Yoghurt

Danone Activia Snack Pot

89 cent for 165g, €5.39 per kg

How is a snack pot different from a regular tub of yoghurt, you might ask. And we would like to answer that but have absolutely no idea as this looks and tastes like a regular yoghurt to us. It is made with skimmed milk which probably makes it better for your heart but not much better for your taste buds. It lacks any of the creamy goodness to be found elsewhere and left us feeling a little flat. It lists aspartame among the ingredients although we didn’t need to see it written down to know it was there as it gives this product an unpleasant artificial taste.

Verdict: Hmmmm Danone **

Duneen Handmade Farmhouse

89 cent for 140g, €6.35 per kg

Aldi has come up trumps again this week with an artisan Irish product that is genuinely excellent and excellent value for money. This is a really good quality yoghurt which is made with “20 per cent compote” – let’s just call it strawberry jam – which is at the bottom of the jar. The natural yoghurt which is sitting on top of it is lovely and creamy with a pleasing sharpness. And of course it comes in a glass jar which all posh yoghurts do nowadays.

Verdict: Buy it *****

Tesco Finest Senga Strawberry

65 vrny got 150g, €4.60 per kg

This is the cheapest of the products we reviewed this week and it is up there with the nicest, albeit for very different reasons. If the Danone option is the healthy option this could be seen as the “unhealthy” one. And we love it for that. It is beautifully creamy, wonderfully sweet and a joy to eat. It is made in west Cork with whipping cream and is a real indulgence at a nice price. The strawberries are lovely – juicy and sweet and there are loads of them. It is, however, not something you’d want to be eating every day and it lacks the feel-good factor of its rivals.

Verdict: Mmmmmmm creamy ****

Glenilen Farm Strawberry

€1.44 for 160g, €9 per kg

We have a soft spot for this company as it was one of the first Irish dairy producers to deliver a really good quality, upmarket yoghurt to the Irish public. And we still love the yoghurt. Yes, it is more pricey than the Aldi option and while we think it tastes nicer we’re not sure everyone would think that paying more than 30 per cent extra would make sense. It is made with real pieces of fruit that are lovely and juicy and full of flavour. And of course there is the glass jar – it’s nice and everything, but it does make storage ever so slightly tricky.

Verdict: Excellent but loses out on price ****

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