Eat Natural has pitched itself against Dorset Cereals with the launch of its first range of cereals.

The four-strong Eat Natural for Breakfast range, which is targeting £5m sales within two years, contains a raft of unusual ingredients including caped gooseberries, Mexican Yucatan honey, wholegrain buckwheat and toasted breadcrumbs, intended to make it stand out on the increasingly crowded premium muesli shelf.

Two of the 450g bagged mueslis (rsp: £2.99) are gluten-free and will debut in Tesco's free-from aisle in mid May. Asda and Waitrose will stock the other two recipes from June.

Eat Natural has already tested the cereal market with a single plastic tub. The line, worth £500,000, has been in free-from aisles since 2001, but will now be discontinued.

The new range has been in development since 2006, when M&S food developer Harriet Gregory joined Eat Natural as head of NPD.

"We never made a play for cereals before now; it was just something simple we did while we focused on building a premium category for cereal bars," said Gregory. The launch was not in response to the popularity of Dorset Cereals, she insisted.

"It had always been in the business plan, but we needed to look at how to make something really different," she said. "We're not trying to do a Dorset Cereals - this is our unique offer and we've taken our time to make sure it's right."

Dorset Cereals MD Peter Farquhar said he welcomed all new products that would add interest and value to premium cereals.

Eat Natural is also planning a launch into premium breakfast bars, which are currently in development, in a move that would pit it against Jordan's and Carman's. "There's a gap in the market for a quality breakfast bar that you can pick up and eat in the car," Gregory added. A kids' version of the muesli range is also in the pipeline.

Eat Natural has increased sales by 20% in the past year to £28m. Dorset Cereals has sales of about £30m with high double-digit growth.