Morrisons is launching a vegetarian ready meal range that will be the antidote to “bland” supermarket veggie fare, it claims.

The retailer said it had created the 19-strong addition to its M Kitchen range, which hits shelves on Monday, in response to customer feedback that much of the vegetarian food in supermarkets was “bland and uninteresting”.

This is Morrisons’ first vegetarian ready meal range and was developed by head chef Neil Nugent and his innovation team at Morrisons’ kitchen in its Bradford HQ, also known as the M Kitchen. It covers a variety of different cuisine and includes sweet potato & sunblaze tomato crispmelt, crushed Charlotte potato topper with West Country Cheddar sauce, and a bean burger with spicy sweet potato & nacho crumb. There is also a North Indian paneer & vegetable curry with rice, which was developed by twice Michelin-starred chef Atul Kochhar.

“This range sets a new standard for vegetarian meals on the market,” said Nugent. “Our customers have told us they are tired of the same old bland meals, which have just had the meat taken out. These are superb recipes that will be enjoyed by anyone who loves food.”

The retailer plans to continue to add to the range throughout the year and has further products in line specifically for Christmas.

The latest additions are part of a wider overhaul of Morrisons’ own-label range, which CEO Dalton Philips identified as an area of weakness compared with its rivals almost two years ago.

The first products in the relaunch arrived in store in December with the rollout of the main M Kitchen range. Last month, the retailer extended M Kitchen into frozen and replaced its budget own-label range Morrisons Value with the M Savers lines.

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