Value for Money: Orange Juice

Tested by Conor Pope

Innocent orange juice, €1.60 per litre

Highs: Having made quite good smoothies for years, Innocent recently decided to enter the juice market. Innocent is a nice, friendly brand – while some companies' efforts at chumminess end up being irritating, these guys can pull it off. The packaging tells us that none of the ingredients are air freighted, 10 per cent of the profits go to charitable sources, and that they are working to source all oranges from ethically sound plantations. It was, remarkably, the cheapest of the fresh juices we tried. So there are loads of reasons to buy it apart from the fact that it tastes very good, very fresh and with a pleasant bite to it.

Lows: We paid just €1.60 for our carton, but that was because it was on a half price offer in our local Tesco. At its full price of €3.20, it might be out of some people's price range.

Verdict: Top notch

Star rating: *****

Tesco orange juice, €2.59 per litre

Highs: This juice has a pale, slightly cloudy appearance and a fairly sweet taste. It is perfectly pleasant when served straight out of the fridge and has been produced in Ireland – which is good, we think.

Lows: However, the box also tells us that the fruit is picked and processed within 24 hours, so unless the people at Tesco are very, very quick off the mark – and have found themselves a handy orange plantation in Ireland – it's actually made somewhere far, far away and shipped over here in vats which doesn't sound quite so good. It is a little bland and it was lacking in the fresh, zingy flavour department. While it is not the dearest option, it was slightly more expensive than we expected – Tesco's freshly squeezed juice is rather excellent and this can't help but suffer by comparison.

Verdict: Just fine

Star rating: ****

Tropicana Pure Premium Original orange juice, €3.29 per litre

Highs: One of the oldest kids on the block, Tropicana was selling its not-from-concentrate orange juice when most of us still thought making "orange juice" from a tin or buying bricks of stuff that looked a little like orange juice but tasted more like Mi-Wadi was the height of California chic. It has a lovely orangey smell and probably tastes most like the freshly squeezed alternative. It is also very widely available and pretty reliable and comes in a range of shapes and sizes.

Lows: It was the priciest of the juices we tried and we couldn't really see what we were paying the extra 60 cents for.

Verdict: A bit pricey

Star rating: ***

Dawn Natural Premium orange juice, €2.75 per litre

Highs: This pale-coloured juice is smooth – it also does an option with bits – and has a slightly sharp kick that might be invigorating of a morning. It is Irish-made and very easy to get your hands on.

Lows: It is a little more watery than the others, which may be explained by the absence of bits, and is maybe lacking a little in terms of flavour – initial tanginess aside. Like most of the competition, a glass serves as one portion of your fruit intake for the day but, unlike the rest of the competition, Dawn are so excited by this fact that they devote a whole side of the box to telling us all about it.

Verdict: Lacking a little flavour

Star rating: ***

Solevita orange juice from Lidl, €1.49 for 1.5 litres, €1 per litre

Highs: Served very, very cold, this juice was better than we had anticipated. It looks a lot and tastes a little like real orange juice and is less than a third of the price of the upmarket brands we came across. While it is nowhere near as nice as fresh juice, it is as good as any similarly made juice we have tried.

Lows: Before the people at Lidl write in to complain that we're not comparing like for like by including this made-from-concentrate juice, we thought it might be interesting to see how a cheap juice compared to the fresher options. And the answer is not great. While it is made with 100 per cent juice like all its rivals, the concentration process has robbed it of any of the fresh-tasting fruitiness that we were hoping for.

Verdict: Cheap but not worth it

Star rating: **