Tesco Free From White Sliced€2.65 for 400g, €6.62 per kg
Free from what Mr Tesco? Any discernable flavour? This is one of those remarkable Tesco products that looks and feels like the real deal but tastes of virtually nothing at all. Now, to be honest, we’d prefer this tasteless gluten-free bread to the horribly flavourless DS bread to the left. A smear of butter and jam improved the eating experience dramatically. That is not to say we’d be rushing out to buy it as, like many of the gluten-free breads on the market, it suffers from being excessively processed.
Verdict: Average ***
DS White sliced loaf
€3.29 for 400g, €8.22 per kg
We were promised a “delicious and versatile” loaf by the makers of this bread. They also assured us on the packaging that their DS (Dietary Specials) bread had been “improved”. Whatever about its versatility, we did not think it was delicious, not by a long shot and even after we had followed the instructions for “refreshing” it, we were singularly unimpressed. The fact this is the “improved” version is something we found troubling and we couldn’t help but think how bad it must once have been. The texture is fine but the bread left our mouth coated with a film of grease and it had an unpleasant and lingering aftertaste. And it was the most expensive product we tried too.
Verdict: Poor **
BFree Soft White Loaf
€2/€2.95 for 400g, €5/€7.37 per kg
Okay, downside first. It’s not sliced. Now on to the good stuff. This is a great bread and people with food intolerances across the country should be delighted it has arrived. This new-to-the-market loaf actually tastes like bread. It has the texture of bread. And it is freshly-baked like bread should be. It is made by an Irish start-up company which is another plus and if you buy it in the pop-up shop on Dublin’s South Anne Street, it costs just €2 a loaf which makes it nearly as cheap as the bread from Aldi. The pop-up store will come down in two weeks although BFree will still be on sale in Dunnes Stores with a full price of €2.95 which still represents very good value for money given the quality of the product.
Verdict:Excellent *****
Lynch’s Bread from Aldi
€1.99 for 450g, €4.42 per kg
Top-quality gluten-free breads are like buses, you wait for years for a good one and then two come along at once. This bread from Bandon has only recently started appearing on Aldi shelves and it is very good. It is the cheapest of the options we tried and tastes a lot like bread. It is very light and airy and quite pleasant. It is very salty and perhaps just a little sweet but it’s streets ahead of some of the heavily processed products on the market and it is freshly-baked and delivered to the German discounter’s stores daily.
Verdict: Very good ****
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