Smoothies
Innocent Strawberries and Bananas
€2.99 for 250ml €11.96 per litre
Innocent tells us there are four crushed strawberries and half a mashed banana in the mix. We also get half a pressed apple, nine grapes half a squeezed orange, a dash of lime and, well, that’s it. This tastes lovely, but we reckon €2.99 for a small bottle is wildly overpriced. Innocent could also be more upfront when it comes to nutritional information, particular the sugar content, which is given per 100ml but not per bottle, and we are not told how much of the GDA is in each bottle. We have done the maths for Innocent. There is 26.5g of sugar in each bottle, nearly a third of an adult’s GDA, which takes the gloss off its goodness, in our view.
Verdict: A ridiculous price
Star rating: **
Tesco Strawberry and Banana Smoothie
€0.99 for 250ml €3.96 per litre
This has almost exactly the same ingredient list as the Innocent smoothie and, as far as we can tell, the only difference is that the Tesco bottle is not trying to be all matey and chatty. Oh, and the other difference is the price – this is a third of the price and tastes almost identical. It has a lovely freshness, an almost perfect consistency and the added feel-good factor of knowing that a single bottle contains two of your five a day. Like many smoothies it is high in sugar, but Tesco is not trying to hide that fact from consumers, and points out on the front of the bottle that a 250ml serving amounts to 27 per cent of an adult’s GDA of sugar.
Verdict: Gorgeous
Star rating: *****
Naturis Smoothie from Lidl
€0.99 for 250ml €3.96 per litre
This is almost as good as the Tesco product and we have to say it represents exceptional value for money. It has an ingredient list which is pure and simple, although it might have been a tiny bit too strawberry-heavy for our (very picky) tastes and may have lacked a teensy bit of the freshness we found in the Tesco bottle. Having said that, we can find very few bad things to say about this, and if you find yourself in Lidl anytime soon and are partial to smoothies, we would strongly encourage you to go for it.
Verdict: Pipped at the post
Star rating: ****
Happy Monkey Smoothies
€1.60 for 180ml €8.88 per litre
At the risk of being repetitive, this smoothie had a nicely pure ingredient list. It does, however, contain a lot fewer strawberries and bananas – just 2 per cent and 12 per cent respectively – and a significant portion of what else is found in the carton is apple juice. This is all well and good, but it made the smoothie slightly too liquidy for our tastes. It comes in a child-friendly carton which will fit nicely into a lunchbox. The price of €1.60 is steep – particularly when compared to the Aldi smoothies below, but we did source it in a Spar shop and were no doubt paying extra for the convenience.
Verdict: Sweet and dear
Star rating: ***
Del Rivo Smoothies from Aldi
€2.29 for 800ml €2.86 per litre
This is the cheapest of the smoothies tried and perfectly pleasant without being amazing. It is clearly aimed at children – as is the Happy Monkey smoothie – while the Tesco, Lidl and Innocent products are for more grown-up tastes, so maybe it is unfair to compare it to those too closely. It is more juicy than smoothie, something which obviously makes it more child friendly, but those juices are all made from concentrate, which is a bit of a shame – even if it does give this a longer shelf life than the fresher products. Ultimately, the taste and texture are left in the hapenny place by the price. It is almost 70 per cent cheaper than the Happy Monkey smoothie and easily as nice, if not nicer.
Verdict: Cheap and juicy
Star rating: ***
