The alcohol aisle has come under the scrutiny of consumer group Which? as they test various gins and white wines to see how own brand products rank against the more expensive products on supermarket shelves. In both cases, the own brand versions were rated better.
Experts from Which? did a blind taste test on 12 standard range gins and 10 crisp white wines. Own brand gin was the overall winner, with Morrisons, Waitrose and Lidl all scoring better than the established brands’ alternatives.
The supermarkets’ products were rated against brands Greenall’s, Beefeater and Gordon’s, among others. While Gordon’s gin is the market leader however, it ranked just ninth place in the Which? test.
To make the test fairer, each gin was tasted in several ways, including neat, with a tonic mixer, and neat with a slice of lemon, and the overall score was a combination of these.
Morrison’s London Dry Gin scored the best out of all the gins, yet is priced at just £10.49 for a bottle of 70cl. Lidl’s Castlegy London Dry Gin was joint cheapest in the array, at £9.99, and came second in taste.
This is quite an important test. Last year, sales of gin rose by 12% in pubs and 5% in supermarkets, and it is quickly becoming one of the most favoured spirits in the UK. The stores with the best tasting cheapest brands could make a large profit off of it in the coming years.
On the wine side of the test, Asda ranked the highest with its Asda’s Extra Special Leyda Valley Chilean Sauvignon Blanc, while costing the cheapest at £5.75. It was described as “very fruity with a lemony finish.”
It goes to show that a price tag and a brand are not everything. The ethos of selling cheap yet quality products is what has helped discount stores Aldi and Lidl to grow so much within the UK, and may be the way forward for the big four stores to reclaim their market share following the price war.
