The high-street brands taking over the grocery aisle – and the ones actually worth paying for

Telegraph

12-03-2025

Not content with dominating the high street, the restaurant chains want supremacy at the supermarket too. They've been sneaking their products on to the shelves, with sauces like the Nando's Perinaise, side dishes (looking at you, Pizza Express dough balls) and even the main event, with Gourmet Burger Kitchen's burgers and Itsu's gyoza vying for our attention. Even Greggs has got in on the action with sausage rolls and steak bakes from the bakery chain sold in Iceland.
Leon, so long the bastion of the healthier fast food, launched frozen waffle fries in Sainsbury's in 2020 and is due to add chicken thigh burgers into supermarkets later this month. To be fair, its products do sometimes have fewer additives than other leading brands. Nonetheless, Leon founder and food campaigner Henry Dimbleby, who sold his share to Asda's owners in 2021, is presumably spinning in his Hackney townhouse.
It's big business. Itsu grocery products make up 30 per cent of the brand's group sales of £48 million and founder Julian Metcalfe says that its grocery sales are forecast to overtake the restaurants' by 2026. Pizza Express, which first launched into supermarkets two decades ago, says that retail sales now exceed £100 million.
In these cash-strapped times, shelling out for a restaurant brand might feel like much-needed self-care – even if it's strictly self-service. But with the supermarkets selling their own cheaper versions of the products, is it really worth paying extra? We tested some of the best sellers side by side to find out.
Croissants
High-street brand: Pret All Butter Croissants
£3.60 (or £3 with Nectar) for 6 (60p per 55g croissant) at Sainsbury's
Supermarket brand: Aldi Bon Appetit! All Butter Croissants
£2.79 for 8 (35p per 55g croissant) at Aldi
The small print: The ingredient lists are identical bar a mysterious 'enzyme' in the Aldi one. The Aldi croissants are about eight per cent higher in calories and fat.
The flavour: Both croissants cook up beautifully, and have a proper flaky exterior and tender, buttery layers inside. The Aldi version tastes more classically buttery, while the Pret croissant has a strong tang of cultured butter that verges on rancid.
The winner: Aldi – they're cheaper and nicer. I also tested the M&S frozen croissants (£4.75 for 8, M&S or Ocado) which were identical to the Aldi ones but, at nearly 60p each, not nearly such good value.
Vegetable gyoza
High-street brand: Itsu Vegetable Fusion Gyoza
£3.98 (on sale for £3.48) for 270g (£14.74 per kg) at Asda
Supermarket brand: Akira Vegetables Gyoza
£2.40 for 240g (£10 per kg) at Asda
The small print: Both products contain soy protein to ramp up the nutrition, but the Akira version is 51 per cent vegetables compared to Itsu's 37. Akira has a shorter ingredient list, with fewer UPF markers but the Itsu ones have more than twice as much protein.
The flavour: The Akira gyoza are larger, weighing in at 21g to Itsu's 13g, so you get just 12 in a pack to Itsu's 20. Both have lovely delicately stretchy wrappers, but Akira's are more vegetable-y, while Itsu's have enough vegan protein mince to have a distinct meatiness.
The winner: A draw – spring for Itsu if you need the protein, but otherwise Akira's are cheaper and just as good.
Sausage rolls
High-street brand: Greggs 4 Sausage Rolls
£3.50 for 427g (82p per 100g) at Iceland
Supermarket brand: Iceland 2 Jumbo Sausage Rolls
£1.00 for 280g (36p per 100g) at Iceland
The small print: Iceland's sausage rolls are larger than Greggs: 140g rather than 107g. Much of this extra seems to be pastry: from the cooked sausage rolls, the meat filling weighed 50g in the Greggs and 58g in the Iceland version. The Greggs roll has 18 ingredients that you wouldn't find in your store cupboard, compared with 11 in the Iceland version and the latter is also palm oil- and emulsifier-free.
The flavour: Greggs pastry is very short, crisp and savoury, while the Iceland one is flakier. It's in the meat that the difference really shows – the Iceland sausage has the texture of a wet sponge, and little flavour apart from salt and cardboard. Greggs sausage is squishy but with a bit of granular texture and a meaty, spice-laced flavour.
Winner: Greggs, though I can't say either will be on my shopping list.
Dough balls
£3.33 (on sale for £1.63) for 200g (£1.67 per 100g) at Asda
Supermarket brand: Asda Garlic & Herb Doughballs
