The supermarket own-label luxury items that are worth splashing out on
We all love a little luxury. And it turns out that even in a cost of living crisis we are prepared to shell out more for it, too. Tesco raised its profit forecast in January as figures were boosted by more punters picking up its Finest range. According to the market analyst Kantar, as a nation we spent ￡790 million on supermarket premium ranges in December – up by over 10 per cent from the same period the year before.
Could it be after decades of allocating a smaller and smaller proportion of our earnings to food, we are finally realising it’s worth splashing out for quality? Maybe, or perhaps it’s just that we need a treat. “Dine in” meal deals are driving some of the increase, and according to Martyn Lee, the executive head chef at Waitrose responsible for its No 1 range, comfort food is a winner. “If customers love pies, they want a really good pie,” he says.
The top-price own-label ranges go much further than posh pies and puds, though, covering ingredients and kitchen staples too. Broadly they fall into three groups, starting with “better” ingredients, like extra-aged steaks, slower-growing, sweeter fruit, or artisan clothbound cheddar. Then there’s upgraded versions of foods, often ready meals – a lasagne made with Parmesan instead of cheddar cheese, say, or a spin on a standard, such as Morrison’s The Best salmon, smoked cod and haddock fishcakes with a melting sauce centre. Those upgrades often include welfare benefits, like free-range pork in sausages, or less heavily processed ingredients: whole chicken breast in a Kyiv instead of “reformed” breast meat.
Finally there are ingredients which are deemed intrinsically “a bit special”, and only exist in the supermarket’s premium range, like Aldi’s Specially Selected Gruyère cheese. There’s no standard version: you go posh or you go without.
So if you are indeed going posh, turn the page for my choice of what to buy (based on my personal tastings as well as bestseller data) from each supermarket’s premium range.
Skip to your supermarket:
Morrisons The Best
Morrisons has a reputation for good meat (it is the only supermarket with its own abattoir and meat processing plant) but a somewhat smaller range elsewhere. Look carefully though; there are gems in the top-rung bakery, veg and deli aisles.
Best for: meat
The Best Brioche Buns
￡1.25 for four
Tender and rich, a good foil for a posh burger. The regular Morrisons brioche rolls have a shorter list of ingredients but a slightly drier texture.
The Best All Butter Croissants
￡2.30 for four
The Gerard Depardieu of croissants, full of the flavour of French cultured beurre and 50 per cent bigger than Morrisons’ regular versions, which in comparison are bready and redolent of butter that’s been left out in the sun.
The Best Extra Crunchy Coleslaw
￡2.50 for 500g
Positively dripping in mayonnaise but without that weird slimy texture of regular supermarket coleslaw. The veg is fresh and crisp and there’s not too much onion, so the flavour is creamy and mellow.
The Best Pink Lady Apple Juice
￡2.50 for 1 litre
Cloudy juice with a knock-your-socks-off apple flavour and enough natural tannin to balance the sweetness. I’d rather see British apples used (Pink Lady are virtually all imported) but this is worlds away from insipid from-concentrate juice.
The Best Sugardrop Tomatoes
￡1.95 for 220g
I can’t stop eating these cute little orbs with their pointy tips and intense sweet-savoury flavour. In another league from ordinary cherry tomatoes, and better than the Morrisons The Best Piccolina tomatoes, too.
Tesco Finest
Tesco has been upping its game in the premium ready meal department with some clever development chefs: its next-level classics are worth seeking out. Try the cod and chorizo fish cakes or the Belgian chocolate mousse as well as these.
Best for: classic dishes with a twist
Finest Wild Garlic Chicken Kiev
￡4.80 for 385g
I thought we were calling them “Kyiv” now, but in every other way this retro-meets-wild-food mash-up couldn’t be more on trend. It works too, with a craggy, crunchy crumb coating round the whole chicken breast and green flecked butter.
Finest Pork Chipolatas
￡3.25 for 12 or 375g
Made with prime cuts of British pork, we’re promised, and the sausages cook up nice and evenly. The texture is meaty and nicely nubbly with a well balanced flavour that has hints of spice. Lovely with a roast but breakfast-worthy too.
Finest Piccobella Tomatoes
￡2 for 220g
Most supermarket tomato varieties are exclusive to one retailer, and Piccobella is Tesco’s premium brand cherry tomato. Lovely looking trusses of marble-sized toms with a sweet flavour that make them easy to nibble.
Finest Vintage Cheddar
￡3.80 for 300g
Too often mature cheddar tastes like it’s taking the roof of your mouth off, but this 24-month-old corker is powerful but mellow, with a hint of crunch and flavours of nuts, caramel and Bovril. A great all-rounder ‘house cheese’.
Finest Lasagne
￡4.25 for 400g
Cooks up bubbling and browned, with lasagne sheets slipping over the rich sauce rather than sitting in a stodgy lump. The pasta has kept a bit of bounce, and there’s a nice nubbly texture to the ragu.
