securing this monumental contract and a spot in store isn’t easy, and each item has to meet the extremely high standards of Aldi’s Managing Director of Buying, Julie Ashfield.

Aldi’s Next Big Thing returned for a second run last week, and such was the success of the first season, Julie wasn’t surprised it was recommissioned.

“The response to the first series of Aldi’s Next Big Thing was overwhelming,” she says.

“We’ve had such positive feedback on showing shoppers behind the scenes, from tasting and developing products, to seeing them land on shelves.

“We are 100-per-cent committed to supporting British businesses and thanks to Aldi’s Next Big Thing, the British public can be a part of that too.

“I can’t wait to see what lands on our plates this series.”

Last week’s first programme focused on the dinnertime category, with Stormzy’s personal chef, an event caterer and two sibling butchers coming up with ideas on ready meals, multicoloured burgers and an ‘unholy trinity’ of meats.

Tonight, it’s bakery week, and a father-and-daughter duo are hoping to bowl Julie over with their novelty-shaped bread, while a couple think edible raw cookie dough is the future.

Plus, there’s a father and son with a very flaky Jamaican pastry, a foraging obsessive who pitches a ‘whoopie pie’, and a baking enthusiast who brings in a unique filled brioche.

However, only one new bakery product will be chosen to be stocked in Aldi’s stores, changing the lives of the people behind it.

If you’re unsure of the effect being Aldi’s Next Big Thing can have, Laurie Fermor, co-founder of Freddie’s Farm, which gained a listing in series one for its Fruit Shapes, explains.

“Winning Aldi’s Next Big Thing has been absolutely life-changing for us as a company and as a family,” she says.

“It’s like winning the lottery for a small business.”