Value Range foods compared

[jennyjj01]

As many of us build our extended food stores, inevitably we look for value for money and maybe buy 'Value range' foods that we would not ordinarily eat. Or is it just me? And prices are on the move at all price points.

So can we maybe start a bit of a quality/value comparison thread. What's worthy or unworthy to buy and put away?

Favourite and least favourite 'value' tinned beans? Dried pasta? Tinned soup? etc

I'll start us off.

JUST ESSENTIALS by ASDA Bolognese Pasta Sauce 39p. I thought it might be ok as a base. It was rubbish even as a tomato puree base.
Baressa Pasta Sauces at Lidl 49p. Acceptable as a base sauce, but lacks the texture of expensive Dolmio.

JUST ESSENTIALS by ASDA Tinned Chicken Soup 24p. Boasts 2% chicken!. Mostly water and starch. Rubbish.

Everyday Essentials Peach Slices at ALDI 34p. Lots of sugar, but we liked them. Good value

Bramwells Chicken in White Sauce at ALDI £1.35 44% chicken. One of the better value tins of chicken. 10p dearer than ASDA's which has only 34% chicken. 65p cheaper than Princes which is similar.

Tesco Grower Harvest tinned sweetcorn 45p: Ropey. Not recommended.

Now..... What about Baked beans? Whatever happened to Tesco's Value range baked beans?

[Frnc]

Tesco Pasta Bake 80p does me 3 meals. I cook the pasta in a flask for 10 minutes. Microwave the sauce for 2. Drain, tip out, stir in. Add cheese on top. 5 minutes in air fryer/mini oven. Serve with frozen peas, microwaved 2.5 minutes. Very nice!

I have bought Aldi's version which is a bit cheaper but not tried it yet.

I've not really shopped around for pasta as I have loads to use up. I use half white and half wholewheat. I did grab a bag in Tescos recently but no idea how much it was. It's only a few pence a serving, whichever you buy.

Whole meal including energy costs very little.

Ok, let's do the research...

Aldi Everyday Essentials Spaghetti 500g 23p .....46p/kg
Aldi Everyday Essentials Penne 500g 35p............70p/kg
Aldi Cucina Fusilli Pasta 1kg .......................£1.25/kg
Aldi Cucina Wholewheat Fusilli 500g 69p.......£1.38kg
Sains Penne...........................................£1.55/kg
Sains Wholewheat Fusilini or Penne 86p 500g ..£1.70 kg
Napolina Wholewheat Penne 500g £1.55 ........£3.10 kg, guess what I've been buying, oops

[Frnc]

Tesco Grower Harvest tinned sweetcorn 45p: Ropey. Not recommended.

Now..... What about Baked beans? Whatever happened to Tesco's Value range baked beans?

Don't mention beans. I love them, but I'm not supposed to eat any.

Sains Greengrocer Sweetcorn if they still do it is about £1.15 for 900g, is fine. If not, Aldi do a bag about the same price and weight. 2-3 mins microwave. I microwave peas and sweetcorn together in a bowl.

Sains also do Greengrocer peas at about same price and weight as Aldi. In fact currently Sains is cheaper at 61p/kg.

[GillyBee]

Sainsbury's Hubbard Stores Peach Slices at 31p are excellent. Stuffed with peaches not syrup and we were happy with the flavour.
Sainsbury's Mary Ann Mozarella was OK - but we were only using it on pizza, not as star of the show.

[jennyjj01]

ALDI Everyday Essentials Baked Beans Total P155 Take.

I Just tried a tin, bought today.
Total Mickey take. ALDI are now in my bad books, and I won't rush back to stock up.
410g Tin of Baked Beans SUBMERGED UNDER Tomato sauce.
These were not stock that had just settled and I did not wring them out. A generous one third of the tin was just sauce. I decanted it off and threw it away.
Dreadful value for money!
It's academic, but they tasted just about acceptable.

I recognise that there will be some 'juice' but this was ridiculous.
Anyway, while in the store, I picked up some long grain rice 45p/kg that was better than ASDA's or Tesco's smashed up reject carp.

