Value Range foods compared

[jennyjj01]

I push my luck with the substitutions. . .
He can even tell the difference between real weetabix from ASDA and real weetabix from poundstretcher

Hmf. This week I got caught and almost caught on the same day with substitutions.

Cushelle on the dispenser had been replaced by ALDI's 'Softer' range. OH, spotted instantly that it was a smaller roll without the logo on it. But the quality was accepted and he agreed that we would give it a try.

And the 'almost'...
I discovered that ALDI Wheat biscuits are the same shape as Weetabix, so I sneaked 36 home and put the paper sleeves into a Weetabix box.
And then the dreaded question.... "Where did we get these Weetabix?"..... "Not Poundstretcher was it?"..... "They're in white plastic where they are usually in paper".

"Oh. They must have changed it", I lied.
Still.... three breakfasts later, no observation of the biscuits being at all different. Unlike some, the shape is the same.

Price comparison:-
Weetabix 9p each in the 72 big box size (11p each in 48 boxes)
Asda Wheat Bisks 8p each in 24 box (£1.90)
Aldi 6p each in the 36 biscuit box (£1.99)
Compares Tesco Stockwell Wheat Biscuits 3p each (77p for 24) But the Stockwell biscuits are "the wrong shape". Same with ASDA essentials.

A problem now arises because he wants us to get a big box in to replace these which he believes came out of our extended pantry. And, I don't have a spare Weetabix 48 box. Not fessing up yet

[jennyjj01]

Asda Just Essentials mushy peas 75p for three
Versus
Bachelor's Original mushy peas £1.45 for three
...
Taste test.... Side by side, both my tasting panel could taste that they were different. But both of them agree that either are acceptable. The Asda ones were less sweet.
So. The value range is half the price but acceptable. I'll be stocking up on the value ones. .... 3 tins at a time, unless somewhere else comes up with a better vfm product..

And tonight, a re-visit to these ASDA mushy peas, this time in isolation.... Hmmmm. Could do better.

Served up with chips and steak and kidney pudding* and delivered to the table without any announcement.
Immediately obvious from just looking at them that they were not Batchelors. The sauce was runny and the peas conspicuously not broken down into it. Large, rehydrated marrowfat peas.
Everything got eaten, but it was agreed that these were a serious compromise, even at half the price of Batchelors.
I don't recall noticing that these are from rehydrated peas and I do wonder if there's diversity between batches, because these had a different unmashed sort of texture. .

Watch this space for the next substitute mushy peas test. Stockwell?

* Steak and Kidney pudding, a bit regional? Popular in the North West, just down as far as Walsall. Similar to Manchunian 'Rag Pudding'?

[steptoe]

Asda Just Essentials mushy peas 75p for three
Versus
Bachelor's Original mushy peas £1.45 for three
...
Taste test.... Side by side, both my tasting panel could taste that they were different. But both of them agree that either are acceptable. The Asda ones were less sweet.
So. The value range is half the price but acceptable. I'll be stocking up on the value ones. .... 3 tins at a time, unless somewhere else comes up with a better vfm product..

And tonight, a re-visit to these ASDA mushy peas, this time in isolation.... Hmmmm. Could do better.

Served up with chips and steak and kidney pudding* and delivered to the table without any announcement.
Immediately obvious from just looking at them that they were not Batchelors. The sauce was runny and the peas conspicuously not broken down into it. Large, rehydrated marrowfat peas.
Everything got eaten, but it was agreed that these were a serious compromise, even at half the price of Batchelors.
I don't recall noticing that these are from rehydrated peas and I do wonder if there's diversity between batches, because these had a different unmashed sort of texture. .

Watch this space for the next substitute mushy peas test. Stockwell?

* Steak and Kidney pudding, a bit regional? Popular in the North West, just down as far as Walsall. Similar to Manchunian 'Rag Pudding'?

