The team at Derby doughnut bakery Project D are competing for a spot on the shelves of at Aldi.
The business has grown rapidly in recent years, creating dozens of jobs, opening shops across the Midlands and extending its deliveries across England and Wales.
Max Poynton and Jake Watts – who are still only 29 – launched the business with friend Matthew Bond in 2018 after travelling the world “in search of the perfect doughnut”.
They are set to appear on Channel 4’s “Aldi’s Next Big Thing” on Thursday October 27 – a six part show which sees food and drink suppliers compete to supply 970 Aldi stores nationwide.
Project D already has a custom-built bakery and a 100-strong workforce, and winning an Aldi deal would be a huge step in its growth plans.
All the products put forward on the show are presented to Julie Ashfield, managing director of Buying at Aldi UK, which is based in Atherstone, in Warwickshire. She considers factors such as price, packaging, shopper demand, and the ability to scale up, before whittling contestants down to two.
The finalists are then given four weeks to address her feedback, before presenting again for a chance for their product to become a Specialbuy in Aldi stores.
Project D has already amassed a large online fan base, with more than 142,000 Instagram followers.
Its local support grew massively during the pandemic, when the start-up had to adapt to not only home delivery but sourcing its key ingredients of eggs, flour and yeast from local businesses during a national shortage.
Jake previously said: "All three of us ran different businesses beforehand and we always talked about doing something together.
“We all share a love of food and we thought what better than doughnuts. They are on trend and they taste seriously good.
"We built our bakery and started testing recipes and now I feel like we have perfected the doughnut.”
Aldi’s Next Big Thing is part of the supermarket’s commitment to locally sourced products, and has pledged to prioritise home-grown suppliers and spend an additional £3.5 billion a year with British businesses by the end of 2025.
To find out if Max and Jake made it on to Aldi’s shelves watch Aldi’s Next Big Thing on Channel 4, every Thursday at 8pm until November 24.
