The big food brand taste test! - video script

by Rachel Wait on 15 April 2010  |  2 comments
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We compare some of the big food brands with supermarket own brands to see which tastes best!

If the cost of your food bills is driving you mad, there is one very easy way to help reduce them, and that’s to shift down a brand.

Choosing to go for a supermarket own brand product over a big brand product can work out to be far cheaper. But for many of us, it just doesn’t appeal because we’re convinced the food won’t taste as nice.

But is there really such a big difference in taste between all non-branded and branded products? We decided to put it to the test at lovemoney.com and find out.

The experiment

This wasn’t the most scientific of experiments – we only had five testers for a start, and we only tasted four products. But the results still proved interesting.

Each tester was asked to taste a Tesco version and a branded version of baked beans, toast, Fruit & Fibre, and tea. The brands used were Heinz, Kingsmill, Kelloggs, and PG Tips.

The tasters then had to rate each product out of ten and say which they preferred.

Did the big brands win?

For both the baked beans and the toast, the majority of our tasters definitely preferred the big brands. According to most of our tasters, the Heinz baked beans had a better colour and taste, while the Tesco version was chewy.

And all of our tasters preferred the Kingsmill toast.

However, in a big turnaround, the Tesco Fruit & Fibre was far more popular with our testers. Although the Tesco version was one pound thirty-seven cheaper than Kellogg’s, it was fruitier and more flavoursome.

As for the tea, it was a little harder to decide. Most of our testers couldn’t tell the difference and had no preference. Although one tester said the PG Tips had a stronger flavour.

The conclusion

Overall, it seems that for certain products, we’re bound to still love our favourite brands. But for other products, such as cereal and tea, shifting down a brand is not likely to have a big effect on our taste buds. However, it’s certainly likely to have a good impact on our wallet.

In fact, in some cases, not only will a non-branded product work out to be cheaper but it may just taste even better!

That’s it from me today. Thanks for watching lovemoney.com and don’t forget to check out our Frugal Food blog at lovemoney dot com slash frugal food!