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Daily Mirror
Daily Mirror
National
Alice Suffield

'We compared supermarket ice creams to Ben & Jerry's and only one tasted better'

I don't think I would be wrong to assume everyone who likes ice cream loves the unmatched flavours of Ben and Jerry's.

The popular big supermarkets Tesco, Asda, Morrisons and Sainsbury's all have extensive own brand alternatives, and they certainly have tried to jump on the Ben and Jerry's hype.

Lancashire Live went to find out if you could buy an own brand version just as good as Ben and Jerry's.

Of course for this test to be fair, I had to buy a tub of Ben and Jerry's to compare them all against.

Now, my favourite is Phish Food, nothing for me beats the little chocolate fish and the mixture of marshmallow and ice cream is just incredible.

But I thought there might not be a product out there to match this, so I went for Half-Baked, which is chocolate and vanilla ice cream mixed with brownies and chunks of chocolate chip cookie dough.

This was naturally up to the usual Ben and Jerry's incredibly high standard, so the high bar was set.

Let the ice cream wars begin.

The popular Ben & Jerry's ice cream (lancs.live)

Morrisons

When I first checked the shelves at Morrisons, I was a little disappointed. Yes they has exotic flavours such as Belgian Chocolate and Orange and Coffee, but nothing that even remotely looked like a B&J dupe.

I bought the chocolate and orange flavour, as that sounded the most exciting to me. But it's just ice cream, nothing fancy or fun. Admittedly, it was delicious, the orange was not overwhelming and it was delicious.

It also did only cos £2, which is cheaper than the usual RRP of £4.50 for B&J.

This one was delicious (lancs.live)

Asda

I hit Asda next and was much more impressed with their selection. They offered three flavours of B&J dupes, Cookie Dough, Turtle-ly Tempting and Chewy Choc Chimp. I naturally forgot all about the B&J flavour I bought and snapped up the choc chimp flavour. Oops.

It was good, I'll give it that. The flavour was vanilla with a caramel swirl and chocolate chimps throughout. The flavour was good, not quite the same as B&J's vanilla, but the choc chips were delicious. It also only cost £2, so a much cheaper alternative to anyone on a budget.

I was impressed with Asda's collection (lancs.live)

Tesco

I was just as impressed at Tesco as I had been at Asda. Tesco also offered three dupes, a Cookie Dough, a Chocolate Fudge Brownie and a Piggy Paradise.

The Piggy Paradise caught my attention here, as it was nearly the exact same as my B&J favourite, Phish Food, but with the added treat of a toffee swirl.

It was just as good, if not better than B&J. If it wasn't for the added toffee or marshmallow flavour ice cream, I don't think I would have been able to tell them apart. Like the other own brand options, it also was just £2, so a whopping £2.50 cheaper than the name brand.

The Piggy Paradise caught my attention (lancs.live)

Sainsbury's

Riding the high that Tesco and Asda's offerings had left me on, I hit up the final supermarket of the big four, Sainsbury's. But just like at Morrisons, they didn't offer any dupes for Ben and Jerry's.

I went for the Salted Caramel ice cream from their Taste the Difference range. It also cost £2 and was very nice. The slated caramel flavour was the right level of sweet and salty. But we aren't looking for nice ice cream, we are looking for dupes for the infamous Ben and Jerry's.

This was great value at £2 (lancs.live)

The Verdict

OK, it wasn't quite a fair fight given half the time I picked the flavours that caught my eye instead of remembering what I was supposed to be comparing them against.

That said, for me, Tesco's is the winner, without a shadow of a doubt. In fact, I think I will be permanently switching to Tesco's Piggy Paradise because for the saving of £2.50 a tub, and basically no difference in quality, well it just makes sense.

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