Marks and Spencer is to trial an M&S Kitchen branded outlet later this month - a cross between its Café Revive format and a table service restaurant.

The M&S Kitchen will be a standalone unit next to its store in Canterbury, Kent, with 60 seats indoors and 20 outdoors.

It will open at 7.30am and close after the store at 8.30pm. Sunday opening times will be 10.30am to 5.30pm.

The Kitchen will have a quick turnaround takeaway section and seating for hot meals. Products on sale will include sandwiches and salads, both prepared on site, as well as soups and pastas.

The retailer wants to promote the products that it sells in its stores by serving dishes such as M&S branded lasagne.

M&S Kitchen is one of the company’s initiatives to boost sales of its branded products, it said.

Its Café Revive concept has been introduced to 220 stores so far. Meanwhile it started trials of a full table service restaurant in Newcastle on Tyne last month.

Marks and Spencer posted its interim results earlier this month, for the period ending at the end of September. Sales were up 11% at £3.9bn and pre-tax profits up 32.2% to £405.1m, its highest first-half profit in nine years.

New store formats and advertising using 1960s model Twiggy and Elizabeth Jagger have helped to attract customers, said chief executive Stuart Rose. The retailer also said it has now removed trans fats from all its foods and is the first UK retailer to do so.