Aldi has announced plans to spend £3.5bn more on UK-produced food products annually within the next five years.
The discount supermarket’s decision will be a positive step for over 1,000 small businesses. The group has already shared plans to create an additional 4,000 jobs UK jobs.
Aldi has over 900 stores and 36,000 employees.
Chief executive, Giles Hurley, said: “We are expecting significant sales growth in 2021 as we open new stores and bring Aldi to more locations across the UK. With the vast majority of our grocery products now coming from British suppliers, our growth will lead to additional jobs and investment in our UK supply chain.”
The supermarket already sources all of its fresh meat, eggs, milk, butter and cream from UK suppliers.
One of the small businesses that Aldi has a partnership with is Manchester Drinks Company.
Richard Benjamin, a co-owner of Manchester Drinks Company, said: “Our new contract with Aldi is a fantastic opportunity to showcase our flavoured gins and liqueurs to shoppers across the country, and will help to provide stability for our business in an uncertain climate.”
Earlier this year, Aldi introduced a click and collect service.
“The business performance has been very, very solid… but we also recognise customer habits are changing and that we need to evolve our business to meet the new demands and we’re actively doing that,” said Hurley.
“We have a unique model, a set of efficiency principles unrivalled in the market, and that it is my firm belief that we can apply those principles to picking and packing stock in a very efficient way for customers… I’m very excited about it,” he added.
