Alexis Conran meets a ready-meal creator who has worked with all the big supermarkets to find out what makes a great ready meal - and whether his own bright idea for the next big thing has potential. He also reveals what we can do to get more for our money, recreating some of the nation's top 10 ready meals with his own hacks on how to make your own versions of the classics for less. With the help of ready-meal-mad best mates Megs and Lya, he gets stuck into some top drawer sausage and mash, paella and pies - all of them ready in record time.

In this edition, Alexis asks if home-heated spaghetti bolognese can match the quality of one straight from a local Italian kitchen, before checking out how 'posh" ready meals compare to products from the likes of McCains and Iceland.