£1.90 for 165g (£1.15 per 100g) at Asda
The small print: With both palm oil and mono- and diglycerides of fatty acids featuring in the ingredients, the Asda dough balls are firmly in the ultra-processed camp. There is nothing weird in the Pizza Express ones. True, they have a pinch more salt, but the Asda version has 30 times more saturated fat.
The flavour: The supermarket dough balls with a garlic butter filling taste pretty industrial, although they cook to an appetising crisp golden brown. The Pizza Express ones – just unfilled miniature bread rolls – stay rip-apart-tender and taste right. It's a bit more work to cut them apart and spread them with the garlic butter, but the flavour is fine – not over garlicky.
Spicy mayonnaise
High-street brand: Nandos Perinaise Hot Peri Peri Mayo
£2.35 (on sale for £1.85) for 265g (89p per 100g) at Waitrose
Supermarket brand: Waitrose Squeezy Piri Piri Mayo
£1.50 for 280ml (54p per 100g) at Waitrose
The small print: While both include preservative and colour, the Nando's version has a bigger range of additives – more stabilisers and a cocktail of antioxidants. Nando's has more than twice as much salt though both, happily, use free range eggs.
The flavour: The Nando's mayo has a slightly deeper orange colour and a pleasing red pepper flavour. Both have a mellow punch of heat, but the Waitrose one has a more classic mayonnaise tang. Though each is good in its own way, only a true Nando's fanatic would notice the difference when squeezed over grilled chicken and chips.
Winner: Waitrose
Beef burgers
High-street brand: Gourmet Burger Kitchen 2 Gourmet Beef Burgers
£5.50 for 342g (£16.08 per kg) at M&S or Ocado
Supermarket brand: M&S Our Best Ever 2 British Beef Burgers
£5.25 for 340g (£15.44 per kg) at M&S or Ocado
The small print: First round goes to GBK: the roughly shaped patties contain British beef, salt and pepper – that's it. The tidy M&S discs look oddly bright pink in comparison, and contain rice flour, potato flour, salt and preservative alongside British beef, beef fat and bone marrow. But the GBK burgers have nearly twice as much salt, even if they are lower in fat and saturates.
The flavour: Tough competition for the GBK burger here, as the M&S version came top in our supermarket burger tasting 18 months ago. Both cook up nicely, with the GBK one still rosy in the middle after the specified cooking time. The M&S ones are gloriously juicy but taste bland next to the intensely meaty GBK ones – that extra salt is doing its job.
Winner: GBK
Waffle fries
High-street brand: Leon Waffle Fries
£2.85 for 550g (£5.18 per kg) at Morrisons
Supermarket brand: Morrisons Waffle Fries
£2 for 550g (£3.64 per kg) at Morrisons
The small print: The Morrisons ones score slightly higher on the UPF ingredient front, as they contain flavouring, dextrose and paprika extract as well as 'raising agent (diphosphates)', while Leon's have only paprika extract and 'natural black pepper flavour'. But, oh dear – the salt. At 1.1g per 100g, Leon's have nearly three times as much as the Morrisons ones.
The flavour: All but identical, though the Morrisons ones look slightly more speckled with paprika, and I detect a fraction more spicy heat in the Leon version. They taste like eating a bag of heated-up crisps: definitely not the stuff of everyday meals, methinks, so I can't get too uptight about the ultra-processed food factor.
Winner: Morrisons – for flavour, price and salt content.
Hot honey pizza
High-street brand: Franco Manca Salami Onion Chilli Infused Honey Pizza
£5.75 for 475g (£1.21 per 100g) at Tesco
Supermarket brand: Tesco Finest Salsiccia Picante with Hot Honey Pizza
£4.45 for 400g (£1.19 per 100g) at Tesco
The small print: Other than a bit of xanthan gum in the honey drizzle, the Franco Manca pizza has a pretty good ingredients list but nearly 3.6g salt per half pizza serving – that's more than half your recommended daily maximum. The Tesco one (which has a blameless ingredients list) is much better at 2.3g, though that still puts it in the 'high salt' category.
The flavour: The Franco Manca pizza is smaller (26cm across to Tesco's 28cm) but it has much more cheese – too much perhaps, as it's not great quality. Both have ten slices of sausage, and a sachet of 'chilli honey drizzle' which tastes like sweet chilli sauce. The base of the FM version is slightly better quality, with more puff at the edge and a nice chew, but Tesco's has pretty slices of fresh red chilli and rough chopped flat leaf parsley which make it feel more loved.