Patak’s is hoping to knock Sharwood’s off its pedestal as the leading ambient Indian sauce brand with a £5m marketing campaign, new products and a packaging revamp.

Associated British Foods, which bought the brand two years ago, is launching a £3.5m TV ad campaign to improve consumers’ “latent” understanding of the brand’s family heritage.

The ad, which hits screens on 5 October and will run for five weeks, features an Indian family hosting a dinner for their white neighbours and a new strapline: Patak’s, Why Britain Loves Curry.

It is the first national advertising for the brand and will be supported by in-store sampling, print advertising and a new website, which together account for the remaining £1.5m of the marketing budget.

The campaign will be preceded by the launch of a raft of new Patak’s products this week. Among them is an Oven Bake Biryani range (rsp: £1.59, available in three flavours, which Patak’s claimed are the first oven-bake sauces of their kind.

Although the Premier Foods-owned Sharwood’s brand is currently the market leader in ambient Indian sauces with a 28.6% share [Nielsen], Patak’s accounts for 26.5% and is growing faster with sales up 11% year-on-year to £45m compared with a 3% drop to £48.7m for Sharwood’s.