Sainsbury’s Taste the Difference
There’s some great sourcing for the Taste the Difference range and I’ve been impressed by its standards which are consistently good. It knows about crowd pleasing too, and doesn’t try to get too fancy. Check out the Taste the Difference beef burgers too, which are fantastic value.
Best for: puddings
Taste the Difference Madagascan Dark Chocolate
￡1.65 for 100g
A reader favourite, this bar contains a whopping 80 per cent cocoa solids but is as smooth and fruity as Jeremy Irons reading bedtime stories. Amazingly, it manages that without added lecithin, the soy-based emulsifier used by almost all chocolate makers.
Taste the Difference Slow Cooked Crackling Pork Belly
￡8 for 560g
OK, it doesn’t slice as neatly as the picture on the packet, and the crackling might need a blast under the grill to crisp up properly. But the tender meat is from British pigs, and the sweet calvados sauce is a good update on traditional apple. Roast dinner made easy.
Taste the Difference Madagascan Vanilla Custard
￡2.80 for 500g
Regular tubs of custard are just milk and cream with sugar, thickeners, flavouring and colouring. This bestselling Taste the Difference version is rich with egg yolk and has a nice natural vanilla flavour, although there’s still enough added thickener to make it a spoonable consistency.
Taste the Difference White Sourdough Half Bloomer
￡1.70 for 400g
Premium shoppers love sourdough bread, and this version is slightly milder flavoured and drier textured than the Waitrose sourdough (as it happens), but still makes a great slice of toast. No added yeast, though it does include soya flour, rapeseed oil and flour treatment agent.
Taste the Difference Chocolate Melting Puddings
￡3.35 for 2x155g
Dark and steamy, these puds turn out perfectly and ooze properly. You might be able to pass them off as homemade, but seriously, with a chocolate hit like this, why would anyone care?
Aldi Specially Selected
Aldi’s Specially Selected buyers really excel at finding good ingredients so it’s a fantastic spot for staples, but it can pull it off with fancier stuff, as the butter chicken proves. Its special-buy steaks are worth pushing the boat out for, too.
Best for: staples
Specially Selected Golden Yolk Eggs
￡1.99 for six eggs
Sure, the colour of egg yolk is related to the hen’s feed (marigolds and paprika are good bets for a nice orange colour) but it does give homemade pasta and mayo a lovely bright hue. More impressive about these eggs is the large size of the yolk, meaning extra richness compared with standard eggs.
Specially Selected Prosciutto di Parma
￡1.99 for 90g
The Parma ham people are notoriously fussy about which ham they’ll put their name to, so it’s all the more impressive that Aldi’s toothsome version, immaculately packed and interleaved to make the slices easy to separate, works out cheaper than the other supermarkets non-certified prosciutto.
Specially Selected Sicilian Queen Nocellara Olives
￡1.99 for 150g
Beautiful big juicy green olives with a gentle flavour, the kind sold in tiny bowlfuls at hipster restaurants, but at a great price. Best eaten with pre-dinner drinks or in a dirty martini.
Specially Selected Pesto alla Genovese
￡1.75 for 190g
Aldi shoppers’ love-in with authentic Italian food means that the Specially Selected pesto, containing over 50 per cent basil and made with Parmesan cheese and pine nuts, is an offer they can’t refuse – this is a bestseller. The standard version, by comparison, is just over a third basil and made with cheaper Grana Padano and cashew nuts.
Specially Selected Gastro Creamy Butter Chicken Curry
￡3.89 for 460g
A curry-night winner, this richly flavoured mix of tender chunks of chicken in a rust-coloured sauce spiked with fresh coriander is better than many restaurant offerings, plus the ingredients list includes a whole rack of spices but (bar a bit of paprika colouring) nothing weird.
Lidl Deluxe
Lidl’s Deluxe offering gets Italian right again and again, so it’s a great resource for lovers of la dolce vita. Check out the frozen food cabinets too; they sometimes have excellent game that’s good to stock up with.
Best for: Italian
Deluxe Linguine
￡1.19 for 500g
A reader tipped me off about this bargain pasta that’s shaped the traditional way on bronze dies (perforated metal plates), giving it the classic rough finish. Traditional with seafood, and good with a simple red tomato sauce too, this is dinner-party worthy.
Deluxe Parmigiano Reggiano DGP
￡3.49 for 200g
Most standard supermarket Parmesan cheese is aged for 22 months, with premium upgrades at 30 months (as here). Lidl’s Deluxe gives you 200g for the price that other supermarkets charge for 170g, so no wonder shoppers snap it up.
Deluxe Toscana Pasta Sauce
￡1.49 for 350g
An addictively good, smoky tomato sauce with little nibbly bits of pork belly that’s superb with pasta but also good for baking chicken or white fish. The ingredients list is short and sweet too.
Deluxe English Breakfast Tea
￡1.15 for 125g
Bright and complex, one tea bag makes a delicate cup while two gives the full builder’s. It deserves to be brewed for four minutes to get the best flavour.
Deluxe Dark Chocolate Gingers
￡1.49 for 150g
Crisp and gingery with a respectable if not lavish layer of good-quality chocolate. They are a ringer for Border’s Dark Chocolate Gingers which at ￡2 for the same size pack at Waitrose cost more than 50 per cent more.
