The Gastronaut’s Chilli Prawn Linguine
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- 1.2 million UK adults would travel over 100 miles for a home-cooked roast dinner, proving familiar comfort food really is worth the journey
- Over half of the nation (56%) say they’d go out of their way - even travelling all the way “home home”, just for the meal they love most
- Celebrating the UK’s love of food, Waitrose launches cinematic sci-fi campaign ‘The Gastronaut’ showing just how far food lovers will go for flavour.
4th February 2026: Britain has become a nation of food lovers; new research shows that more than three quarters (77%) of shoppers see food as “more than just fuel”, with over half (53%) saying they will go the extra mile for the food they love most.
The study by Waitrose reveals just how seriously the nation takes its mealtime, as 1.2 million adults confirm they would trek over 100 miles for a home-cooked roast dinner (because no one makes it like mum). In fact, over half (56%) say they’d go out of their way - even travelling all the way “home home”, just for their favourite meal. The classic roast, fish & chips and spag-bol topped the list of meals that make us think of home.
It comes as Waitrose launches The Gastronaut, a bold new sci-fi inspired campaign dramatising the extraordinary lengths food lovers will go to for great food. The cinematic advert follows an astronaut, Michael, who dreams of delicious meals as he is repeatedly served bland looking space fuel. Cravings got the better of him. So he travelled all the way home for his ultimate comfort dish: prawn linguine.
The new research highlights that the top three dishes UK adults would travel home from space for are the beloved roast dinner, the classic British fish and chips, or hearty steak and chips. It is these comforting, familiar dishes, often tied to childhood memories and family moments, that are most likely to evoke the feeling of “home”.
For Britain’s most dedicated food lovers, the next meal is rarely out of mind. Over half (55%) say they are already thinking about lunch and dinner plans while eating breakfast, while 71% say they try to treat every mealtime as an opportunity to prepare and enjoy the food they love.
The new Waitrose campaign tells the story of one food lover stuck in a place where food is treated as just fuel. But for him, as with food lovers across the nation, food is so much more than that. It is comfort, joy, creativity, and a way of life. And when you love food that deeply, you will go to extraordinary lengths to get it.
The creative brings the food versus fuel debate to life, helping viewers see themselves as food lovers too, and positioning Waitrose as their spiritual home. Because Waitrose does not just sell food, it champions food worth travelling home for. Set to Aerosmith’s iconic “I Don’t Want to Miss a Thing”, the soundtrack underscores just how powerful the pull of great food can be.
In a playful world first, Waitrose will even “send” its advert into space. Working with a specialist partner, the film will be transmitted beyond Earth, a tongue in cheek reminder that no distance is too great when there is a truly good meal waiting at home.
Food lover and content creator @WhatWillyCook also features in the campaign. As Michael longs for comforting, home cooked food, he watches one of Willy’s videos featuring prawn linguine. Viewers can find the recipe on the Waitrose website.
Nathan Ansell, Waitrose Chief Customer Officer, said: “Food has a powerful way of reconnecting us with the places and moments that matter most. This campaign celebrates the meals, flavours and small rituals that food lovers would go to extraordinary lengths for, even travelling across space. It’s a playful way of showing just how deeply people care about the food they love, it’s not just about what you eat, it's the people, places and memories associated with it.”
The campaign is a spirited nod to a very real truth that for food lovers, food is never just fuel.
The top ten meals that make Brits think of home:
- Roast Dinner (39%)
- Fish & Chips (25%)
- Spaghetti Bolognese (13%)
- Homemade Soup (13%)
- Sausage & Mash (12%)
- Shepherd’s Pie (12%)
- Cottage Pie (11%)
- Stew (10%)
- Steak & Chips (9%)
- Jacket Potato (9%)
OnePoll: Waitrose, among 2,000 UK adults, 30th Jan-3rd Feb 2026.
Waitrose: JLP Perspectives Panel, August 2025
About Waitrose & Partners
Run by over 45,000 passionate Partners, Waitrose has been serving customers for 120 years and offers extraordinary products in our 317 shops and on Waitrose.com. Inspiring food discovery, our expert Partners run almost 800 specialist food service counters in store, where customers can shop a variety of the best quality meat, fresh fish, dry aged beef, sushi, as well as cheese. Our Beer, Wine and Spirits team features the largest number of Masters of Wine of any UK supermarket and we sell nearly 3,000 different wines, beers, ciders, spirits as well as no and low drinks in our shops, on Waitrose.com and Waitrose Cellar. We are committed to selling products which have been responsibly sourced, grown using the very best sustainable farming methods, some of which are grown or trialled on our very own farm, the Leckford Estate. In 2024, Waitrose was granted the Royal Warrant of Appointment to be Grocers and Wine & Spirits Merchant to His Majesty King Charles III.
