Dozens of Tesco products price-matched to Aldi - such as chicken nuggets, cottage pie and blackcurrant squash - are not like-for-like, BBC Panorama has found.
In the case of chicken nuggets, the Tesco product contained 39% chicken compared with 60% in the Aldi one.
Of 122 Tesco products, 38 - nearly a third - had at least five percentage points less of the main ingredient than the Aldi products they had been matched to.
Twelve Tesco products were found to have more of the main ingredient.
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Consumer expert Kate Hardcastle says Panorama's findings are an example of “value engineering” which involves changing quantities of ingredients to reduce the price.
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Tesco is not the only supermarket to offer products priced to match Aldi.
Sainsbury’s, Morrisons and ASDA offer similar ranges, but Panorama found no clear evidence of a pattern of consistent differences in the proportions of main ingredients in their goods compared with the Aldi versions.
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Reducing quantities of the most expensive element in a product - such as meat in a ready-meal lasagne - can make a significant difference to prices, says consumer expert Kate Hardcastle.
“It's only when you [customers] flip it over and look at that tiny, tiny, font size to see you're not getting the same deal,” she explains.
Nuggets are mucky grub at the best of times.
I am curious to know what percentage of Meat you'd get from some unscrupulous takeaways.
It's funny because this means that Aldi has better quality food than Tesco. That's not something I would have thought before. Before, I would have just assumed Aldi was cheaper, but now I assume that Aldi is cheaper AND better.
Tesco failed where Aldi and Lidl shine, Mainland Europe. The logistics alone never mind all the costs of being a UK centric company give them such an advantage.
It's getting to the point where the only saving grace for Tesco over Aldi is the delivery vans.
