Aldi on Course for 108.5 Million British Stems as Late-Summer Demand Peaks

Aldi has reported an increase in demand for its British-grown flowers as the season hits its late-summer peak, according to a report published by Insider Media on 20 August.

The discounter has already sold more than 100 million British-grown stems in 2026, with demand up 10 per cent, and expects to reach 108.5 million by the end of the year, according to figures reported in the Daily Express on 23 August. Sales of its Truly British bouquet, which retails at £5.99, are up 51 per cent.

The British lines sit across Aldi's core Beautiful Blooms range rather than in a premium tier. Sweet williams are currently listed at £1.75 a bunch, with a bumper bunch at £2.89, British gypsophila at £1.89 and sunflowers at £3.79. The £3.99 medium mixed bouquet, which Aldi has previously identified as its year-round bestseller, remains on shelf at that price.

Supply runs through JZ Flowers, the family business headquartered at Newport in East Yorkshire, which Aldi describes as one of its longest-standing partners. Part of Dutch Flower Group, the company employs over 750 people and handles more than 800 million stems and 98 million bunches a year. Its Lincolnshire operation sits in the growing heartlands and is built around British seasonal lines including daffodils, tulips, sunflowers and peonies.

The two businesses extended their agreement in April 2023, in a four-year deal worth approximately £400m covering 200 million bunches of cut flowers destined for more than 1,150 Aldi stores across the UK and Ireland.

"This contract gives us the long-term security to commit to our growers and make investments throughout our supply chain," Tessa Zwemstra, managing director at JZ Flowers, said at the time.

The trajectory is steep. In February 2025, Aldi said JZ Flowers had supplied 82 million British stems over the preceding year — against the 108.5 million British-grown stems the retailer now expects to sell across 2026.

That growth runs against the national direction of travel. Defra's horticulture statistics for 2025, published on 25 June this year, show the value of UK flowers and bulbs production fell 7.5 per cent to an estimated £158m, down from £171m in 2024. The wider ornamental sector declined 2.0 per cent to £1.6bn over the same period, while the value of ornamental imports rose 6.4 per cent. Ornamental exports were worth £59m, a 20 per cent increase on the previous year.

Imports continue to dominate the shelf. Flowers from the Farm, the trade association representing small-scale British growers, puts the imported share of the UK cut-flower market at approximately 86 per cent, and notes that the majority of its members grow on plots measured in acres rather than hectares.

Against that backdrop, committed multi-year volume from a discounter carries disproportionate weight for the British growing base — and the late-summer window, when sunflowers, gladioli and sweet williams are at their most competitive against airfreighted stems, is where domestic supply has its clearest run at the mainstream basket.