Bargain Beans! (Oak Lane Baked Beans in Tomato Sauce)

Member Name: sewbizzie

Product:	Oak Lane Baked Beans in Tomato Sauce
Date:	08/11/09 (51 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Taste good, CHEAP

Disadvantages: None from my family

Always on the lookout for a bargain and a way to save a few pennies I was pleased when I came across a new brand of beans in my local Tesco. Hubby just does not like the value beans so I was buying Tesco's own brand but as these can in at over 10p a can cheaper I decided to give them a go.

~~OAK LANE~~

Oak Lane are a new brand of foods which Tesco have taken on and advertise as their 'discount brand'. it is available on a lot of products in store and I have personally found every one which I have tried to be of good quality. The price of this brand always seems to match the Tesco Value price.

~~THE TIN~~

The beans come in the standard metal tin which unfortunately does not have a ring pull on top but this is no problem if you have a can opener. The label is wrapped around the tin and is a blue colour and has the Oak Lane label at the top with the name of the product underneath and the Discount Brand logo to the side. Below this is a picture of some baked beans. On the back of the label you will find the relevant info about the beans including heating, nutrition and ingredients.

~~USE AND TASTE~~

For me as I got rid of my microwave through lack of use I heat my beans in a saucepan on the hob. I usually do so for about 3 minutes for my boys and slightly longer for hubby. It says on the tin that 4 minutes is the standard heating time. If you do wish to do so in a microwave then between 1 and 2 minutes is recommended, but remove the beans from the tin first!

I did notice when I opened the tin that there was a smell. It was not overpowering and did actually smell quite nice. It reminded me slightly of tomatoes but then it changed to the standard beans smell. When I poured the beans out I did notice that there seemed to be a lot of sauce included in the tin. The colour of the beans and sauce is orange as you would expect and the individual beans are not a massive size and I would say they were slightly smaller than the Tesco's own brand.

When I served the heated beans I found using a wholly spoon was the best way as it meant I could drain a lot of the sauce off so it did not run all over the plate onto the other food.

Now to the tasting. I did not tell hubby or my boys that I had changed the beans and I have to say it took quite a long time for hubby to mention this. He did comment on how nice they tasted and said they were a lot less dryer than the others he had. I did then tell him I had changed brand and he said he would now like to stick to theses ones. My boys also loved them and ate the whole lot on their plates.

Personally I enjoyed the taste and found they had a good consistency and were not at all dry. I hate nothing more than dry beans. I did however add a little of the left over sauce to my beans but this really did not make much difference to the dryness of the actual beans.

~~INFO~~

The beans come in a 420g tin and I find that this easily feeds 2 adults and 3 boys, as I personally only have a little spoonful of them.

The ingredients for the beans for those who wish to know are:-

Haricot Beans (49%), Water, Tomato Puree (18%), Sugar, Modified Maize Starch, Salt, Onion Powder, paprika, Natural Flavourings.

The nutritional values per 100g are:-

Energy - 80KCal
Protein -4.1g
Carbohydrate - 29.4g
Of which sugars - 12.2g
Fat - 1.5g
Of which saturates - 0.3g
Fibre - 9.9g
Sodium - 0.6g
Salt equivalent - 1.5g

These beans are suitable for vegetarians and the recipe does not contain nuts. The metal can which the beans come in can be recycled.

The beans do have a good long life to them and the best before date on the last tin which I bought is date over 2 years away.

If you do not use the whole tin in one sitting then the remaining beans can be placed into a sealed storage tin and kept refrigerated but they have to be consumed within the following 2 days.

~~PRICE AND AVAILABILITY~~

The beans are only available to buy in Tesco as oak Lane are their new discount brand and they are priced at 29p per tin which is the exact same price as the Tesco Value ones.

~~OVERALL~~

I definitely have to recommend these beans as they really are a bargain buy. They have a great taste, smell and are exceptionally cheap. I think the only improvement which could be made to the overall package would be to add a ring pull but this is only a minor point.

Summary: A new brand of bargain priced baked beans which taste good