Battle of the festive Christmas meal deals: I taste test Boots and Sainsbury's turkey and cranberry sandwiches

With the Christmas period upon us, our usual selection of meal deals is far from impervious to the impacts of rampant festive commercialism, with pretty much every major retailer with butties on their shelves rushing to stock turkey and cranberry-this, chicken-and-stuffing-that, and gingerbread-whatever-it-may-be.

With the range of Christmassy meal deals bigger and better than ever, I decided to see which was best by pitting some of the top sellers against each other. And so, today, we’re pitting the preeminent Boots meal deal up against the offering from the orange-tinged family supermarket Sainsbury’s.

BOOTS

Menu details: Turkey Feast sandwich (cooked turkey breast with cranberry chutney, mayonnaise, pork, sage and onion stuffing, smoke flavour sweetcured bacon and fired onions on malted bread), Boots Handcrafted Chocolate Log, and Dr Pepper.

Cost: £3.60 - value for money 3.5/5

Starting with the sandwich, the first thing I noticed was that the bread was seeded, which was a nice touch. Overall, it had a lovely texture - not too soft but moist enough so as not to be dry and chewy. I’d have liked more turkey in there if I’m honest, but the fact that it was turkey and not chicken like lots of other standard meal deal sarnies was nice. Some areas were distinctly meatless though. The cranberry gave it a nice sweet kick and, while it was pretty solid overall, it didn’t blow my mind. 3/5

Now to the snack, which was a lovely handcrafted chocolate log - I prefer a sweet side rather than a savoury number, and this delivered. It had excellent sponge and a flake on top, which was a very welcome touch. Plus, the sponge had chocolate chips inside, which added another dimension to the textures. Excellent - 4/5

Drink: Dr Pepper.

SAINSBURY’S

Menu details: Turkey Feast (Turkey breast, mayonnaise, beechwood smoked bacon, cranberry chutney and sage, onion and oat stuffing on malted bread with bacon, stuffing and cranberry sauce), Mini Pork & Stuffing Pies (Seasoned uncured pork blended with sage and onion stuffing, baked in pastry and topped with a breadcrumb and parsley topping), and Dr Pepper.

Cost: £3.75 - value for money 3.5/5

Straight off the bat, I was a little disappointed by the sandwich, which did that thing which lots of pre-packaged sandwiches do - it packed out the visible edge of the bread with filling and left a notable deficiency in the hidden part of the butty, which is a little cheeky. The bacon was fine if a little lacking in flavour, and the turkey was just too sparse. The cranberry came though but my final few bites were just dry bread really. 2/5

The pork and stuffing pies, however, were very good indeed - these things were like a classic pork pie with a crumb topping on the pastry and with a lovely hint of onion and sage stuffing chicken in there to boot. There was nothing not to like; my only gripe is that the pastry was a little soft, but that’s always going to be the case with pre-packaged pork pies. Very good though - 4/5

Drink: Dr Pepper