Tesco Tuna & Cucumber Sandwich

Where would the world be without the good old Tuna Sandwich? Walk into any sandwich shop or supermarket and you'll most likely find some kind of variant of the Tuna sandwich. Usual accompaniments include sweetcorn, tomato or cucumber. So how does the Tesco variant fare?

The Tesco example is one of their cheaper sandwiches at £1.60, and comes with cucumber. Is it a bargain? Let's see...

First impressions

As we open the sandwich box, we can see that the Tuna is visible, so there must be a half decent amount of Tuna in the sandwich. And there are at least a few bits of cucumber. So at first glance it doesn't look too bad for £1.60.

Tesco Tuna & Cucumber sandwich

Detailed Inspection

But what is this? Upon opening the sandwich we see how little our £1.60 is getting us:

Miserably small slices of cucumber

In one half of the sandwich the cucumber doesn't even amount to 2 slices, and the partial slices are arranged right at the front to give the impression that the sandwich contains a decent amount of cucumber. Although not clear from the photo, the amount of Tuna gets thinner towards the back and the top slice of bread has nothing on it at all - no butter or mayo. Just a plain piece of bread.

Having seen the first half of the sandwich you could reasonably expect the rest of the partial cucumber slices to be in the second half of the sandwich - the top slice is missing about half a slice, and bottom slice about three quarters of a slice. But no! The partial cucumber slices in the other half do not make up a whole slice! 

Where have the missing parts of the cucumber slices gone?

Somewhere there is a big pile of cucumber offcuts. Maybe they use them for even smaller portions in other sandwiches. Maybe the factory workers bring a little fun into their daily routines by competing for the 'biggest pile of cucumber offcuts' award. Who knows? One thing's for sure - they are not in the sandwich.

Taste

When finally getting round to eating the sandwich, it's not a totally unpleasant experience. The flavour of the Tuna is OK, mixed as it is with mayo, but it is let down by the filling being far too thin. The cucumber (what there is of it) is crunchy.

But because the filling is too thin, the bread is what you can taste the most of. This would be fine if it was a well made, tasty bread, but a low cost brown sliced loaf will never have the best taste.

It's rather like eating a single slice of bread that has had something spread on it rather than a sandwich.

Cost

So if I was to try and put this sandwich together myself, how much would it cost? Going by the prices on the Tesco website for their online shopping, I've come up with the following:

• 2 slices of bread - 4.5p based on Tesco Stay Fresh Wholemeal Medium Bread @ 50p.
• Tuna - 18p based on one third of Tesco Everyday Value Tuna Chunks @ 55p.
• Cucumber - 2p based on Tesco Whole Cucumber @ 42p
• Mayo - 2p Tesco Everyday Value Mayonnaise @ 40p

I've been generous and assumed they used a third of a tin of Tuna and that you could get 40 slices or so from a whole cucumber. So the grand total comes to 26.5p! And that is using shop prices, not the cost price that a mass producer would receive. I have no idea what their cost is in producing the sandwich, it's packaging and transportation, but it's fair to say based on the ingredients you are not getting great value.

Verdict

The cost of £1.60 seems cheap for a lunchtime sandwich, but it's clear it's not particularly great value - the taste is OK, but some more filling would make it so much more enjoyable. For the cost of £1.60 you could make a far superior version. In fact, I'm struggling to see how you could spend that much - even if you used 2 whole tins of Tuna for an extra thick filling you would still come out way under budget!

I give it 2/5.

 

Tesco Chicken Salad with Bacon Sandwich

Bacon is a magical ingredient - add it to a burger and it can transform something ordinary to great heights. So I'm always tempted by a sandwich that includes bacon!

Does adding bacon to this chicken salad combination make it an irresistible delight? Lets see...

First Impressions

I decided to leave the sandwich in the box when taking the photo, as it looked as if the filling was on the verge of falling out of the bread.

Plenty of filling on show

At first glance this looks quite promising. As it's a No Mayo sandwich my only worry is that it might be a bit dry.

Detailed Inspection

After taking the sandwich out of the box and opening it, we find that there is a fairly decent amount of filling, although it's clear they are bulking it out with the salad leaves. But there is still a decent amount of chicken and bacon.

They have also made a fairly good attempt and spreading the ingredients across the depth of the bread.

Taste

The big problem with this sandwich is the lack of mayo - despite the presence of a slice or two of tomato, the overriding impression is of dryness. Both chicken and bacon are quite dry when cooked and used on their own, and especially when used cold, and this is reflected here. Plus the use of brown bread, which is itself inherently dry, adds to this impression.

The flavour of the chicken and bacon is fine, if unspectacular, but I couldn't detect any seasoning. Also the flavours don't seem to blend together either. The salad leaves add a little crunch, but don't add to the flavour.

Verdict

The use of Mayo in sandwiches is always debatable, as overdone it can render most sandwiches tasting very similar, but in this case it would have helped not only overcome the dryness, but also blend the flavours together a little more.

It's not a bad deal at £2.20, as chicken and bacon are two of the more expensive ingredients to buy, and combined with the £3 offer Tesco do to include crisps and a drink then overall it's quite good value. Just keep that drink handy when you're eating it.

I give it 3/5.