Marks & Spencer is all but abandoning its much-parodied “this is not just food” advertising campaign and is turning to Del Boy to boost sales of its ready meals.

The high street retailer will begin a new chapter from Sunday by using Sir David Jason, the actor who played Del Boy Trotter in the BBC sitcom Only Fools and Horses, to promote its range of Italian food.

The move represents a marked shift by M&S. For the past three years its food advertising has featured close-ups of products such as melt-in-the-middle chocolate puddings, with Dervla Kirwan, the Ballykissangel star, purring: “This is not just food, this is M&S food.”

Steve Sharp, executive director of marketing at M&S, said that the change represented the “next step” in the retailer's advertising. He added that other celebrities would provide voiceovers in the coming months.

In the new advertisement, Sir David discusses the ingredients he is using for a risotto, only to reveal that it is an M&S prepared meal.

Mr Sharp said: “The new adverts not only show that M&S-prepared meals offer restaurant-quality dining, but also highlight the quality of our raw ingredients to viewers.” Recent industry market figures showed that while some food retailers such as Aldi are boosting sales by an average of almost 7 per cent a year, M&S sales were lower than a year ago. Steven Esom, the former director of food, left M&S two months ago.

M&S said that Sir David had been chosen to front the first series of the new advertisements because of his universal appeal with the British public.

The new advertisement will run for three weeks. The “this is not just food” tag will continue to appear as a strapline but will not be spoken. The commercials were created by Rainey Kelly, the same agency that devised the “this is not just food” campaign.

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