Asda Extra Special
Asda’s top range excels at the traditional, with really good premium ham, pies, and British deli food. The fresh produce is excellent too: Mother would approve.
Best for: traditional British meals
Extra Special Sea Salt and Chardonnay Wine Vinegar Hand Cooked Crisps
￡1.35 for 150g
Posh crisps are a different beast to the regular variety, thick and crunchy rather than thin and fragile. You might be pushed to know these are made with chardonnay vinegar, but they are powerfully tangy and will drive S&V lovers into raptures.
Extra Special Tenderstem Broccoli
￡1.35 for 160g
All Tenderstem broccoli is Extra Special in Asda, so with no cheaper option that may explain why it’s one of the premium bestsellers. But there’s nothing not to like about this fresh, sweet healthy veg.
Extra Special Coleslaw
￡1.60 for 300g
Chopped chives are a nice touch, giving an oniony kick, and there’s creme fraiche in the mayo which makes for a thick, creamy consistency that hints of a French-style remoulade.
Extra Special Blueberries
￡3 for 250g
The Violet Beauregarde of blueberries, so huge they might be inflated, but with a crisp bite and a sweet, perfumed flavour. A granola topping worth getting out of bed for.
Extra Special Hand Breaded Wiltshire Ham
￡2.95 for 120g
The Extra Special ham is Red Tractor certified so you know it’s from pigs reared in the UK (other Asda hams don’t all carry this guarantee). The ham itself is proper lunch-with-Granny stuff, a delicious patchwork of different flavours and textures, and an old-fashioned egg-yolk-yellow crumb.
Waitrose No 1
From my years of comparing supermarket products for my column, I can attest that Waitrose does its premium range much better than its budget Essential line, so it’s worth pushing the boat out as far as you can. The No 1 puds are excellent, and the bread is some of the best across all the supermarkets, while at this high end meat welfare standards are good.
Best for: bread
No 1 White Sourdough Bread
￡2.20 for 500g
Made with the craft-baker staple, Shipton Mill flour, this has the proper bouncy texture and hefty chew, and a nice tang as well. Other than flour, there’s just water and salt in there, and no added yeast, making it true sourdough, not sourfaux.
No 1 Madagascan Vanilla Custard
￡3 for 500g
Close to a homemade creme anglaise, with a rich eggy flavour and plenty of natural vanilla. It’s a big step up from the heavily starch thickened Essential Waitrose fresh custard, although it could be a bit less sweet.
No 1 Red Choice Tomatoes
￡2.70 for 300g
While veg aisles have plenty of high-end cherry tomatoes, posh large toms are few and far between. These aren’t huge but big enough to slice, and being a slower growing, lower yielding variety, they’re softer textured with a fuller, tangier flavour than regular Waitrose tomatoes.
No 1 Greek Yoghurt
￡2.35 for 500g
Proper strained Greek yoghurt, with a higher protein content and creamier, denser texture than “Greek style”. The real deal, and what your breakfasts have been waiting for.
No 1 Free Range Chipolatas
￡4.50 for 12 or 375g
Shell out for these and you get straightforward, well-balanced sausages with a thin skin and a good meaty texture. What’s more, the pork is all from fully free-range pigs, not just outdoor bred or reared, so there’s a high welfare dividend.
M&S The Collection
The Collection range leads the way for other supermarkets, with some really special products which give it a justified almost-a-food-hall reputation. You’ll find foods here you won’t find in any of the competitors, like the Bellota ham, or its ridiculously delicious jar of Italian hazelnut creme spread.
Best for: out-and-out luxury
The Collection Jamon de Bellota Iberico
￡10 for 60g
Spanish Jamon Iberico is probably the most savoury food you can eat, and expensive to boot, although this M&S version is better value than most. It’s thinly sliced and comes ready arranged to lay on a plate, plus it is 100 per cent raza Iberica, which means it’s from the best purebred pata negra pigs, and “bellota”, indicating they have fed on acorns.
The Collection French Butter with Sea Salt Crystals
￡2.80 for 250g
Tastes like butter on holidays in France, with that cheesy, cultured tang. There are crunchy crystals of sea salt for texture and a saline hit too, making this très sophistiqué.
The Collection Crafted Sourdough Baguette
￡2 for 350g
Deep flavoured and with a gorgeous chew, this is nothing like an airy French baguette and all the better for it. I’ve no idea what “Crafted” means but it’s still amongst the best supermarket bread out there.
The Collection All Butter Cornish Cruncher Biscuits
￡2.50 for 80g
Super cheesy and crisp, these look homemade enough to pass off as your own. Pimp them up with sour cream and capers, canapé-style.
The Collection Handcrafted Hog Roast Sausage Rolls
￡3.65 for 188g
Puff pastry with sausage meat, pulled pork and herbs, it’s like eating a really meaty, well-textured stuffing roll. The pastry is all butter, and the pork is British: all that’s needed is a pint of craft beer.