Hey jenny i was brought up on steak and kidney pud my aunt was from norfolk but lived in herts and well she use to bring round a pud for dad and me after my mum had passed she also brought round cherrys pies and other stuff but steak and kidney pud omg at this time of year a belly buster , now to my point we get mushy peas and i find you do have to mush them up a bit i usually hit them with the tater masher just a little to break them we get hubbards and they come out the tin as one lump very thick they do thin a bit with cooking but as i say i mush and they come out great , tonights dinner is a 1 pot chicken hotpot and we are sat here eating it and it is burning our mouths lol oh winterfood i love it no more rabbit food salad until the spring lol

[jennyjj01]

A heads up about eggs. Avian Flu and grain costs are really starting to stem supply.
Get them while you can.

There's already a post highlighting that Lidl has started to ration eggs and surely other supermarkets will follow.
https://www.ladbible.com/news/lidl-thre ... w-20221115

BUT there's an additional factor that will drive up egg prices, at least in Lidl... They have announced that they will be Free range only.
https://corporate.lidl.co.uk/media-cent ... commitment
They have given themselves till 2024 and I doubt they'll follow through on the promise.

Anyway.... Cheapest Barn Eggs I've found, £1.50 / 15 in ASDA and Tesco £1.59 / 15 in Lidl.
Very low stock in my local Asda and Tesco and no stock at all in Lidl.

Allegedly may be cheaper in FarmFoods.

I'm on a mission tomorrow to buy 45+ of these tomorrow which will be beaten and frozen in a silicone muffin tray as recommended by member British_red https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qHburN5ARdA

[steptoe]

Well we just had to go for flu jab and covid not me lol i refused d that one , but after the wife said lets run in sainsburys and use some of the nectar up on dvd's lol they stopped doingthem so now she said well can we grab a couple of gluten free tiger loafs , ypu says i we go down to the gluten free not much in at all i said oh i grab a bag of crisps while here as i am not meant to have them but do now and then as a treat i suffer for it but well long story but hey so down to the crisps isle and i mean little to nothing on the shelves just 3 big bags of the sainsburys and a few walkers but little else a few chilli snack bits so we start to llok at other stuff meat very low chickens not many in and lamb a few breasts and shoulders that was all so i said lets go ot the freezers hmmm same there low stocks and labels in some saying re-stock on the 18 hmmm me think it is coming faster than we think i am so glad we are fully stocked now people get ready to batten down the hatchs and try and ride it out as best we can , any memeber of the group local to us in west mids if we can help each other we are happy to .
Ok people well i hope we all have as much in as we can stock , all we need is water and at a push we can just double filter the brita and boil if i must .

If in doubt go to a big store and look the shelves are empty and we are right by a major town less than 3 miles to the town center and this is a mega sainsburys store

[jennyjj01]

... my niece being a case she never has anything other than heinz ketchup even if nothing left she would never have anything else so we got a heinz and put cheap ketchup in after she had her fish and chips we were talking on branded stuff lol and threw in well heinz you get what you pay for to her saying you can tell heinz ketch up it is far better , we never told her and she had it again and never said anything until we said that is not heinz she never believed us .

Some of th pasta sauces if you throw on some extra pineapple that sweeterns them up to .

It's official. Heinz Ketchup is a record breaking inflationary product. Up 53%
Closely followed by Heinz soups and Dolmio sauces. up 46%
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-63635289

The thing with these Heinz / 'kraft' products is that the producers set the price with a take it or leave it attitude. That's why Tesco had a load of shelves empty when they fell out with Heinz a few months back.

I KNEW IT! and have been grumbling about Heinz ketchup since it hit £3.50 a bottle.

[steptoe]

I know jenny i gave up on heinz years ago , but the wife loves fairy liquid but we found a liquid on amazon that got delivered to the house 20ltrs £20 and we thought well it will tide us over until price drop but this stuff i lemon scented she likes it is very thick compared to a bottle of fairy we poured both through the same size funnel and this new stuff took ages to drain in to the bottle to nice and thick and she put a small cap full in the bowl and omg it was like one of the movies when the kid throws loads in a machine lol the bowl was full of suds and she said it cleaned the plates lovely , now i will tell you more come the weekend when i do my usuale weekend bake up .

