Whether you've got children who take a packed lunch to school, or like to pack your own bag to take to the office to avoid hitting up the supermarket for a considerably higher-priced meal deal, there are a few staples that find themselves in every lunchbox across the UK, including things like yoghurts, crisps and, of course, chocolate bars.
And as the cost of living crisis continues, Manchester Evening News have been looking into the swaps shoppers can make to save money on their weekly shops, without compromising on taste or quality.
So far, we've discovered that M&S do a tea bag that could rival Yorkshire Tea, Sainsbury's fresh orange could replace Tropicana, while Asda's spaghetti hoops could give Heinz a run for their money.
READ MORE: 'I visited every McDonald's in Manchester city centre and found some HUGE differences'
But on our latest supermarket haul, we discovered that one simple swap could save you a whopping £58.50 a year on snacks - by replacing branded Twix bars with a cheaper, perhaps even better tasting alternative.
This week, I tried own-brand 'Twix' style chocolate bars from Aldi, Asda, Tesco, Morrisons and Sainsbury’s - and this is what I found.
Price and pack size
Twix bars come in a variety of multi-pack sizes, all of which vary in price. The pack I managed to pick up in Tesco was £1.75 for nine individually wrapped fingers, but a pack of four double-finger bars comes in at £1.50. As this was the most similar format for supermarkets to sell their own versions in, I’ve based these price comparisons on the £1.50 pack.
When it comes to the supermarket's own brands, all of the double bars weigh in at 42g each, which is 2g more than Twix, so you’re already gaining more chocolate per packet. But some of them vary hugely in price.x
The cheapest bar was, probably unsurprisingly, Aldi’s Jive bar, costing 75p for a pack of five, with a total cost of 7.5p per chocolate finger.
Meanwhile, Tesco and Asda’s packs of five cost 89p each, making theirs just over a penny more at 8.9p per bar. Morrisons came in second most expensive at 11.8p per finger, with their BicMic priced at 95p for four double bars, while Sainsbury’s £1 Toffee Biscuit Chocolate Bars work out at 12.5p each.
By comparison, Twix cost 18.75p per stick, and so all of the supermarket versions are much cheaper, and could save a fortune on lunch boxes throughout the year.
Here are the chocolate bars in price order:
Aldi Jive Bars 75p 5x2 fingers 42g each 7.5p per finger
Tesco Crunchy Caramel Bars 89p 5x2 fingers 42g each 8.9p per finger
Asda Caramel Chocolate Biscuits 89p 5x2 fingers 42g each 8.9p per finger
Morrisons BicMix 95p 4x2 fingers 42g each 11.8p per finger
Sainsbury’s Toffee Biscuit Chocolate Bars £1 4x2 fingers 42g each 12.5p per finger
Twix £1.75 for 9x20g or £1.50 for 4x2 40g 18.75p per finger with Twix
Appearance
Most of the supermarkets have opted for similar packaging to Twix, going for a golden wrapper, or in Sainsbury’s case, an orange one. I thought Morrisons had perhaps gone rogue in the red wrapper design choice, but actually, the appear to have reversed the colours of the original Twix packaging, with a red background with gold writing.
In the line up, Morrisons’ and Sainsbury’s packs are quite obviously short of a chocolate. Aldi, Tesco and Asda all have the right idea including five, since they’re such a popular choice for lunchboxes.
Unwrapping each one, it was immediately noticeable that Morrison’s bar seemed larger in size, while Twix was quite obviously the smallest.
Asda and Morrisons’ offerings actually looked the same, while Tesco, Aldi and Sainsbury’s all bore a similar resemblance to one another.
I cut each of the bars in half to get a good view of the cross section to gauge which offered the most caramel and found Tesco to have the best ratio, though it was clear that Twix’s had the closest to a 50/50 biscuit to caramel combo.
Most stingy with their fillings appeared to be Sainsbury’s or Asda - but the most important test was still to come to determine the ultimate Twix alternative. And the taste-test could be anyone’s game, regardless of price or looks.
Taste
I’ll never say no to a bar of chocolate, and as such, I didn’t find any of these Twix alternatives unpleasant. That’s not to say that some aren’t better than others, though.
Twix offers an even caramel to biscuit ratio, a satisfying ‘snap’ when broken, and a delicious and well balanced flavour - but how did its rivals fare?
Asda’s biscuit seemed a little bit soft in comparison to others, like when you’ve left a packet of digestives open and the top few go stale. It didn’t give me that satisfying crunch I crave from a biscuit-chocolate bar hybrid, and so it didn’t reach the top spot for me.
Equally scoring quite low was Sainsbury’s toffee version, which seemed to harbour a nutty taste that I wasn’t expecting. I also found the biscuit to be dry and therefore a little difficult to chew.
This left Tesco, Morrisons and Aldi fighting for the top spot. Morrisons, as mentioned earlier, offered the biggest bar, but as a result, the ratio of biscuit to caramel was off and it was far too biscuity. Tesco’s definitely had more caramel with the best flavour, but just cinching the crown was Aldi’s Jive bar, which had the best tasting chocolate and the most delicious biscuit.
Overall
Aldi’s Jive bars come in the cheapest at 75p for four bars, making them only 15p each - the most affordable from every supermarket, beating all of the others on price.
The Jive bars look great and offer more chocolate than a Twix, with a best–tasting biscuit and chocolate combo, with a good caramel ratio, too.
With Twix costing 37.5p per bar, swapping the big name brand from your lunch box and replacing it with Aldi could save you nearly £60 a year on your shopping, based on having one bar every weekday, each day of the year, with a huge difference of £58.50.
What supermarket swaps have you made to save money recently? Let us know in the comments below.
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