Shop Talk: What's in a name?

WHAT does Frankie Dettori know about pizza? Probably more than Postman Pat knows about spaghetti. What's in a name? About £50m if you're Loyd Grossman. That's what experts say is the value of the ready-made sauces that bear his name. He'll get only a proportion of that, but even a smidgen sounds like good deal to me.

On the jars of Loyd Grossman sauces, it says: "I made it, so you wouldn't have to!". But I don't suppose that man with the strangulated vowels is spending his days slaving over a hot stove, personally stirring up each batch of bolognese or madras sauce.

How much input celebrities have on the products bearing their names varies, but never mind the names. We tried a random sample to see if they were worth buying, or whether you're better off in obscurity.

LOYD GROSSMAN ***

Brand value: £50m. Includes pasta sauces, curry sauces, salad dressings.

Verdict: The sauces regularly do well in our taste tests and if you're going to buy ready-made gloop, this is the ready-made gloop to buy. The salad dressings were very ordinary and anonymous.

AINSLEY HARRIOTT *****

Brand Value: £30m. Includes sauces, marinades, dressings, cous cous

Verdict: Like Ainsley himself, there's a nice quirkiness to these products, which are very spicy and fruity. (I think he must have shares in lime orchards.) We particularly liked the Lime Sublime dressing and dip, and the Citrus Kick cous cous.

JANE ASHER ***

Brand Value: £41m. Cake mixes and cookware.

Verdict: A better class of cake mix, stylishly packed. On the other hand, you have to add two eggs, butter and oil, so the result should be half decent. When other cake mixes are being aimed increasingly at children, this has a bit more grown-up appeal.

PAUL NEWMAN ***

Verdict: The only thing that puts us off the Paul Newman range of sauces and salad dressings is the technicolour picture of him on all the bottles. The sauces are fine but what makes them special is that all the profits go to charity. According to the labels, they have raised $100m so far. OK, they're probably all American charities, but aren't they better than Loyd Grossman's pocket?

FRANKIE DETTORI ****

Verdict: Considering the fact that jockeys spend most of their working lives living on half a lettuce leaf and a glass of water, they're not the obvious people to trust on food, especially pizza. However, Frankie's Italian, so that's alright. He's put his name to a range of frozen pizzas and was apparently quite involved in the tastings. A frozen pizza is not exactly a gourmet experience but these, to be fair, are probably better than most. If not an outright winner, then a good each-way bet.

THOMAS THE TANK ENGINE, TELETUBBIES, BOB THE BUILDER, SCOOBY DOO etc

No, they are not selling you their latest innovative salad dressing, sauce or cake mix, but these are the characters who get turned into pasta shapes to grab the pre-school market. (Is there honour among food manufacturers? Apparently not.) And doesn't scoffing down Bob the Builder verge on cannibalism?

But whereas boring old Heinz spaghetti hoops cost 29p for a small tin, get your pasta in Bob the Builder or Scooby Doo shapes by HP and it's 32p. Thomas the Tank Engine, the Teletubbies and the Tweenies - Heinz again - cost 36p for one small tin.

So what's in a name? - about 7p a portion.

P.S. Jamie Oliver - brand value £8m - makes his money out of cookery books, ranges of tableware and from being the face of Sainsburys. He is now doing his bit to bring proper meat into supermarkets.

He has worked closely with Sainsburys to introduce properly-hung beef onto its butchery counters. Most supermarket beef is hung for just a few days, which is why it usually tastes of not very much. The extra-matured British beef has been hung for 21 days, is a deeper, darker red and, according to the experts on BBC Radio Four's The Food Programme, tastes more like proper beef should.

Prices start from £19.99 a kilo for sirloin steak. Also available are fillet, rib-eye and rump, and four different types of roasting joint.