[Frnc]

Tip, my Aldi just got self service checkouts. I don't know if this applies to ones with cashiers on tills, but at mine, they do bananas by unit price not weight, so pick the biggest!

Sainsburys say 14p each but they actually do it by weight.

[Vitamin c]

Must agree with jenny, aldi have been dropping their quality as well as increasing their prices for some time now.
Their chicken thighs have extra skin on and sometimes extra bones on the bottom, lidl are no different.

Not a time for mince and Sausages god only knows what's in them these days.

[jennyjj01]

Must agree with jenny, aldi have been dropping their quality as well as increasing their prices for some time now.
Their chicken thighs have extra skin on and sometimes extra bones on the bottom, lidl are no different.

Not a time for mince and Sausages god only knows what's in them these days.

Cripes. How do they add extra skin and bones??? I think I know what you mean about the skin
I still rather like Lidl meat and chicken better than most places.

ASDA have some modestly priced beef roasting joints in their value range. They don't name the joint, so it's probably the cheapest bit of the cheapest cow. But it goes ok in the slow cooker. I actually like brisket. They do some 'Essentials' bacon that looks and tastes like cheap bacon.

Sausages: I only go for the finest cuts of MRM pork or chicken. Poundstretcher used to do tinned sausage made from mushed calves lungs

We have to accept that supermarkets are squeezing quality to try to compete on price on very thin margins. It's just depressing when the hit to quality is so obvious. Imagine post apocalypse, you open your first tin of stockpiled beans and they are rubbish.

Definitely try a sample of anything you are going to buy a tray of.

I was going to start this thread as a 'List' of ingredients in that ASDA chicken soup because I was so taken aback.
Bearing in mind that the can lists ingredients in descending order of quantity, it started
"Water, Chicken (2%), Modified Maize Starch, Chicken Fat, Cornflour"
That, to me is more like the recipe for dirty dishwater. Mind you, even Heinz chicken soup is only 3% chicken.
Wouldn't like to know which prime joints of chicken they use: Probably the feathers and heads

Those ingredient lists and 'reference intake lists can be handy when comparing the same product across different brands. Often, they show what's scrimped on and it can be surprising.

E.g.
ASDA Cream of Tomato Soup: (50p): Tomatoes (92%), Sugar...
ASDA Essentials Tomato Soup: ( 30p) Tomatoes (67%), Water...
Baxters Cream of Tomato Soup: (£1.10) Tomatoes (56%), Water...

You get what you pay for! Caveat Emptor.

[Frnc]

Just did a big shop at Sainsbury's, as they had quite a few good offers on Smartshop.
Caulis are priced by the unit and most were tiny. Remember the volume of a sphere related to the diameter CUBED. For discs ie pizzas it's SQUARED.
So for pizza, double the diameter, get 4 times as much.
For caulis, double the diameter get 8 times as much.
Anyway I found one big one. Was a bit grubby but it's being cooked. I reckon the one I got was nearly 8 times the size of the little ones.

Refused to buy peas at 2 x the price of their cheapo range, which they had none of.

Had to go through the till anyway to get whisky (£3.50 off) de-tagged, so didn't put anyone out of a job.

[grenfell]

Their chicken thighs have extra skin on and sometimes extra bones on the bottom, lidl are no different.

Not a time for mince and Sausages god only knows what's in them these days.

But doesn't the skin add flavour , chicken flesh is otherwise a bit on the bland side. On a similar theme I caught a programme on the radio recently where a woman was complaining her local butchers didn't sell chicken wings as they reckoned there was no call for them although they seem to be sold in quite a few outlets. I remember a friend of mine once saying "what's the point of chicken wings , they haven't flown for millions of years , just skin and bones"...
We've noticed that value beans have more sauce. Tend to stick to the Highgate brand at Lidl which aren't too bad or maybe a "better" brand if they come up in our nearest bargain store. Mind it's me that tends to eat most of the beans in our house. I'm happier with good old beans on toast than the fancy stuff the sister in law cooks up.