mary berry chilled dessert range

Queen of puddings Mary Berry is launching her first chilled desserts, produced under licence by The Hain Daniels Group.

The two-strong range, available from Tesco and Ocado from this week and Waitrose next week, comprises Berry’s favourite childhood puddings, made to the Great British Bake Off star’s original family recipes - Belgian Chocolate Brownie and Luxury Summer Fruit (rsp: £3.50/ serving five and four respectively).

Designed to “get families together around the table”, the desserts are “table presentable” and would allow mum to pass them off as her own, said Berry.

Further SKUs were already in the pipeline due to launch later this year, she told The Grocer.

“My childhood memories of sitting around the table and the anticipation of my mother bringing the desserts inspired the range,” said Berry.

“I’m very much looking forward to sharing my favourite sweet treats with families across the UK.” She added the puds duo had received an “extremely positive” response from buyers.

The launch marks Berry’s first retail desserts range and closelyfollows fellow Bake Off judge Paul Hollywood’s partnership with Premier Foods to introduce a line-up of sweet and savoury artisanal baking mixes, which began to roll out to supermarket shelves in February.

Following the launch of a bakeware range in Sainsbury’s and Lakeland in 2013, Berry sold her grocery portfolio of salad dressings, sauces and chutneys in 2014 to RH Amar - her distributor for the past 10 years -for £1m.

The Belgian Chocolate Brownie features a base that contains chunks of Belgian dark chocolate and comes with a separate Belgian white chocolate sauce, while the Luxury Summer Fruit option is made with soft white bread layers infused with summer fruit syrup and covered in summer fruit compote.

Jeremy Hudson, CEO of The Hain Daniels Group, said it had been “an honour” to work with Mary Berry, and to be part of bringing her puddings to the market.