Northamptonshire sauce business competes for spot on Aldi’s shelves in new Channel 4 series

A Northamptonshire sauce business competed for a spot on Aldi’s shelves in a new Channel 4 series, and viewers can soon find out if they were successful.

The Jeyes family, from Jeyes of Earls Barton in The Square, beat hundreds of applicants to appear on Aldi’s Next Big Thing. The first instalment will air on Thursday (November 17) at 8pm.

The six-part series will see food and drink suppliers compete to be listed in all Aldi stores nationwide – and Georgina Jeyes, 74, and her daughters Anna Jeyes-Hulme, 38, and Philippa Jeyes, 49, will appear in this week’s episode.

The trio are behind Jeyes’ Northamptonshire Sauce, first created by their ancestor in 1852. It has now been recreated after Georgina discovered the original recipe in a hidden book during lockdown and, along with her daughters, brought it back to life.

Philippa said: “For years we’ve been trying to find this lost recipe and when mum came across it during lockdown, we were so excited and knew exactly what we wanted to do with it. The sauce is a taste of history and it would be incredible to get it out there for the rest of the nation to try.”

They teamed up with chutney maker, Steve Reid from Friars Farm in Foundry Street, and launched the product in October 2020.

Anna said: “After selling more than 10,000 bottles in the first few months, we knew we had produced something special for the county.”

Viewers can see the family pitch their sauce to Aldi’s headquarters as they compete for a “life-changing” contract.

The products are presented to Julie Ashford, the managing director of buying at Aldi UK, who deliberates on factors such as price, packaging, shopper demand, and the ability to scale up, before whittling the contestants down to just two.

The finalists are then given four weeks to address any feedback, before presenting improved products to Julie to decide, which will appear as a Specialbuy in more than 970 stores.

Jeyes’ Northamptonshire Sauce competed against five other food suppliers and to find out if they made it onto Aldi’s shelves, tune into Channel 4 from 8pm this Thursday (November 17).