Sainsbury's

Helix

QuackQuack wrote: »

Without doubt Sainsbury's food is better than Asda and I did enjoy my Sainsbury's jam doughnuts - a simple pleasure.

I don't buy the Asda ones from my local store after I once made the mistake of asking if they had any after finding the shelves empty. The lady replied "They've just come out of the microwave and are a bit hot, they'll be out soon." I asked if they had some weird high speed doughnut maker but it was not to be! They apparently arrive frozen and they defrost them in a microwave before bagging them up. I always felt they lacked a certain freshness. Perhaps they do that with their Hovis bread too?

Depending on the size of the instore bakery, many Sainsburys bakery products come in frozen and then get defrosted but they do clearly state if this is the case on the labels unlike the other supermarkets.

Gerrard_8_lfc

The Sainsbury's bakery is another part of the business that stands out from its competitors.

Sainsburys strawberry tarts are to die for. Nom Nom

dacouch

I find their obsession with buy one get one free or buy two for say £3.00 as I often only want one packet and they normally inflate the cost of the items to pay for the offer. Have a look down the crisp isle to see what I mean

Horseunderwater

I too mainly use Sainsbury to do a shop, but am signed off work at the moment, so cannot do what I'd normally do which is buy loads of meat/fish fresh and freeze it from the reduced shelves. I drive a bus and park up while waiting for passengers - do a shop and unload it to my car when I get back to my depot. Thereby saving on fuel costs of running a car. However, I was not able to buy frozen. But one of my best bargains there was 9 packs of fresh salmon for 25p each pack which should have been £3 each or 2 4 £4 each. But they now have a new manager there who forbids reducing prices until the last minute now - so they get left with a lot of stuff to chuck.
Of course you need to be careful, buying reduced. If the packet looks like it is bloated out and not flat, then the product has not been chilled right, so leave well alone. I had that with some turkey mince, which though that days date and frozen on getting home that night, was off when I went to use it.
Best thing to do when shopping is make a list of stuff you need for store cupboards - like dry pasta or rice and buy a few at once when they have an offer. It will keep for ages. Check out bogof's and compare pack price on shelf, have caught both Sainsbury and Tesco out in larger pack being more expensive than smaller packs and also bogof's there were more expensive /kg than the total of 2 smaller bought together. Keep an eye out for the bogus offers. Always check smaller pack against the larger pack prices. You'd be surprised, how many I have spotted over the years. Sainsbury cat food pouches in 48 box size was best £11.91 for that size but if you bought 2 x 24 pack it was £8.50 total, that was back in 2007 though. Be vigilent.

renegade

QuackQuack wrote: »

Without doubt Sainsbury's food is better than Asda and I did enjoy my Sainsbury's jam doughnuts - a simple pleasure.

I don't buy the Asda ones from my local store after I once made the mistake of asking if they had any after finding the shelves empty. The lady replied "They've just come out of the microwave and are a bit hot, they'll be out soon." I asked if they had some weird high speed doughnut maker but it was not to be! They apparently arrive frozen and they defrost them in a microwave before bagging them up. I always felt they lacked a certain freshness. Perhaps they do that with their Hovis bread too?

Thank you for that very important info, as I often buy from the bakery and then freeze them...does the rule, never refreeze apply to baked products?

Dontknowanymore

I do like a bit of sainsburys.
I find their value range is really good especially the basic cleaning products, I used to live in a refuge and was responsible for buying the communal cleaning products and Sainsburys was the only local supermarket.
Also their value tinned spaghetti is lovely, I prefer it to heinz.
Their baker section is great too, their seeded french stick is the best french stick ever, I've yet to come accross one as crusty on the outside but light and soft in the middle.
I'm moving soon and the nearest supermarket will be Sainsburys, I think I will give it a trial run and see how we get on.

QuackQuack_2

renegade wrote: »

Thank you for that very important info, as I often buy from the bakery and then freeze them...does the rule, never refreeze apply to baked products?

That is a really good point!

First of all, I can't say if it goes on in all Asda stores - or for that matter what else gets the 'Microwave defrosting' treatment where it does take place.


LONG ANSWER
In my own experience I'd say this much; I have bought both jam and custard doughnuts from the same Asda store and frozen them, but they've tasted a bit stale upon defrosting. I always put this down to it not being ideal to freeze them. Importantly though I had no ill effects.

The refrigeration process is a funny thing. There is lots of advice out there regarding freezing and refreezing and some of it contradictory. For sure the quality will deteriorate, but I doubt that it would be unsafe to refreeze them. I've not died yet! I'm told the key area is the time it takes to drop their temperature between the 4 degrees and 0 degrees stages. This is where most damage occurs. The faster you can get it through this stage, the better the results. However over than immersing them in liquid nitrogen (which I'm sure you don't have hanging around the kitchen in any quantity) the normal kitchen has no control on this.

SHORT ANSWER
Probably OK - quality will suffer and when it's not optimal to start with, this may be very noticeable.

BEST ADVICE ?
Buy them elsewhere!

peachyprice

Helix wrote: »

Depending on the size of the instore bakery, many Sainsburys bakery products come in frozen and then get defrosted but they do clearly state if this is the case on the labels unlike the other supermarkets.

Very very few of the bakery items come in cooked and frozen, only about a handfull.

In the large Sainsbury's they bake from scratch, in the smaller ones everything comes in frozen but raw, is defrosted overnight and baked in the morning, except the loaves which come in ambient and part baked.


I used to work in the bakery

zippybungle

Sainsburys is my favorite supermarket, I think the prices are good, the quality is much better than the others and the Staff are actually, friendly and helpful (take note Tesco!).

Zippy x

marmitepotato

I love Sainsburys too, Tesco is my local shop but I travel out of my way to buy at Sainsburys. The quality outshines Tesco etc, and the Sainsburys Basics lines are top notch. Sainsburys have got things just right.