Cheap And Nasty (Asda Smart Price Strawberry Jam)

Member Name: wigglylittleworm

Product:	Asda Smart Price Strawberry Jam
Date:	18/01/09 (233 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: cheap

Disadvantages: nasty

I don't really eat jam very much but when I was persuaded to take part in a silly baking competition called the cake factor I needed raspberry jam to make raspberry buns.

A quick trip to my local small Asda and a small fortune in flour, butter, baking soda etc entered my trolley. When I got to the jam aisle the cheapest raspberry jam cost over a pound and the Smartprice strawberry jam cost just 37p for a 454g jar so it didn't take long to decide which one I was going to buy.

Pleased with my bargain, it was time to to try it out. The first impression of the jam was good, when it is in the jar it is a reassuringly dark red colour and smells strongly of strawberries.

When you take it out of the jar it soon becomes apparent why this stuff is so cheap. It has a very thick, almost jelly like texture and it's colour fades to pale pink. It tastes really horrible, the taste of strawberry fading away to an indistinct fruity and sugary mush, it was sweeter than pure sugar and horrible on toast.

When used as a filling in buns and baked the jam just turned into a solid jelly like lump and added no nice taste to the cakes, of course we still managed to force them down.

The lack of taste is explained when you look at the ingredients as the jam is made with just 35g of fruit per 100g with 62g of sugar used and they dont even use proper sugar just some weird hybrid of glucose-fructose syrup which will account for its super sweetness. Normally a semi decent jam has at least 45 to 50g of fruit per 100g.

Smart price products can be hit and miss, some are excellent and some are really horrible. This jam is really horrible and it is worth paying more for a better brand.

Summary: Yuck!!