British Apples & Pears Limited (BAPL), the UK top fruit grower association, is delighted to announce Tesco is the 2024 apple retailer of the year.

The award is based on BAPL member sales to British supermarkets from September 2023 to end of August 2024. As the last of the 2023 apple and pear crop has now been sold, BAPL can reveal the supermarket of the year.

In the year starting September 2023, Tesco sold 26,705 tonnes of British dessert apples, only just ahead of Aldi that sold 26,008 and had topped the chart last year.

Behind the two at the top came Sainsbury’s that sold 21,563 tonnes and Lidl that sold 18,096 tonnes.

In addition to naming the apple retailer of the year, BAPL is also recognising the retailer that achieved the best year-on-year performance. That award goes to Lidl that managed to increase the volume of its apple sales from 2022/23 to 2023/24 (from 17,560 tonnes to 18,096 tonnes).

Commenting on this achievement, Ali Capper, executive chair of BAPL, said:

“Tesco came second last year, and we know they were motivated to go one better this year. We’re delighted they have achieved that. Lidl have also done really well to sell more British apples this year than they did last year – no small feat when you consider the slightly reduced volumes overall.”

Several supermarkets also over-indexed for British apples – sold more than you would expect given their grocery market share. The outstanding performers there were Aldi (sold 21% of all British apples compared to their grocery market share of 10%), Lidl, (sold 14.6% of all British apples compared to their grocery market share of 8.1%), and Sainsbury’s (sold 17.4% of all British apples compared to their grocery market share of 15.3%).

“This year’s crop is looking good and we’re hopeful that all UK supermarkets will work even harder this year to promote British apples and pears to their shoppers. Buying British over imported fruit saves on food miles, and we know consumers want British if at all possible.”