WE'VE BEAN HAD
Tesco, Lidl and Asda found to have less than 50% baked beans per can – how does your supermarket compare?
BAKED bean lovers are getting ripped off by some supermarket own brands which fill more than half the tin with sauce.
Cans of baked beans from Tesco, Asda and Lidl contain fewer than 50 per cent beans, a Sun Money investigation found.
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Worst offender Tesco had an average of just 190g of beans in each 420g can – equivalent to around 45.2 per cent – with the rest made up of sauce.
The best brand for bean fans was Waitrose, where tins contained an average of 54.3 per cent beans, followed by Sainsbury’s at 53.6 per cent and Heinz at 52.3 per cent.
In total, cans of Waitrose and Heinz baked beans contained around 435 individual beans in each can, compared to just 380 beans in an equivalent can from Tesco and 392 at Asda.
Sun Money analysed the contents of four identical cans of beans from each major supermarket, as well as Brits’ favourite bean brand Heinz.
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For the investigation, we poured the contents of each tin into a colander, washed off the sauce and weighed the remaining beans to reveal the true bean-to-sauce ratio of each tin.
Supermarket own brand tins all weighed slightly different amounts, from 400g a can at Sainsbury’s and Waitrose to 420g a can at Lidl, Aldi and Tesco.
We found a wide variation in the amount of beans in each can, even between cans of the same brand from the same supermarket four-pack - meaning the amount of beans inside is never guaranteed.
Within the same Morrisons four-pack, for example, the weight of washed beans varied from 205g in the worst can to 230g in the best can – a 12 per cent difference. On average, there were 217g of beans in each Morrisons can.
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Our investigation revealed that for best value for money, bean lovers were best off at Lidl where tins cost just 22p each.
The low cost meant that despite Lidl tins containing only 205g of washed beans per 420g tin on average – which is just 48.9 per cent beans - shoppers only paid 11p for each 100g of beans.
Morrisons, Aldi and Sainsbury’s were the next best value, costing an average of 12p per 100g of washed beans.
The most expensive can was Heinz, which at £2.50 for a four-pack meant shoppers paid 29p for every 100g of washed beans.
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Overall, the best can for bean lovers was from posh supermarket Waitrose, where a four-pack cost £1.10.
Although the Waitrose tins were among the smallest at 400g each, they contained the joint-most beans, 217.3g, which works out at just 13p per 100g.
Waitrose contained the same amount of beans by weight as Heinz and had a better bean-to-sauce ratio, despite Heinz being more than twice as expensive.
Joint second-best were Morrisons, which cost £1 for a four-pack of 410g beans, and Aldi’s “Corale” range, where a four-pack of 420g tins cost £1.
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Both stores’ tins contained 217g of beans – approximately 434 individual beans each – which worked out at 12p per 100g of pure beans.
Waitrose said it was thrilled to come out top in our investigation.
A spokesman said: “It’s ‘bean’ great to hear The Sun's results!”
A spokesman for Morrisons said: “We're very pleased that you've found what we've known for a while - you get more beans from Morrisons.
“We'll check out the variation between the packs but we know that overall our cans have a good bean content.”
Heinz said its beans were “the nation’s favourite” and its recipe for success was “not about having the most beans but right amount of quality beans with a delicious tomato sauce, creating the ideal bean-to-sauce ratio”.
A spokesman added prices were set independently by retailers and Heinz was “committed to offering value for money”.
An Asda spokesman said: “At Asda we take pride in giving our customers great tasting products at pocket pleasing prices and when it comes to quality we're certainly not bean-counters.”
Tesco, whose beans came out worst in the investigation, said in a statement: “Our latest research has shown us that customers consistently enjoy our baked beans.”
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