Rsp: £2.99 per 1kg resealable bag
Competition: Bertolli
The consumer
Cooking up a load of pasta normally means lots of washing up and watching the pot boil so this new format is a good, convenient idea. The pasta shrunk a bit in the microwave but the texture wasn't bad at all. I would have liked to have seen more sauce and I had to add a fair whack of pepper to get some flavour but I would definitely buy this again as a quick meal idea. It was certainly more appealing than some of the cheap ready meals out there. Four stars (out of five)
Alistair Mack, bar worker, Leeds
The retailer
This is not bad, but not brilliant. The taste is passable and the packaging good. The big resealable packs are convenient and likely to appeal to students. On the minus side, by the time you have opened the packs and cooked them, you could have cooked a fresh pasta and sauce dish, which is far superior in taste. I think there is a market for this kind of product, but I'm not sure if it will appeal to consumers other than students who can't be bothered to cook. Three stars
Nigel Ashton, business trading manager, Nisa-Today's
The Grocer
It may have Jamie Oliver banging his head against a brick wall, but you can see the logic behind Findus developing a frozen, bagged pasta range. The resealable bag allows portion control and prevents the waste that often results from cooking large batches of pasta. If you can see beyond its joyless pre-heated appearance, the pasta itself tastes adequate. Birds Eye also launched a cheaper yet smaller pouched frozen pasta range in September (rsp: £1.69 per 320g bag) so it will be interesting whether the two can both survive the next 12 months. Three stars
Nick Hughes, senior features writer
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