Planning a picnic or barbecue? Here are some must-add items for your shopping basket. . .

Gressingham Duck burgers, £3 for two, Tesco stores

Fancy throwing something a bit different on your next barbie? Seasoned with hoisin and spring onion, these duck burgers are just the job: seriously juicy, packed full of flavour and remarkably unfatty when grilled (reared free-to-roam on Suffolk and Norfolk farms, Gressingham Duck is famous for having higher breast meat and lower fat), they are delicious eaten in either an old-school burger bun or solo with salad sides.

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Ramona’s Heavenly Houmous in Original and Jalapeno, £6.50 for a 1kg tub, shop.ramonaskitchen.com

If you’re a fan of houmous and have yet to try Ramona’s, made in Hertfordshire in small batches to the founder’s own recipe, you are in for one hell of a treat. Available in 1kg tubs, ideal for feeding a barbecue crowd, Heavenly Houmous delivers unrivalled flavour and texture thanks to Ramona’s authentic three-day process: the chickpeas are soaked on day one, boiled on day two, then blended with the remaining ingredients, including top-notch tahini and garlic, on day three. As its name suggests, the Jalapeno version packs an extra punch of pepper, which pairs perfectly with a tortilla chip.

Merchant Gourmet Fiery Jamaican-Style Grains and Pulses, £2 per 250g pouch, Ocado and Morrisons stores

Known for producing ready-to-eat/heat grain and pulse pouches in great global flavours - best-sellers include the Smoky Spanish-Style Grains & Rice and Tomatoey French Puy & Green Lentils - Merchant Gourmet has added a limited edition Fiery Jamaican-Style version to its range for summer 2022. Cooked with an authentic Scotch bonnet jerk paste, creamy coconut and fresh lime, it’s a swift, easy and delicious base for a barbecue side: mix it with sliced peppers, cherry toms and mango if you’re feeling fancy and ta-dah! A carnival in a salad bowl.

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RedLoon Spicirub, £2.99 per 100g carton, redloon.co.uk

A recipe that has been handed down in brand founder Raspal Kaur’s family for almost 80 years, this mix of aromatic spices promises to perk up whatever you’re barbecuing - steak, chicken, fish, seafood, potatoes and even veggies. Containing a roll call of herbs and spices, from fennel and coriander to cumin and cayenne, simply mix it with a little oil and fresh lemon juice to form a paste, rub it onto to your meat/fish/veg and leave to marinate in the fridge for an hour before cooking. Results are downright delicious. RedLoon makes a donation to mental health charity Mind for every pack sold, too.

Fairfields Farm Cheese & Onion crisps, 80p for a 40g bag, farm shops and fairfieldsfarmcrisps.co.uk

No picnic or barbecue would be complete without crisps and there’s a lot to love about East Anglian brand Fairfields Farm. For a start, all their crisps are made from their own potatoes, grown on family-run farmland on the Suffolk/Essex border. They're cooked on-site in a small-batch production unit powered solely by renewable energy. The entire range - even the Bacon & Tomato and Rib of Beef flavours - is vegan-friendly, being meat and dairy-free. Plus they’ve just revamped their Cheese & Onion, pairing a newly creamy cheesiness with subtle onion, taking the staple flavour to standout level.

Wine Unpacked Subscription, from £39 per month to include an initial Tastefinder box of 12 minis, wineunpacked.com

This is cute. Sign up for a monthly subscription with Wine Unpacked, the newly-launched service aiming to debunk wine myths and mysteries and make tasting and learning more accessible, and your first delivery is a Tastefinder box of 12 fun-size bottles of whites and reds, accompanied by a guide to help you discern whether you favour Chardonnay over Beaujolais, light-bodied over full and so on. The results inform your ongoing monthly deliveries, which start from two full-size bottles. Plus the dinky minis are delightfully sized for picnic hampers.

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Hip with Purpose Clutch, £22, John Lewis & Partners Cambridge and johnlewis.com

The perfect accessory for picnic season and far beyond - comprising leak-proof bowl, dressing container and lid-locked cutlery set complete with chopsticks, it’s also the dream office lunch box - Hip with Purpose’s handled Clutch is clever, contemporary and chic in design. It comes in a range of colours, including powder pink as well as this deep teal, is microwave and dishwasher safe and, each one made from 275 single-use, single-serve drink bottles, it also prevents plastic from winding up in our oceans. Brilliant.