Fajitas along with enchiladas, quesadillas and a host of other exciting dishes are poised to help make Mexican our second most popular ethnic meal by 2007, according to the stats by TNS, the UK's largest market information group.

They could overtake egg fried rice, crispy noodles and Peking duck which were the nation's favourite takeaway and home-cooked foods.

The news is what Discovery Foods expected. The business based in Aveling Road, High Wycombe is the UK's fastest growing brand within the Mexican food grocery sector and is a £36 million Wycombe success story.

It was originally set up as a three-man operation in 1989 by James Beaton but now employs over 250 people.

He spends much of his time in Mexico sourcing new products and ideas and said: "Indian and Chinese have been huge favourites with Brits for many years, so perhaps it's not surprising that people are now starting to look elsewhere for a spicy, ethnic fix'.

"Mexican is an exciting, fun and delicious way to prepare food at home: fajitas is the most popular dish with people loving the touchy, feely aspect of preparing their food and rolling it into a tortilla, while it's great for getting the whole family round the dinner table.

"And tortillas and wraps are increasingly the bread of choice for lunchboxes and sandwiches nationwide."

Rachel Argyle, of TNS, confirmed: "If the current trend continues, Mexican will have overtaken Chinese to become the UK's second favourite ethnic cuisine in 2007".

The latest findings were based on current supermarket shopping habits and growth rates which show that sales of spicy goods from the Central American country such as tortillas, refried beans, fajitas, chilli con carne and quesadillas shot up ten per cent in the last year.

At the same time, oriental food such as sweet-and-sour sauce, spring rolls and prawn crackers fell by one per cent.

If these trends continue, Mexican food will overtake Chinese in popularity within 18 months.

Of the three ethnic foods loved by Brits, Indian including vindaloo, naan bread and tikka masala is still number one, with 44 per cent of the market. Chinese dishes make up 31 per cent and Mexican 25.