The worst supermarket own-brand products
A food and drink tasting expert has named and shamed the 10 items he thinks you should definitely leave on the shelf.
If you want to cut your supermarket shopping bills this year, you might be looking at switching to own-brand food and drink.
All of the major supermarkets have their bargain basement own-brand ranges, from Sainsbury’s Basics to Asda’s Smart Price and Tesco’s Everyday Value (which you might remember used to be called Value and came in distinctive blue and white packaging).
In many cases, own-brand food and drink won’t taste any worse than that produced by the big brands. After all, you’re often paying for the brand name as much as the product itself.
Taste tester extraordinaire
But be warned! Some own-brand products are barely fit for human consumption. Or at least that’s what food and drink tasting expert Martin Isark claims.
He wrote the Supermarket Own Brand Guide book back in 2006, which has since morphed into a website of the same name that evaluates thousands of products.
And he’s now developed the Can I Eat It? app for iPhone and iPad, which you can dip into when you’re out shopping if you’re unsure of a product’s tastiness.
The worst of the own-brand offerings
Here are his 10 own-brand products to avoid:
Asda Smart Price 80 tea bags (27p): “A flavour no better than cabbage water.”
Lidl Comte de Brisman Champagne (£9.99): “One sip of this tongue-curling fizz is too much.”
Sainsbury’s Basics 7” cheese and tomato pizza (50p): “Even a very hungry, cash-strapped student would struggle to eat more than a slice of this.”
Sainsbury’s Basics two-litre diet lemonade (17p): “Even though you can’t make lemonade for this price, don’t bother buying it.”
Tesco Everyday Value two-litre sugar free cola (17p): “Not cola as we know it.”
Tesco Everyday Value 100g instant coffee granules (47p): “Enjoy coffee? Not this jar!”
Sainsbury’s Basics 560g tomato ketchup (30p): “Cheap as chips but will ruin yours.”
Sainsbury’s Basics 500g cornflakes (31p): “Tastes like animal cereal. Let someone else throw them away.”
Asda Smart Price porridge oats (75p): “A bowl of tasteless white sludge. Wallpaper paste has more appeal.”
Asda Smart Price 800g brown bread (47p): “A belly filler maybe but tastewise a non-starter.”
Having looked at Martin’s tasting notes now and again, I don't always agree with him (I take particular issue with his recommendation of cheaper chocolate digestive biscuits), but you really have to be suspicious of cola and lemonade costing 17p for a two-litre bottle and cornflakes for just 31p. There are loss leaders, designed to lure us into supermarkets, and there are rank bad products.
Are you willing to defend any of the above? Do you buy own-brand or stick to well-known brands? What are the best own-brand products? Share your thoughts with us in the Comments section below.
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