Easter is here, and we thought we’d do something fun and a little different. At PayingTooMuch.com we love a warm hot cross bun, smothered in melted butter. But which is the best hot cross bun money can buy?
We pitched five supermarkets against each other in a blind taste test at our office here in Chichester, West Sussex. Obviously, there are more than five supermarkets, but we couldn’t just sit there all day eating buns, could we? The results may surprise you...
The Supermarkets
We picked five of the biggest supermarkets, which we felt gave a representation across the board. These were: Co-op, Lidl, Marks & Spencer, Sainsbury's and Tesco.
Price wise, Lidl were the cheapest at 14p per bun, whilst Tesco, Sainsbury’s and Co-Op were all 17p per bun. By far the most expensive was M&S at 43p each.
The Buns
The hot cross buns were anonymously tasted by staff in our office. Each had the same butter and were provided toasted and un-toasted. Our very grateful colleagues then ranked them in order of preference and votes were submitted. Only the Chief Hot Cross Bun Expert (me) knew which buns were which.
The Results
And so for the results:
Our winner, which the team ranked as their number one, with 43% of the votes was Lidl, closely followed by Co-Op at 35%.
Our loser, which the team ranked as their least favourite to come fifth, was M&S with 26%.
What we can say though is that the Lidl offering was the most divisive, with a whopping 65% of staff marking it as either the best, or the worst! Obviously, the taste is distinctive enough to turn some people’s taste buds on, and turn others off!
So there you go, the cheapest bun from Lidl at 14p was voted the best, and the most expensive at 43p was voted the worst. Who’d have thought?
