Celebrity chef Marco Pierre White is putting his weight behind a new chilled range of soups from food and beverage company Conival.

Launched under a new brand - Glorious! - the soups are rolling into 375 Morrisons stores from this month.

Conival, which has registered the trademark under various categories including ready meals, pizzas, desserts and cereals, confirmed it would expand the brand beyond soups in the next six months.

It is understood that chefs from around the world will be used to launch the range into new areas.

The soups, which are made from local ingredients and feature White's name on-pack, will go head to head with New Covent Garden and Heinz, which entered the category last year with cartons of its Farmers' Market brand.

Four variants make up the range: vine ripened tomato & balsamic, a wild mushroom and cream flavour, a broth-style courgette & pasta soup and a spicy Cuban beef & tomato stew-style soup. The 600g tubs have an rsp of £1.99.

White, who advised on taste throughout the development stage, said the soups went through a three-hour cooking process during manufacturing.

Each ingredient was either roasted, simmered or sautéed prior to being blended with other ingredients, which were also separately cooked and prepared "to deliver a far better flavour and consistency", he said. "These soups actually taste homemade and are good enough for me to put my name to."

Each container is designed around a fun theme, featuring a black and white cartoon of the "inappropriate" things the soups prompt people to do, such as licking their bowls.

Conival is supporting the range with a six-figure marketing push that kicks off this month and includes direct mail and in-store activity. It will also promote the launch with a trial price of £1.49 for the first four weeks.

In the past year, chilled soup sales have risen 4.7% to £80.6m, according to TNS. Conival said it was expecting the market to grow in value by a further 10% this year. The total soup market is worth £483.2m [Nielsen, 52 w/e to 6 October, 2007].

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