VALUE FOR MONEY TOMATO SOUP

Tested by Conor Pope.

Dunnes Stores Simply Better Vine Ripened Tomato and Basil Soup

€2.59 for 500g, €5.18 per kg

Highs:Made with "basil-infused oil", this soup sounds and tastes a lot posher than we expected. It is lovely and creamy, thanks to the addition of crème fraiche. It's a good old-fashioned tomato soup with the merest hint of basil, a smooth texture and a safe taste which might appeal to pernickety kids.

Lows:While it is posher than we expected, it is also pricier. One tub of this soup opened in the bag before we got it home, which didn't endear it to us. Half a pot contains 1.7 grams of salt (or nearly one-third of an adult's guideline amount), which seems on the high side. It is also quite sweet and lacks the tang we associate with a really good soup.

Verdict:Surprisingly posh and pleasant

Star rating: ***

Avonmore Vine Ripened Tomato and Basil Soup

€2.69 for 600g, €4.48 per kg

Highs:This product makes much of the fact that it has been made with vine-ripened tomatoes (although whether this makes any difference to the taste is open to question). What matters more is that it's the cheapest of the soups we found and probably the easiest to find. It has a herby hit and a fairly subtle tomato flavour, and on a cold winter's day you'd want to be fierce picky to refuse this. At 34 per cent, it has more tomatoes than most of the competition.

Lows:It was a bit too thin for our tastes and it lacks the smooth, rich texture of some of the competition. Despite all the tomatoes, it lacked any real tomato flavours.

Verdict:Fine

Star rating: ***

Avoca Tomato and Pepper Soup

€6.50 for 800g, €8.12 per kg

Highs:Even when cold this soup smells fantastic and we could easily imagine serving it chilled as a gazpacho on a hot summer's day, if we ever had such days in this country. It is wonderfully thick and chunky, and tastes as fresh as if we'd made it ourselves with tomatoes from the garden, if there were any tomatoes in our garden. It has a nice and surprisingly powerful chilli pepper kick to it and a lovely texture. The small pieces of onion retain just a little of their crunch.

Lows:It would have been nice if Avoca had told us how much soup we were getting. Or indeed how much salt or sugar was in a serving. While this is undoubtedly a fine soup, it was also the most expensive we found, and will be beyond the budgets of many people.

Verdict:Lovely but at what cost?

Star rating: ****

Cully Sully Creamy Tomato Soup

€1.99 for 400g, €4.97 per kg

Highs:The two fellas behind this increasingly popular brand play up their soup's folksy charm with the friendly packaging, which includes a potted history of the tomato. It is the second-cheapest option we tried and has a simple ingredient list. It is a perfectly pleasant, fresh-tasting soup with a nice and creamy texture and it will certainly fill a gap.

Lows:We could not work out how many people this was supposed to serve but we reckoned that a 200g serving would definitely have left us wanting more. We were also a bit disappointed by the thinness of it and couldn't see why Cully and Sully only give the sodium rather than the salt content on the packaging; after doing the maths, mind you, we worked out that it was comparatively low in salt.

Verdict:A fine soup

Star rating: ****

Marks Spencer Tomato and Basil

€2.99 for 600g €4.98 per kg

Highs:This is the most substantial of the soup options we came across - big chunks of tomato with the skin left on feature prominently. It also has the strongest basil flavour, which lends it a nice earthy feel. It has a lovely fresh smell which meant it created a fine first impression.

Lows:This soup, with its appetising picture and even more appealing smell, promises a great deal, which makes its failure to deliver a little more disappointing than it might have been. Despite its pleasant appearance and fresh smell, it tastes strangely dull. It is okay but lacks the homemade quality to be found in the Avoca option.

Verdict:Only okay

Star rating: **