BNP, KGB, CIA - there are some acronyms that automatically put you into a distrusting and wary state of mind. For me though, worse by far is "NPD". New Product Development is the process of brainstorming, testing and focus groups by which supermarket bring new, 'added value' offerings to our shopping baskets, and it is NPD that created the sausage that sits before me.

I'm all for innovation in cooking. I experiment in my own kitchen, I'm always happy when a chef chances on some happy new congruence of flavour or texture but I can only imagine, in appalled horror, the brainstorm that led to the Waitrose Berry Banger.



"We need a new product to launch in the early summer - to 'celebrate the start of the British tennis season'. Think Wimbledon. Think barbecues. Think Pimms. Think Devon cream teas on hot, dreamy summer days and, above all, think out-of-the box. I've got the Post-Its. C'mon people, work your creative magic … just throw those ideas at me …"

"Sausages!"

"Strawberries!"

"Cream!"

"Strawberry jam!"

"…and sprig of fresh mint!"

Job done.

And because there's no such thing as a bad idea in a brainstorm, that list of ingredients goes to the development kitchen ... and they create a sausage with strawberries and jam in it ... and because they're Waitrose and not Lidl, they substitute crème fraiche for cream, pack it into a natural hog casing and deliver it with a breathlessly chirpy press release (which you can enjoy in 'news articles' like this, and this) to people like me.

I cook the sausage carefully. A gentle low sizzle in half duck fat and half clarified butter (I'm on a diet). I lay it on a plate, adjusting the position for the most appetising effect and I taste it, bringing to bear my highly developed palate and honed critical faculties.

It is only at this point it becomes apparent that something in the process has gone terribly, terribly wrong. Mint, jam, strawberries and sausage meat only ever occur together in one place: the pants of a four year-old after a badly catered birthday party.

The natural hog casing has the texture of a Restoration prophylactic and has split over each cyst of pressurised jam allowing it to leak forth and giving me possibly the only opportunity in my entire writing career to use the words 'suppurating wen' in a food review. I raise a slice to my mouth and taste something that you might find stuck to your shoe in a playground. This isn't ordinary food - it's synaesthetic mugging.

I've cut out the ingredient list from the pack and I'm having it framed. No, seriously. I want to keep it forever above my desk as a reminder. Though you can set out on a creative journey with the intention of evoking bucolic summer days, you can never be entirely sure how your efforts will be received - but I think you can safely assume you've gone adrift when the first of a blizzard of metaphors that comes to the mind of your consumer are Haribo, child-poop and Samuel Pepys's genitals.

Have you spotted any 'value added' products at the supermarket recently that should have stayed on the drawing board? Are you keen to try the new Waitrose Berry Banger? Are you mad?