Imagination is obviously key when it comes to marketing prepared baby leaf salads and vegetables in a market with endless on-pack descriptions.

With the summer on the way Marks & Spencer has launched a new range of salads, including “Superbowls”, ready to make the most of families picnicking this year. One example, at £1.99 for 160g, is described as Crispy Ranch-style and includes green multileaf lettuce and lamb’s lettuce, as well as dressings.

Further along the counter is a new rocket, watercress and spinach 70g polybag with a watercress dressing, displayed through a bottle-shaped window on the outside of the bag.

Sainsbury’s has taken the concept of Kenyan-grown prepared veg a stage further with a combination targeted at those customers who have a taste for Oriental soup at £2 for 200g. It contains butternut squash, courgettes, baby corn and mangetout.

Also available are pre-packed globe artichokes at £1.90 each. While these were brought to the attention of the public by Brittany Prince in the seventies, the current arrivals are from Italy.

At the same store, there are signs that continental Europe is flexing its muscles for the start of the strawberry season with Dutch glasshouse-grown Elsanta already arriving at £1.50 for 227g. There are also some novelties from the Netherlands with Waitrose stocking little-seen white and red-flecked pineberries.

And for a taste of luxury at Tesco, there are Spanish Brook cherries at £4 for 200g. Regarded as the fruit that creates the biggest impulse purchase, this sense is heightened with the addition of the sub-brand Glamour on the sleeve. The variety is grown, among others, by Oscar Ortiz at the base of the Pyrenees and have been brought to market after five years of research. -