Aldi top of the UK apple crops

For the first time this season, Aldi bought more British apples from UK growers than any other UK retailer in February, according to the peak industry body.

The latest data released by British Apples & Pears Limited (BAPL) shows Aldi at the top of the chart, ahead of Tesco in second place, Sainsbury’s in third and Lidl in fourth.

“This is the first time this season that Aldi has been at the top of the sales table,” revealed BAPL executive chair, Ali Capper.

“Lidl beat all retailers in September with the most British apples sold and are similarly outperforming against their market share, buying 15 per cent of all British apples sold between August 2022 to January 2023, when their market share is just 7 per cent.”

Tesco had been in the top spot since October 2022, but now Aldi is leading the way, she said.

 ”In February, Aldi bought 22 per cent of all British apples our growers sold to UK supermarkets, compared to their overall grocery market share of just 9.4 per cent,” said Capper.

This month, BAPL also released its four-year British apple sales data. The data aggregates monthly sales from August to January each year, from 2019 up to the current year and compares it to the retailers’ overall grocery market share (red line on following chart, source Kantar).

The four-year data shows which supermarkets are consistently under-performing or over-performing in terms of British apple sales, compared to their market share. Red lines above the green bars indicate that retailer is selling a lower percentage of British apples than their grocery market share.

The most recent BAPL sales data (February 2023) published on the BAPL website shows that Asda continues to be the least supportive retailer of British apples with a grocery market share of 14.3 per cent selling just 6.3 per cent of British apples. The UK’s two biggest retailers, Tesco (grocery market share of 27.3 per cent) sold 20.8 per cent of British apples and Sainsbury’s (grocery market share of 15.2 per cent) sold 14.7 per cent of British apples.

“We know that consumers want British if at all possible and with such great quality fruit available from British growers, we hope to see even more support from UK supermarkets,” Capper said.

Monthly UK apple sales data can be viewed at https://www.britishapplesandpears.co.uk/supermarket-sales-data. New monthly sales data is published in the third week of the following month.

BAPL is a grower-funded, not-for-profit organisation that represents all commercial apple and pear growers in the UK, whose ambition is for at least 60 per cent of apples sold in the UK to be British by 2030.