"Buy me - I taste delicious!!"

Could a tin talk you into having beans for tea?

By JULIE WHELDON Last updated at 22:00pm on 3rd January 2007

If piped music and bleeping scanners get on your nerves at the supermarket, things could be about to get a whole lot worse.

Tins of food could soon be calling out to you from the shelves.

Scientists working on silicon chip technology have developed a tiny plastic screen which could be wrapped around tins, flashing up special offers as shoppers walk past.

If combined with a speaker and mini processor, tins could even call out recipe suggestions.

Baked beans could recommend serving them up with sausages while tinned peaches might suggest a dollop of cream.

The same chip technology could also one day become so miniaturised that it could fit within a shirt button.

This could then communicate directly with washing machines to ensure the perfecttemperature for washing.

The developments all stem from the creation of what amounts to a plastic version of silicon chips.

Currently silicon chips are used in devices such as televisions, MP3 players and mobile phones.

However the complicated and expensive manufacturing process means they are not usually placed in disposable items.

Scientists believe using plastic instead of silicon is a way around this problem.

This way they should be easier and cheaper to make, meaning they could be used in a host of new products.

Yesterday the technology received a major boost as the British company Plastic Logic announced it had secured more than £50 million to build the world's first plant to create flexible display screens using plastic semiconductors.

Although the firm is based in Cambridge, the plant will be built next year in Dresden, Germany The company has already created a prototype ten-inch display. It hopes to be able to produce electronic books and newspapers by the end of 2008.

Over time, as the screens become more flexible and cheaper, they could be wrapped around household items such as tinned food.

Anusha Nirmalananthan of Plastic Logic said: "One day they could be wrapped around a can and attached to an electronic sensor which detects when you walk past.

"It could tell you if there is a new recipe or alert you to a 'buy one, get one free' offer."

However she predicted this would not happen for at least 15 years.

Hermann Hauser, a director at Plastic Logic, said the technology could bring about major changes in the electronics industry.

"It could lead to an era of truly cheap electronics in which intelligent circuitry was sewn into your clothing for instance, to give you a set of instructions when you put the clothes on to tell you what you should be doing during the day," he said.

Steven Spielberg's 2002 film Minority Report portrayed a future world in which such developments are everyday.

As Tom Cruise's character John Anderton walks though a shopping mall, a screen flashes up: "John Anderton: you could use a Guinness."