Every retailer wants to stand out from the crowd and there is no harm in that.

To cement this concept in shoppers’ minds there are in-house magazines, endless supplies of recipes and some of the top culinary names and personalities to back it up.

So far so good, but the message on packaging is less clear cut.

Shiitake mushrooms have been around for a long time, and Tesco is labelling them at £1.69/125g as a Select variety.

At the other end of the scale Waitrose’s Limited Edition label offers red-fleshed “nectavigne”. The French fruit, priced at £2.49 for four, is a variety of nectarine called Montarsa.

In the rush to appear different, the old-fashioned stew pack, usually comprising onions and various root crops, is still widely available, but getting left behind in the move towards convenience.

Marks & Spencer has a new range which includes a mix of fresh and prepared carrots (25 per cent), new potatoes (24 per cent), swede (20 per cent), leeks (17 per cent) and red onion (14 per cent) all at the introductory price of 79p for 400g, which will shortly rise to £1.29.

Additionally, there is what is called a “Dine in side dish”, made up in Kenya of broccoli, carrots and sugarsnap peas, and an onion, carrot and coriander mix to make soup.

So winter is certainly on the way, and with it increasing interest in citrus. M&S’s 1kg carry-home cartons of clementines, introduced several months ago, must have been a success, as they have now been joined by Spanish satsumas similarly priced at £3.49.

The Mediterranean is not having it all its own way though - the clementines are still being sourced in Peru.

Sometimes the information on the back of a pack proves to be more interesting than that on the front, as in the case at Sainsbury’s with its chilli range.

While unusually, the green variety is sourced from France and priced at 54p for 50g, there is a useful heat scale on the back of the pouch, which for the uninitiated provides details of the strengths of the various types.

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