Even kitchen-shy students can get an early taste of Christmas this year from a limited-edition Christmas dinner-flavoured pot noodle snack.

The festive version of Golden Wonder: The Nation's Noodle which even comes with a sachet of cranberry sauce has a turkey-flavoured sauce and contains vegetables including carrot, cabbage and broccoli.

And forget the effort associated with Christmas - the product requires boiling water and five minutes of a consumer's time.

It is rolling out to stores over the next couple of weeks in a 90g version (rsp: 95p) that will be stocked by Morrisons, and a 115g 'Normous' pot (rsp: 98p) that will be sold in Asda.

"We wanted to offer customers something a little different," said The Nation's Noodle brand manager Dan Johnston.

But one thing the product isn't offering is the traditional Christmas Brussels sprouts. "They are quite polarising and we're keen to appeal to the mass market," explained Johnston.

As the latest limited-edition offering in the range, Christmas dinner follows the launch of the All Day Breakfast variant in July, which has helped sales of Golden Wonder: The Nation's Noodle grow 33.1% year-on-year to £8.3m. The Symington's-owned brand currently holds a 10.2% value share of the instant hot snacking market [Kantar Worldpanel 52w/e 4 September 2011].

Last Christmas, the rival Pot Noodle line was expanded with the limited-edition 'Pot Noeldle', "a fusion of turkey and stuffing with all the trimmings". Owner Unilever said it had no plans to produce a Christmas variant this year.

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