Food prices are higher than they’ve ever been – and it seems even the humble sandwich isn’t immune from price hikes after Pret a Manger found itself in the firing line this week for charging £7.15 for a baguette.
And no, it isn’t filled with wagyu steak or gold leaf – just cheese and pickle. The Posh Cheddar and Pickle Baguette at Pret doesn’t just have mature cheddar and chunky pickle, but some roasted tomatoes, sliced red onion, free-range mayo and mustard cress.
Oh, and it’s no ordinary baguette – but a stone-baked one. Still, it seems everyone’s in agreement that £7.15 is pretty steep for what has historically been a cheap, easy meal.
Sandwiches are a staple of British cuisine with many Britons reaching for a slice of bread for an easy lunchtime meal. But can any sandwich really be worth more than a fiver, or are we – in the words of one angry social media user this week during ‘Pret-gate’ – being ‘mugged off’?
Pret a Manger was under fire this week over the price of its Posh Cheddar and Pickle Baguette, which costs £7.15 if you want to eat in
With prices skyrocketing in restaurant chains, I decided to replicate some of the most popular sandwich options myself, to see if my own attempts could compare with the sandwich giants in both taste and cost….
The shop
A few aisles in and it quickly dawns on me that variety comes at a cost – to my time and my purse. My optimistic choices mean I’m not just buying a loaf of bread – I need baguettes, sourdough, tortilla wraps and a bloomer.
No, it doesn’t break the bank, but it feels like overkill compared to if I’d just bought a single sandwich for each instead of enough to make a whole household’s lunches.
And then there’s all the various bits and bobs that are added to these High Street creations – chutneys, pickles, cress and all sorts of other bits and bobs – sandwich-making can become a costly business.
I gather up all the ingredients for my six chosen sarnies – swerving a few that I know I’ve got in my fridge, like mayonnaise and pickle – and the bill comes to £28.31. That means an average sandwich price of £4.72 so I’m already quids-in compared to the £7.15 Pret Posh Pickle number.
Home I go, and start the task of constructing them.
The method
Some sandwiches are easier than others, especially the ones that don’t require the cooking of chicken or bacon (I decided since I was doing it from scratch that should mean avoiding pre-cooked stuff too), and I take more care assembling them than I think I’ve ever taken over a sandwich.
Safe to say, they all look pretty good and it’s tempting to eat them straight away, but decide to see whether they stand up to being carted around in the way I’d transport my High Street sandwich.
While I might work from home most of the time, sandwiches are often grabbed on the way to meetings, or shoved in my handbag enroute to the gym and eaten a few hours later.
It quickly dawns on me that the biggest thing I’m lacking isn’t any sandwich ingredients – but the carefully designed boxes and packaging that are aimed at protecting what’s inside as people grab their food to go.
My paltry cling film attempts are my downfall. Within minutes the vegan wrap is a squashed mess. After a few hours in my bag it’s unrecognisable and by the time I unwrap it at my desk after carrying it around I just can’t bring myself to eat it.
The BLT and chicken salad sandwich fare marginally better, but the soft bloomer suffers at the hands of my driving and my packed luggage. The best are my version of the cheese and pickle baguette and the tuna crunch – but that’s only because I’ve used a crusty baguette instead of a sub which again lends a bit of robust protection to the sandwich. The toastie is great – but I eat it off a plate at home as I would in Starbucks.
The results
Pret cheese and pickle baguette – £7.15
My own version of the Posh Cheddar and Pickle Baguette was delicious and assembled with a bake-at-home baguette
It’s the obvious first option. I go for part-baked baguettes that I can crisp up at home, thinking they’ll be a bit more substantial.
I get bog standard mature cheddar, a red onion, some tomatoes ready to roast at home and some cress – because who keeps cress in their fridge?
Mayo and pickle we already have – which makes it far cheaper than £7.15 for the ingredients, though if I’d had to buy a jar of each I think we’d have been venturing into £7 territory.
That said – those jars will last me for a fair few more ‘posh’ baguettes – not just the one.
The result looks pretty great. So good that my husband starts questioning why I don’t make sandwiches more often for him to take to work, instead knowing he’ll most likely pick something up from a shop (something that’s hopefully less than £7.15).
The crunchy baguette means the filling is protected and despite being shoved in my handbag alongside purse, water, and various other paraphernalia as I head off to a meeting, it’s still in one piece when I come to eat it.
The tomatoes are perhaps a bit wet – maybe Pret take all the juice out to stop them making stuff soggy. Who knows. Either way, I reckon mine’s better, and it’s definitely cheaper.
Sainsbury’s Vegan Falafel & Houmous Wrap – £3.00
The vegan Falafel & Houmous wrap looked great at first, but as I learnt the hard way, it doesn’t transport well
Next up is a vegan option from Sainsbury’s. It sounds simple enough – a tortilla wrap packed with falafel and houmous and a load of veg and salad stuff.
Except I don’t have any of those ingredients in the fridge alread, so I have to buy them all new. My shopping list includes eight tortillas, a whole pack of falafel and a whole tub of houmous for just one sandwich.
But it’s not that that’s the problem – it’s trying to wrap a tortilla in the same secure way they seem to manage at Sainsbury’s HQ.
I’ve turned my back for two seconds and everything’s spilling out, making it a far less appealing option than the neatly packaged version I could pick up off the shelf.
Trying to wrap it in clingfilm is bad enough, but things go from bad to worse once we’re in the car, and by the time I come to eat it a few hours later it’s a squishy mess that looks less than appetising.
