ALDI TV show looked for fledgling suppliers to stock their shelves

ALDI TV show looked for fledgling suppliers to stock their shelves through Channel 4’s Next Big Thing and received hundreds of entries.

Charlie Fermor, 35, and his wife Laurie, 34, landed the contract of a lifetime and their dried fruit snacks for kids named Freddie’s Farm made with only British produce, as much as possible from their own orchards and fields in Kent are now in stores nationwide.

Hearts melted as the nation was given an insight into Charlie and Laurie’s life at Bramley Mount Farm and their son Freddie, six, after whom the snacks are named and his sister, Ottie aged three.

Freddie’s Farm fought off tough competition from manufacturers of fava bean snacks, kimchi, and even camel milk, to secure a space on Aldi’s UK store shelves.

Co-founder, Laurie Fermor explained how the healthy snacks came about: “When Freddie was little, we didn’t like the snacks that were out there in the market so we came up with Freddie’s Farm. 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. 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.”

With everything grown, dried and packed within metres of the couple’s home, the carbon footprint also appealed to Aldi, which has tough sustainability targets and has been a carbon neutral business since 2019.

To secure the contract the small business had to scale up significantly to meet the order of 325,000 packs – more than 10 times bigger than their previous biggest order but they managed to do it.

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