Having always eaten eggs from my own free range hens as a child, the cost of buying eggs from the supermarket came as a bit of a shock to me when I left home. As a result of this (and being a student), I tend to buy tesco value eggs for the majority of my cooking as they are significantly cheaper than all the others offered by Tesco (although I must add that even these are expensive compared with Morissons).

However the quality and flavour are not a patch on the free range eggs I have been used to. The eggs only come in small sizes and the difference in the shells of these and free range eggs can easily be felt when cracking them and this gives an indication of the difference in quality. Whilst Tesco Value Eggs are adequate for cooking / baking, I will will always splash out on large, free range eggs if I am baking for a special occasion as the improvement is very noticeable.

Additionally there is the ethical issue that Tesco Value Eggs are from caged chickens, which are undoubtedly reared in very poor conditions. Unfortunately if you want cheap eggs though, you will have to put up with this. However if you can afford to spend a little bit more then I would highly recommend buying free range - both for their ethical value and vastly improved quality.