Aldi’s Next Big Thing contestants win contract to stock rum cake across UK stores

Aldi is to stock Harrison & Griffiths Rum Cake across over 970 stores, as its founders won a contract during its Channel 4 competition series ‘Aldi’s Next Big Thing’.

Rolling out across stores today (28 October) as an Aldi Specialbuy, the products’ founders Colin Harrison and Paulette Griffiths fought off competitors within the series’ bakery category.

Having been making the rum cake in-house since 2016, with the help of an Adli supplier its production has now been scaled up from around 250 cakes a week to fulfill the order of 30,000.

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Harrison and Griffiths were one of 36 small food and drink businesses across the UK competing to win a contract to have their product placed in Aldi’s stores, with the multi-category competition being part of its ongoing commitment to locally sourced products.

The discount grocer has pledged to prioritise home-grown suppliers as it works towards spending £3.5 billion a year with British businesses by the end of 2025.

“I was absolutely blown away by their product. After the pitch day, I told everyone I met about it. I couldn’t get over how wonderful it tasted. Now I can’t wait for all of our shoppers to try it,” Aldi UK managing director of buying, Julie Ashfield said.

Harrison & Griffiths co-founder, Colin Griffiths added: “It took me a long time to perfect this recipe and of course I was worried outsourcing production it wouldn’t be as good. But we worked with Aldi’s supplier to make sure it was as we wanted and we’re really happy with it. It’s great! We feel like we’re on another planet at the moment.”