ALDI has announced plans to recruit more than 100 more British suppliers in 2022, less than a year after a big deal with a Herefordshire distillery was announced.

In a bid to speed up its commitment to spend another £3.5bn a year with UK suppliers by the end of 2025, the budget supermarket wants firms to get in touch.

“Whether it’s a brand-new business or a well-established one, Aldi is on the lookout for suppliers across a range of product categories, including food, drink and Specialbuys,” a spokesperson for the chain, which has stores in Ross-on-Wye, Ledbury, Hereford and Leominster, said.

“This uplift in British suppliers forms part of the supermarket’s commitment to increase the number of products it sources from the UK and buy British wherever possible. Aldi’s entire core range of fresh meat, eggs, milk, butter and cream is already sourced from British suppliers, while more than 40 per cent of fresh produce sold is also British.

“The supermarket spent a total of £9 billion with UK companies last year as it opens at least one new store a week, increasing the number of opportunities for suppliers to provide products for its seasonal product ranges and Specialbuys, as well as permanent listings.”

Last summer, Penrhos Spirits, near Kington, won a competition to have bottles stocked in 900 supermarkets online.

The distillery was crowned winner of Grow with Aldi – a nationwide search for the greatest craft spirits the UK had to offer.

The firm is the brainchild of two third-generation fruit farmers, Charles Turner and Richard Williams and their families.

With the blueberries, raspberries, cherries and apples on their farm on the front-line of the increasing issue of food waste, they decided what better way to use the what-would-have-been wasted ‘wibbly wobbly’ fruit than to traditionally distill a fruity botanical gin.

The operation came from humble beginnings in 2017 with a three-litre distiller bucket and regular runs to the local Aldi store for vodka.

Years later, roles have been reversed and Aldi is getting set to stock a quarter of a tonne of their unwanted fruit on shelves across the country this summer, in the format of 18,000 bottles of premium gin.

When the Aldi news emerged, it was Penrhos Gin’s biggest order to date and three times the amount bottled in the entirety of last year.

Founder Charles Turner said: “The biggest challenge for small craft distillers like us is breaking out of the local 40-mile radius.

"To be crowned winner of the Grow with Aldi competition and be stocked in 900 stores - and online - on a national scale is a major breakthrough for the business."