I’m absolutely chuffed to win a Channel 4 show and get my product on Aldi shelves!

A confectioner from Blackburn landed a life-changing contract in last night’s episode of Aldi’s Next Big Thing, which focused on the confectionery category.

Yasir Patel’s confectionery start-up business, Cluster Club, produces nutritional, on-the-go, ‘cluster’ snacks. 

The entrepreneur was picked to go on the six-part series from hundreds competing for a life-changing contract to stock their products in Aldi stores nationwide.  

Speaking about where the idea for Cluster Club came from, Yasir said: “It’s been a combination of childhood experiences such as being involved in a car accident which led to me being bedridden for the best part of a month.

“This led me into a bad ordeal of eating which was really unhealthy for me at the age of 9 and by the time I was 15, I had put on a lot of weight.

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“It was then that I decided to start eating healthy and going to the gym and my mum used to make these nut clusters at home using cheap chocolate which I loved growing up so I decided to put a twist on it.”

Aldi’s Next Big Thing was filmed in two separate segments with the first filming taking place in October of last year and the second being in December and into January.

Cluster Club was approached to go onto the show by Channel 4 after Yasir attended a BBC Good Food show event in Birmingham where he showcased his product to customers and the media.

As part of the show, Yasir had to create a platter showing his product to pitch to Managing Director of Buying at Aldi UK, Julie Ashfield who chose his business to progress to the finals of the series.

Yasir said: “I was so confident going into the show because I thought I had a winning product as there is nothing like it in the market due to it having more nuts than chocolate.

“However when I was called out first to pitch, that’s when the nerves started to kick in and you start feeling like there is a grey cloud over your head.

“Thankfully I controlled my nerves, went up and smashed it and it felt like wiping the sweat off my forehead.”

In the finals, Yasir was given a challenge to increase the size of the pouch his clusters came in as well as make packaging recyclable.

Yasir completed the task and impressed judges of the show to the point where he and his business were named the winner of Aldi’s Next Big Thing.

He said: “Right from the start, the Cluster Club journey has been me trying to work around confidence, build up a persona as well as find a purpose and it's been a roller coaster of ups and downs.

“This is the biggest achievement of the business so far and I’m absolutely chuffed, I still haven't had time to soak it in because I’ve been so busy!”

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Following the show, Cluster Club have officially made it onto Aldi shelves in over 1000 stores in the UK, as of today.

For future goals, Yasir has spoken about his desire to create more products to bridge the gap between health and indulgence.

He said: “We’ve got yoghurt pots that we want to bring out, breakfast clusters as well as different ranges of flavours such as dark chocolate and cherry and coffee and walnut.

“We also want to bring out multipacks for children as we understand that nutrition is hard for them so we want to be part of that journey with parents to get their kids eating healthy.”

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