Love him or loathe him, there’s much to admire about Jeremy Clarkson’s foray into food and drink. Since taking up farming, the Top Gear star has been a vocal champion of British agriculture and he puts his money – or rather, his customers’ – where his mouth is.

His Diddly Squat Farm Shop in the Cotswolds sells only home-grown or locally-made produce, and at his pub The Farmer’s Dog down the road, he’s gone so far as to ban ketchup, coffee and Coca-Cola as they can’t be sourced from within the British Isles.

That hasn’t deterred his hordes of customers, who’ve travelled from all over the UK to wolf down a Sunday roast in a one-hour sitting booked weeks in advance, or join the snaking queues at the shop.

If you’d rather skip the queues, there’s now another way to get a taste of Diddly Squat. Clarkson has teamed up with Deliveroo to deliver a selected range of his products straight to people’s doors. The service launched on Tuesday and is available while limited stocks last from Deliveroo HOP Morrisons stores in Bristol, Brighton, London and Manchester. I was among the first to try it out.

Pork scratchings – £1.99/50g

If you want an immersive taste of Clarkson’s Farm, start with these. A pungent farmyard odour hits you as soon as you rip open the packet. If you can get past the smell, they’re everything you could want from the classic pub snack – salty and audibly crunchy with a soft, fatty interior.

Hand-cooked crisps (lightly salted and cheese and onion) – £1.99/40g

For the price, I assumed these would be sharing size bags. The Yorkshirewoman in me bristled to discover they weren’t much bigger than your average packet of Walkers or McCoys. And then bristled even further to realise even those brands are now upwards of £1 a pack anyway, so perhaps my expectations were unfair. These are of course a far superior product, made with Diddly Squat potatoes and no artificial flavours, colours or preservatives. Only two flavours are available – lightly salted, which taste mostly of the sunflower oil they’re cooked in, and cheese and onion, flavoured with mature Hereford Hop cheese. Not bad at all – but for the price I’ll stick to Tyrells.

Bee Juice Bites – £5/150g

The undisputed winner of our taste test, these little chocolate-covered honeycomb pieces went down a treat in the office. ‘Better than a Crunchie’ was the general consensus. I can’t help but feel the name is a bit misleading though. Bee Juice is the name of Diddly Squat’s honey and they don’t seem to contain any at all. The chocolate also tastes quite cheap for the price. Inspecting the ingredients list, there’s only 3% cocoa powder. They’re mostly made of sugar, whey and (sustainable) palm oil – which I’m pretty sure doesn’t come from Oxfordshire. The reality isn’t quite the wholesome, home-grown image projected by the farm shop’s marketing. But that doesn’t stop me going back for another handful…

Diddly Squat Farm Fudge – £5/150g

Produced for the farm by The Cotswold Fudge Company, this is a traditional, crumbly-style fudge hand-made to an old-fashioned recipe. It’s utterly, butterly delicious but so tooth-achingly sweet I can only manage one piece. You also pay a premium for the Diddly Squat label. You can buy all the Cotswold Fudge Company’s own-brand varieties directly from them for £3.99/150g.

Diddly Squat Bee Juice Pure Honey – £12.50/350g

The price of this is enough to make anyone choke on their breakfast. The £12.50 jar of honey hit the headlines after the shop first opened, when Clarkson hit back at a Twitter user who branded the cost ‘shameful’. I have to say though – it’s delicious. It’s a set honey, with a fruity, floral flavour and a glittering, crystalline texture that melts as it spreads over warm toast. I normally only use honey in cooking and baking; I’d eat this one spooned straight from the jar. However sweet, that price will still leave a bitter taste for many.

Chilli Pasta Sauce – £5.99/250g

The habanero heat of this made my lips sting when I tried it straight from the jar. Beneath the fierce chilli kick, the tomato and pepper sauce is fresh, sweet and slightly vinegary. My Italian husband screwed his nose up at first taste but said he’d be willing to eat it – on a taco. Once gently simmered in a pan and tossed with linguine, king prawns and parsley he did relent and enjoyed it – as did I. Would I spend nearly £6 on it again? Not when I can knock up a quick and just-as-tasty arrabbiata sauce from a tin of chopped tomatoes, a pinch of garlic and chilli and a glug of olive oil in the time it takes to boil the pasta.

Chilli Garlic Rapeseed Oil – £5.99/250ml

A teaspoon of this nearly knocked me off my feet. Once the heat subsides, the oil itself has quite a neutral flavour compared with the fruity olive oils I typically buy. It’d be perfect for drizzling on pasta or pizza, or even as a base oil for cooking spicy dishes.

Hawkstone beer and cider – £2.99/250ml (beers), £2.99/500ml cider

Run in collaboration with the folks from the former Cotswold Brew Co, Clarkson’s Hawkstone brewery produces just a handful of beers and there are four available from the Diddly Squat Deliveroo HOP shop. The 4% Hawkstone Session Lager is crisp, clean and citrussy, while the 4.8% Hawkstone Lager is a richer and maltier upgrade. There’s also a lighter 3.8% Hawkstone Pils as well as a 4.8% Hawkstone IPA, for those (like me) who prefer a hoppier brew.

None of them are particularly ground-breaking but it’s a solid range that covers most of the classic beer styles you’d expect to see at a British boozer. I’d be happy to find any of them at my local, and I also found these the most reasonably priced products in the range.

There’s also a Hawkstone Cider, made from locally-picked heritage apples. It’s sweeter than I expected from a drink described as medium-dry, and has a slight sparkling wine quality to it courtesy of champagne yeast it’s fermented with. I’m not much of a cider drinker but this goes down a treat on a warm spring day.

If you really feel like pushing the boat out, you can also order bottles of spirits including Diddly Squat’s Cow Juice Vodka (£45/500ml), distilled using whey and spring water from the farm, and Bee Juice rum (£30/200ml). Having already spent £56.89 at this point, I decided it was time to rein it in.

The verdict

The problem with reviewing a delivery service like this is that the appeal of shopping at a farm shop is so grounded in the experience of actually visiting one. Being in the countryside and following the journey of produce from field to fork are experiences that can’t be replicated on Deliveroo.

If I had a day out at Diddly Squat, I’m sure I wouldn’t think twice about popping a foodie souvenir or two in my basket – even if they were pricier than I’d be prepared to pay at a supermarket. Would I buy them on Deliveroo again? Probably not.

The Deliveroo HOP order experience was fast and faultless and I’d use the service again for an emergency shopping top-up. The Diddly Squat range on there would make a great last minute gift for the Clarkson’s Farm fan in your life. As for me, I’ll probably stick to Morrisons’ own line. Sorry Jeremy…