If you’ve missed it, Channel 4’s latest reality TV show ‘Aldi’s Next Big Thing’ has been championing a wide range of new food and drink brands over recent weeks.
Hosted by Countryfile’s Anita Rani and Chris Bavin, of Eat Well for Less, the six-episode series sees hopeful food and drink suppliers compete for a space on Aldi’s shelves, before Julie Ashfield, managing director of buying at Aldi UK, decides on the winner – who is then given their very own space on Aldi shelves.
One of these lucky brands is Freddie’s Farm, which officially hit Aldi shelves earlier this month after being awarded an exclusive contract with the UK’s fourth-largest supermarket and beating hundreds of other competitors.
The healthy confectionery brand offers fruit and veg snacks for kids made with British produce, sourced from the founders’ orchards and fields in Kent.
Ashfield, who gives the final word on who wins the exclusive Aldi contract, said at the time: “It’s a fantastic product. It just ticks every single box. It’s made in Britain by British farmers, using British produce. It’s a healthy snack that I’d be happy to give to my children.”
Co-founder and co-director of Freddie’s Farm, Laurie Fermor, takes Grocery Gazette behind the scenes of the prime time show and shares what happened after the cameras stopped rolling.
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Freddie’s Farm: The next big thing
The latest in Channel 4’s portfolio of reality shows, Aldi’s Next Big Thing sees a range of new and emerging food and drink businesses pitch their new ideas to the grocer, bidding to be included on the shelves of one of Britain’s biggest supermarkets.
Each episode follows a different theme, from ‘Fresh & Deli’ to ‘Baked Goods’. The theme of the episode which saw Freddie’s Farm win a place in Aldi stores nationwide was ‘Healthy and Wholesome’ – a perfect placement for the locally-produced fruit snack range.
“It was quite an experience filming the show. Very stressful, but definitely worth it,” Laurie Fermor told Grocery Gazette.
The British fruit and vegetable grower fought off tough competition on the TV programme from manufacturers of fava bean snacks, kimchi and even camel milk.
“Everybody’s products were amazing and deserved a place on the shelves, and we had totally convinced ourselves that we had lost,” said Laurie, adding that they were up against some “seriously stiff competition”.
With the judges following a very rigorous scoring criteria, Laurie – along with her husband and co-founder Charlie – impressed them from the start with the taste of the fruit snacks, eco-friendly paper packaging and health credentials.
All produce is grown, dried and packed on the couple’s farm, which meant that Freddie’s Farm low carbon footprint also appealed to Aldi, which has tough sustainability targets and has been a carbon-neutral business since 2019.
Fresh fruit and where it all began
The Freddie’s Farm business is based at Bramley Mount Farm where the couple live with their son Freddie, 6, who the snacks are named after, and his younger sister, Ottie, 3.
“When Freddie was little, we were looking at the other snacks that were out there and available for kids and they just weren’t good enough,” said Laurie, talking about how the business started.
“With our knowledge of manufacturing, and our access to an amazing bounty of fresh fruit and veg, we just thought – why don’t we do it ourselves? And there was no one else doing it at the time. Even now, there is still no one else making kids snacks with British produce in the UK.”
Available in boxes of 5x 20g packs with an RRP of £2.29, Freddie’s Farm provides children’s snacks “with a difference”.
Wrapped in paper packaging and using only fresh fruit and veg (never concentrates or purees), the items feature no added sugar and benefit from a special patented process which results in lower ‘free’ sugars than any other kid’s fruit snacks on the market.
“The drying process has been perfected over a long time so it’s quite special. We try to keep the flavours you get in raw fruit and veg,” Laurie said.
“As a result, we have lower free sugars, which help prevent kids getting sugar highs and crashes, which we certainly like to avoid with our two at all costs!”
Soaring demand and sales boost
To secure the Aldi contract Freddie’s Farm had to scale up significantly to meet the order of almost 400,000 packs – more than 10 times bigger than their previous biggest order.
“In the episode, they had asked us for 325,000 packs, but the final order was closer to 400,000,” Laurie said.
“I think because we had a site already that could scale up, they just left that entirely up to us to complete. So, we just had to get to work and work very hard. But we got there.”
The snacks are selling well in store, but as a one-off order from Aldi, they are one of the supermarket’s famous ‘special buys’ so when they’re gone, they’re gone.
“I don’t know whether they will place another order. If it continues to sell well, then perhaps. We would be really keen to produce more, but there’s no guarantee of any further orders from Aldi,” Laurie added.
“As for our own sales figures, they are selling very well. Our online sales have increased a huge amount, I think by 600% – 700%, which is just incredible.”
On top of that, the British fruit and vegetable grower has had interest from “lots of smaller shops, farm shops and delis that are getting in touch to stock us as well, so it’s great to have access to that larger wholesale market.”
The future of Freddie’s Farm
Now, for Laurie, the focus is on “trying to harness the current success and keep momentum going. We want to keep growing the business and we’ve got big decisions to make as to how we scale up.”
As the couple are making all their produce from their farm in Kent, the ongoing cost-of-living and energy crisis is making it increasingly expensive to keep operations up and running.
“We need to look at ways to make everything more efficient – and to meet our ever-increasing demand,” she said.
“Being on the show has hugely increased our visibility on the market, so we’re not complaining at all! It was such an amazing opportunity and even more mind-blowing to win.
Plus we’re getting loads of new customers, which is the most important thing!”
