Need to know
- The pastries made using Woolworths ingredients earned the most votes in our bake-off, followed by Coles, then Aldi and IGA
- Products that appear very similar can perform quite differently
- The ingredients from Coles and Woolworths were all priced identically
One of our challenges in surveying supermarket prices each quarter is selecting truly comparable products from each of the stores we shop at. After all, subtle variations between similarly named grocery items can affect the way they taste and perform.
We consider ingredient lists, country of origin, pack sizes and a range of other factors when deciding what to include, but inconsistencies inevitably remain.
Are you getting good value if you spend less, but the outcome is disappointing?
As we often find in our appliance testing, price is not necessarily an indicator of performance, and it's the same when it comes to food. Sometimes spending more means a better result, but sometimes the cheaper product will be better.
In our most recent quarterly basket survey, we created a list of home-brand products from each of the four major supermarkets to find out which cost less. But it raised the question: are you getting good value if you spend less but the outcome is disappointing?
So, we decided to put some of those home-brand products to the test.
On this page:
- The best tasting pastries
- Frozen mixed berry comparisons
- Cream cheese comparison
- What about price?
- Our berry pastry recipe
We baked pastries using products from each of the four supermarket home brands.
The best tasting pastries
CHOICE home economist Fiona Mair created pastries using home-brand frozen berries, cream cheese and puff pastry from Aldi, Coles, IGA and Woolworths. We then asked 31 CHOICE staff to take part in a blind taste test to determine which supermarket's home brand products delivered the best outcome.
Each taster tried a sample of the pastries made using home-brand ingredients from each of the supermarkets, then voted for the one they liked best. The winner, by a landslide, was Woolworths.
The winner, by a landslide, was Woolworths
This result was no surprise to Fiona, who assessed each ingredient while preparing the samples. She noted that the Woolworths pastry puffed up more than the other brands we tested. In contrast, she described the Black & Gold puff pastry from IGA as having a "greasy mouthfeel that coats the roof of the mouth".
In our blind tasting, the IGA sample received only two votes, compared to the Woolworths sample, which earned 20 votes. The offerings from Aldi and Coles also failed to impress, earning just four and five votes respectively.
Frozen mixed berry comparisons
Each of the frozen mixed berry varieties varied slightly in composition.
Unlike the other brands, Woolworths does not provide the percentage of ingredients for each berry variety, instead listing blueberries, strawberries, blackberries and raspberries in that order.
Aldi's Orchard & Vine frozen mixed berries states ingredients comprising 34% strawberries, 30% blueberries, 21% blackberries and 15% raspberries.
Community Co frozen mixed berries from IGA are slightly different: 35% blackberries, 25% strawberries, 20% blueberries and 20% raspberries.
The Coles mixed berries claim 37% blueberries, 33% strawberries, 15% blackberries and 15% raspberries.
There was very little correlation between the stated percentages of each type of berry and the actual quantities we recorded
Did they meet these claims? In the single samples we assessed, there was very little correlation between the stated percentages of each type of berry and the actual quantities we recorded.
- Only Coles came close to matching the claimed percentages for two of the berries (strawberries and raspberries).
- Community & Co matched its claims for blackberries.
- Aldi was within 2% of the claim for the raspberries in its pack.
- Aldi and Coles had more blackberries than claimed.
- IGA had more strawberries at the expense of blueberries.
It should be noted that we only assessed one bag from each brand, so this is a simple snapshot. We would also expect to see some seasonal variation.
When assessing the products during the preparation of our pastries, Fiona found all packs contained some broken and squashed fruit, mostly the raspberries. The Coles product was the only one that contained sliced strawberries – all the others had whole fruit. She described the berries in each brand's sample as sweet, with the caveat that the strawberries were a little sour.
Our test kitchen staff prepared the ingredients from each of the four supermarkets.
Cream cheese comparison
As would be expected, all of the cream cheese products had similar ingredients, but once again, Fiona's assessment found some noticeable differences.
"The Aldi Westacre cream cheese was white, soft and creamy with a pleasant mouthfeel," she says.
On the other hand, Fiona found the IGA Black & Gold cream cheese to be very thick, difficult to blend and slightly yellowish in colour.
"I could stand a spoon up in it – the texture was very stiff. It had an unpleasant mouthfeel, which left an unpleasant coating, and it wasn't spreadable."
She noted that the Woolworths and Coles products showed slight separation.
"The Coles cream cheese had a thick, creamy consistency but was slightly gluggy on the palate," says Fiona.
"The Woolworths cream cheese had a slightly more sour taste but a creamy, soft texture with a pleasant mouthfeel."
What about price?
When we survey prices for our quarterly grocery basket surveys, we shop the way you would if you were buying ingredients for a particular recipe, so if the preferred item isn't available, we buy the next cheapest option.
That means we often end up with averaged prices that vary from the price you might find when you visit your local store. Therefore, for this article, we've included product prices sourced from online data gathered in early September.
On that basis, the home-brand items in this taste test cost the most at Woolworths and Coles (where prices were identical) followed by IGA and Aldi, which was cheaper than IGA by just one cent.
Our berry pastry recipe
Ingredients
6 sheets of supermarket puff pastry, thawed
2 x 250g tubs cream cheese, softened
2 cups or 500g frozen mixed berries
1 tbsp cornflour
½ tsp vanilla extract
1 tbsp lemon juice
1 tsp lemon rind
2 tbsp caster sugar
1 egg yolk, whisked
Pure icing sugar
Method
- Preheat oven to 200°C fan forced, with shelves placed in positions 1 and 3.
- Pour berries into a sieve and let thaw and drain for at least 1 hour.
- Once thawed and drained, place into a bowl and add 1 tbsp of the sugar and the cornflour. Allow to macerate for 30 min.
- Place cream cheese into a bowl, add the other tbsp of sugar, along with lemon juice, lemon rind and vanilla. Using a hand mixer, whisk until light and fluffy.
- Cut each pastry sheet into six rectangles and score around the edges approximately 1 cm in from the edge.
- Place pastry 3 cm apart onto a lined baking tray.
- Spread 1 tablespoon of cream cheese filling into the centre of the pastry, add 2 tbsp of berries, draining any syrup.
- Brush the edges with the egg yolk.
- Bake in the oven for 20 minutes or until the pastry is golden and the base is firm and crisp.
- Once removed from the oven, sieve over the icing sugar.
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With no self-interest behind our advice, you don't just buy smarter, you get the answers that you need.
You know without hesitation what's safe for you and your family. And our recent sunscreens test showed just how important it is to keep business claims in check.
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Stock images: Getty, unless otherwise stated.