By the time I sat down to pull the wrap out of its packaging, it was in such a state of disarray that I didn’t want to eat it
M&S ultimate BLT – £3.50
M&S’s Ultimate BLT is likely to be a bestseller, with bacon, lettuce and tomato always proving a popular combination
My version of the BLT was a pretty good, and cheaper alternative, but I spent a lot of time on the assembly as I cooked the bacon
A BLT is a classic, and I once ended up in a conversation about how much research and development went into the M&S BLT.
The supermarket actually offers a few different versions of BLT-inspired lunches in its sandwich range, but its moderately-priced ultimate offering is the one I have decided to replicate.
It might sound like a simple one but all you need is for the water from the tomato to get to the bread and you’ve got a mushy mess – not the perfect balance of flavours and textures that you want.
I’ve got a vague memory that I was once told something about lining the bread with the lettuce to protect it from the tomato.
So once I’ve grilled my bacon (and got annoyed at the fact I’ve not only had to turn my grill on, but now have to clean the pan too) I try that.
It works, but it also seems to mean that nothing really sticks together. I’m barely into wrapping it and stuff’s falling out everywhere. Perhaps M&S really are the experts, and as I try to catch bits of tomato and bacon as they rain down while I’m trying to scoff it at lunchtime I’m wondering if for £1 more I should have just left it to them.
Costa chicken salad sandwich – £4.25
The chicken salad sandwich in the style of coffee chain Costa turned out pretty well – but once again, time was lost on cooking the meat
Another easy one to assemble, though again I’ve got to cook my chicken.
It’s not the end of the world (thank goodness for air fryers), but I do question whether I’ve just spent as much in energy as the extra money it would cost to have let Costa cook my chicken.
I use the same malted bloomer instead of ‘soft oatmeal bread’ because, come on, how many different loaves am I going to buy?
The final sandwich looks pretty great, but again – without the helpful cardboard box packaging you’d get with most High Street sandwiches – my cling film wrapping just isn’t going to cut it.
And yes, I could take a lunchbox, but it would take up far more room than the easy packaging you get with a shop-bought sarnie.
The sandwich just about survives, but the bread isn’t quite as thick as it was once it’s been squished around a bit.
Aldi tuna crunch sub – £2.39
Aldi’s tuna crunch sub was such an easy replica to assemble that I barely remembered to put the ingredients on my shopping list
Probably the simplest of the bunch, it even gets missed off my shopping list when I head to the supermarket!
But luckily I’ve got a tin of tuna in the cupboard, so I mix it up with mayo and some red onion and pile into another one of the part-baked baguettes rather than buying even more bread and getting some sub rolls.
The ease with which I’ve managed to recreate the baguette suggests it might be a better option to make your own – compared to long prep times with other replicas in my list.
I don’t have to cook a single ingredient and it’s all mixed together pretty easily.
It’s a wise choice, with the crunchy baguette helping prevent any sogginess and also ensuring it can hold its own in my handbag.
It may be the least glamorous of the choices I’ve recreated, but I think I’d rather have a simple sandwich in one piece than some of the other creations that have fallen apart into a mess.
Starbucks oak smoked ham and cheese toastie – £6.50
The Starbucks oak smoked ham and cheese toastie is a popular choice among lovers of the American coffee chain
I was pleased with my replica of the toastie which had just the right amount of béchamel sauce – but there was no way it would travel well
Let’s be honest, you’re always going to go for this one if you eat in as opposed to taking away.
No one wants to be carrying a melted cheese, bechamel-loaded toastie around with you, unless of course your office is next door to Starbucks.
It’s easy enough to make, and I congratulate myself on just the right amount of béchamel, though I’ve got to admit it’s a bit more labour intensive than some of the other creations.
Of course, a béchamel sauce takes time as it has to heat up on the stove and thicken in a slow process which involves gradually adding milk to a mixture of butter and flour – before then adding the cheese of choice.
I used ingredients we already had in the house for this, and therefore didn’t buy extra flour and butter. I also already had mustard in the cupboard.
Thankfully my efforts pay off because the sandwich replica tastes great and I serve it up to ‘eat in’ at my kitchen table rather than trying to package it up, and proudly call it a triumph.
The downside? As previously mentioned, this isn’t something you could bring on your commute to the office.
Overall verdict?
Experiment over, I’m left with a full fridge of ingredients to eat sandwiches for the next week, and with mixed views on whether ditching High Street sarnies is a good call or not. Are mine better? Yes – and that verdict is backed by my husband.
The recreation of carefully-research combinations using fresh ingredients makes for some great sandwiches, and yes, overall my crude maths suggests that they’re all cheaper to make at home, with the fact I already had some ingredients and saved cash that way balanced out by the fact that I had to buy a fair few things that I can continue to use, or might freeze or last in the fridge.
But it’s not just about the money as there are other ‘costs’ to take into consideration. The time it’s taken for me to shop, cook and construct – especially if you want variety.
It’s all well and good if you’re happy to eat the same sandwich for a few days running and just buy one loaf of bread and one set of fillings. But if you want the same variety you’d have from popping to a shop each day – a wrap one day, bloomer the next – then you’ll find yourself with a kitchen full of bread and a fridge full of fillings.
On top of that, there’s the energy and time to cook and prepare various elements. Then the drama of trying to get them somewhere other than my kitchen in one piece, which is where mine are definitely beaten by the bought version.
With all that in mind, as much as I’ve loved recreating some of these High Street sarnies – and doing it better – I’m not sure it’s something I’d do every day. And as chuffed as I am with my copies, I think I might still be grabbing something off the shelf when the occasion calls.
I just might draw the line at £7.15 and stick to the cheaper options.