M&S is adding six new pasta dishes to its premium range of ready meals for one under its Collection brand.
The new ‘restaurant quality’ ready meals are arriving in M&S Foodhalls and on Ocado.com tomorrow (10 September), priced at either £6 or £6.50 each.
The dishes are aiming for authentic Italian flavours, with three of them using whole Italian tomatoes, picked in season and then slow-cooked and simmered to reduce water, according to M&S.
The unfilled lines use single-grain durum wheat pasta from northern Italy, slow-dried to better hold flavour, while the filled dishes are made with Italian 00 flour egg pasta.
The new lines are: Collection Slow Cook Beef Shin Ragu (£6); Collection Spinach & Ricotta Tortelloni (£6); Collection Prawn & Pistachio Pesto (£6.50); Collection Spaghetti Carbonara All Romana (£6); Collection Calabrian ‘Nduja Mafalde (£6); and Collection Beef Shin Tortelloni (£6.50).
The ‘nduja and guanciale come from Calabrian pigs and are seasoned for 60 days, according to M&S.
“When it comes to proper pasta, most Italians would agree a dish is only as good as the quality and provenance of its ingredients,” said M&S Food development & innovation chef George Baldwin-Edie.
“That’s why we’ve explored the length and breadth of Italy to find the best Italian regional ingredients to bring you dishes that wouldn’t look out of place in nonna’s kitchen.
“These six dishes are ready in minutes and can be perfectly paired with our M&S Collection Handcrafted Garlic Bread, as well as one of our delicious M&S Collection Italian wines.
“I would recommend our citrusy Collection Gavi del Comune di Gavi to go with our vegetarian meals and our rich Collection Chianti Classico Riserva with our meat dishes.”
The Grocer revealed last month that M&S had overtaken Co-op to become the UK’s seventh-biggest grocer in food and drink sales, according to unpublished Worldpanel by Numerator data seen by The Grocer.
M&S’s food and drink market share was 5.1% in the 52 weeks to 13 July 2025, compared with Co-op’s 4.7%. The pair had swapped places since the previous 52-week period, when M&S had a 4.7% food and drink market share and Co-op had 4.9%.
M&S was two places above Waitrose, with the latter on 4.5% food and drink market share.
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