Warburtons has invested £7m in its new range of Thin Bagels.

The baking giant will launch the sandwich alternatives into Asda this week (23 April) before stocking them into Tesco, Morrisons, Sainsbury’s, The Co-operative and Iceland.

A £7m investment in a new manufacturing line has been made, in order to appeal to the ‘lighter sandwich alternative’ trend.

Darren Littler, innovation director, Warburtons, said: “Innovation is at the heart of everything we do at Warburtons and our new Thins Bagels range is a great reflection of this.

“There is a strong appetite for sandwich alternatives as we’ve seen from our number one selling Sandwich Thins range. Our new Thin Bagels offer consumers greater variety and we are excited to attract new consumers into the popular bagel sector.”

The new range of pre-sliced Thin Bagels will be available in packs of six priced at £1.40, and will be available in plain, cinnamon and raisin and sesame - all under 150 calories per bagel.

Warburtons will also support the Thin Bagels launch with an integrated communications campaign, including PR and social media.

The Bolton-based company launched its regular Sandwich Thins in 2011, and has since won planning permission for a £20m plant in Lancashire to increase its own capacity for wraps and thins.

Kingsmill launched a similar thins product late last year.