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The Food Programme

Premium Brands

Duration: 30 minutes

First broadcast: on BBC Radio 4 FMLatest broadcast: on BBC Radio 4 LW

Available for over a year

Nearly ten years after Tesco launched its Finest range most of the big retailers have their own premium brands.

So we now have Sainsbury's Taste the Difference, Asda’s Extra Special and Morrisons' The Best. The Food Programme explores what lies behind these labels. Simon Parkes talks to Edward Garner from TNS Worldpanel, a market research company, about the rise in sales of supermarket premium brands.

Simon also visits one of the major suppliers of supermarket premium range cakes, The Finsbury Food Group and speaks to Chief Executive, Dave Brooks about what goes into a premium product. We hear from Catherine Collins, chief dietician and nutritionist at St. Georges Hospital in London and Peter York, branding consultant about the packaging, the descriptions and the contents of some of the ready meals on offer in premium brand ranges.

Tim Lennox, marketing manager for Sainsbury's explains the brand values behind the Taste the Difference range and Neil Nugent talks about the thinking behind Asda’s Extra Special range. Simon is then joined by retail analyst and Food & Farming Award judge, Robert Clarke and food journalist and author of Bad Food Britain, Joanna Blythman to discuss the so called trend of “premiumisation”. Show less

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