After a long old hiatus, Aldi and Channel 4’s lovely little show that mashes up Dragons’ Den, The Great British Bake Off and MasterChef is finally back.
Now called Aldi: The Next Big Seller, the programme sees six small British food and drink suppliers go head-to-head every week as they try to impress Aldi’s chief commercial officer Julie Ashfield, in the hopes of securing a coveted spot on Aldi’s shelves. The twist? You can buy the winning product from Aldi stores the very next morning.
Anita Rani returns to the show and is joined by new co-host Jimmy Doherty, who replaces Chris Bavin. The first episode was all about sweet treats, with handmade chocolate sculptures and Indian-inspired bonbons to Japanese mochi and American-style waffles competing for a contract.
Only one sweet treat could win, but the good news is that you can buy many of the other contestants’ creations online. Here’s where you can buy the winning product, plus the other oddball creations.
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Yellow Submarine almond kisses: 99p for four – available in Aldi stores nationwide
Sophie and Julie from social enterprise Yellow Submarine are the champions of Aldi: The Next Big Seller’s sweet treats week, securing a contract to supply more than 30,000 packs of its almond kisses to Aldi stores nationwide.
The pair’s handmade almond biscuits are rolled in sugar, shaped into little crescents and are described as being crunchy on the outside and soft and chewy in the middle. Yellow Submarine’s almond kisses received a Great Taste Award in 2025.
Yellow Submarine is a social enterprise bakery that offers work experience to adults with learning disabilities and autism, helping them prepare for employment. The bakery’s almond kisses come in packs of four and cost 99p. They land in Aldi stores on Friday 6 November as a Specialbuy, meaning once they’re gone, they’re gone. Aldi will donate £1 to the charity for every pack sold.
The Edible Museum chocolate slugs and leeches: £38, Ediblemuseum.com
Getting close but not quite close enough was Sarah from The Edible Museum. A classically trained sculptor, Sarah creates incredibly realistic (perhaps a little too realistic) chocolate sculptures of slugs, leeches, toads, leaves and flowers.
Each creation is hand-poured, hand-painted and hand-packed, with a great amount of detail paid to each chocolatey artefact. They might not look particularly appetising, but that’s part of the charm. After all, who wouldn’t want to tuck into a chocolate slug?
You can buy a box of 14 chocolate garden slugs or leeches for £38 from The Edible Museum’s website. The company also sells chocolate toads, human hearts, brains and even dinosaur teeth.
Ai No Mochi Japanese mochi: £30, Notonthehighstreet.com
Best friends Hayyan Choudhry and Kelly Fu hoped to impress with their classic Japanese mochi balls with a Western twist. The pair make handmade mochi balls – a traditional Japanese sweet made from soft, chewy rice dough – with Western fillings on the inside.
You can get mochi balls filled with cookies and cream, vanilla cheesecake, matcha, salted caramel and even Nutella Biscoff. You can build your own box of 16 mochi for £30 on Not on the High Street, choosing from up to four different flavours in a single box.
Barfi Bites chocolate bonbons: from £12.99, Barfi-bites.co.uk
Friends Minesh and Nabeel entered the competition hoping to introduce the UK to Indian desserts with their Barfi Bites, which blend traditional Indian sweets with chocolate. The pair’s colourful chocolate bonbons are filled with barfi, an Indian sweet similar to fudge.
With lots of intriguing flavours, you can get milk chocolate pistachio barfi, coconut barfi and white chocolate bonbons filled with jalebi, as well as a date and Biscoff flavour. You can buy a box of six barfi bites for £12.99 from the company’s website, with boxes of nine, 12 and 24 also available. You can either mix and match flavours or get a selection of them all.
The Cocoabean Company stuffed chocolate bars: £13.45, Thecocoabeancompany.com
These might be some of the most premium chocolate bars you can find in the UK. Scotland-based Claire and Emma from The Cocoabean Company make chunky Belgian chocolate bars stuffed with dessert-style fillings.
Taking inspiration from the Dubai chocolate craze, the company has come up with some rather adventurous combinations. There’s a pistachio, strawberry marshmallow fluff and crunchy knafeh bar, as well as a lemon meringue pie chocolate bar. The company even makes a giant 1kg stuffed chocolate bar for £51.95.
You can buy the stuffed chocolate bars directly from The Cocoabean Company’s website for £13.45 each. It also sells a separate range of smaller 100g chocolate bars, with flavours including banoffee, lemon and raspberry and pistachio and raspberry, costing £7.25 each or three for £20.
Waffle Jack’s American waffles: From £7.95, Wafflejacksuk.co.uk
Hoping to bring one of America’s favourite sweet treats to Aldi’s supermarket shelves were Stephan and Adele, who make freshly baked American-style waffles.
The pair’s brightly coloured creations, which Jimmy described as “garish”, come covered in icing and toppings, and there are lots of different flavours to choose from, including chocolate and strawberry waffles, lemon meringue waffles and blueberry waffles, with the company rolling out new waffle flavours all the time. A box of three waffles costs £7.95, six cost £15.50 and 12 cost £22.95.
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