Aldi and Lidl have led the way with British fruit sales this year, according to the latest data from growing groups.
The latest data from British Berry Growers and British Apples & Pears showing retailer sales of British produce has underscored consumer demand for home-grown fruit, they said.
Lidl has led the charge, securing the award for Retailer of the Year 2025 by British Berry Growers and selling the most apples since September, the start of the UK topfruit season, by British Apples & Pears.
According to BBG, Lidl earned its accolade after recording an average of 26% increase in sales of British strawberries, raspberries, blueberries and blackberries this season – which it said had been a standout year due to “strong growing conditions”.
“We’ve seen an increase of more than 10% across sales of all berries and all retailers, taking us to over 120,000 tonnes of berries for the season,” said BBG chair Nick Marston. “That’s a lot of goodness we’re delivering to UK consumers.
“In a world where there is so much noise about HFSS foods and ultra-processed foods, it feels great to see such strong support for healthy, entirely natural and delicious British berries.”
Aldi took the Blackberry Retailer of the Year crown for a 66% increase in sales of the blackberries, and Asda British Blueberry Retailer of the Year after recording a 239% increase in its sales.
Improvements in apples
At the same time, data from BAP showed that Lidl sold 4,313 tonnes and Aldi 3,809 tonnes of British apples in the first two months of the 2025/26 season, equating to 22.7% and 20% of the total sold.
The organisation said the discount retailers were “significantly overtrading” on British apples compared with their share of the grocery market.
“They’re clearly listening to their customers, who love to buy home-grown fruit,” said Ali Capper, BAP executive chair, who said she hoped other retailers would look to “step up” their sales in coming months.
With data provided by Kantar, BAP reported Tesco and Sainsbury’s had lagged far behind the discounters despite their bigger shares of the grocery market.
Tesco sold 15.1% of British apples, or 2,826 tonnes, despite having 28.2% market share. Meanwhile, Sainsbury’s sold 13.5% or 2,573 tonnes even though it holds 15.7%, of the grocery market.
Morrisons, Co-op, M&S, and Waitrose roughly sold in line with their market shares, but Asda was singled out for its “improvement” after its “very low volumes in 2023”. It sold 10% of all British apples in the first two months of the 2025/26 season, or 1,895 tonnes.
“We know shoppers get frustrated when they can’t find British apples on supermarket shelves in the early weeks of the season, it is the biggest complaint from shoppers on our social channels,” Capper added. “Our growers work incredibly hard to deliver delicious, high-quality fruit from September onwards, and we’d like to see every retailer supporting the seasonality message with lots of union flags, British displays and shelves full of British apples.”
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