Thanks for keeping us a heads up on products jenny as i say i will put the name of this on here

https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B09 ... UTF8&psc=1

wow bu88er i just seen it jumped to £28.99 we got it at £20.99 wow not even 8 days and gone up £8

[jennyjj01]

...but the wife loves fairy liquid but we found a liquid on amazon that got delivered to the house 20ltrs £20 and we thought well it will tide us over until price drop...

wow bu88er i just seen it jumped to £28.99 we got it at £20.99 wow not even 8 days and gone up £8

W5 Washing up liquid from Lidl. now 75p/litre.
Green or lemon yellow flavour.

[steptoe]

...but the wife loves fairy liquid but we found a liquid on amazon that got delivered to the house 20ltrs £20 and we thought well it will tide us over until price drop...

wow bu88er i just seen it jumped to £28.99 we got it at £20.99 wow not even 8 days and gone up £8

W5 Washing up liquid from Lidl. now 75p/litre.
Green or lemon yellow flavour.

Thank you jenny , i will have to look at that next time we try not to go in to stores hence amazon as i can not have the covid jab and with the health issues we have stayed away from people , we use to love going in to lidi or aldi for hours at a time lol i love the gadet isle as the wife use to say she could guess where i was in a store lol

[jennyjj01]

Having recently given a resounding thumbs down to ALDI baked beans ( at 26p) viewtopic.php?p=219232#p219232
Tonight I put Lidl's Baked Beans to the test at 22p ( Might have gone up since)...
Baked Beans Lidl 'Simply' Baked beans in tomato sauce. 22p
...
The Beans (22p).... Oh, the beans: Key comparison ingredient.
Subjective comparison with ALDI's at 26p, and Branston at 63p

Sauce quantity: Much better than Aldi's, which were drowned in the stuff.
Sauce quality: Quite rich and 'tomatoey'. Good sweetness. Could maybe have carried a bit more salt. Not too runny, but not as sticky as Branston's. An unusual but not unpleasant hint of onion powder. The onion repeated considerably into the evening.
The beans themselves. Perfectly normal size and texture of haricot, but here was the surprise.... The beans themselves had a hint of bitterness. This was noticed by myself and MrJ and he found it unacceptable. Some beans got left by MrJ "I hope you didn't buy a lot of these". The elder member of the tasting panel wolfed everything down, quite happily....

Conclusions:
The LIDL baked beans are less than 1/3 of the price of the Branston Benchmark and probably 75% of the quality and the Lidl beans were far superior to the similar ALDI offering. Since baked beans in sauce are usually eaten as is, I'm inclined, to shop around for a slightly better offering.

And today a report on Tesco's Stockwell Baked Beans 27p

Having previously tried and rejected ALDI's offering at 26p and been disappointed by the slightly better LIDL offering at 22p, today, I report on Tesco's offering at 27p

It's good news!
On opening the tin, there were beans visible in the sauce, which was a refreshing change.
The sauce: Thick and rich enough, well balanced and nicely seasoned. No overpowering onion taste.
The beans: Perfectly acceptable tender haricot beans. Good texture.

If Branston is the 10/10 benchmark, and Heinz beans are 9/10, then these were as near as dammit identical to Heinz and also score 9/10. That was unexpected because the ingredient list is quite different. The Stockwell beans had lower percentage beans but about 10% more calories and twice the fat content as Heinz.
A tiny bit dearer at 27p, but excellent value. Tasting panel agreed.
Tesco Stockwell beans are now my go to full time substitute for Branston. Easily 1/3 of the best good price.

I've seen good reviews of Stockwell beans with sausages and will try them if they come back in stock.