The sandwich lie – study

BITING into a supermarket sandwich to find it tastes of nothing but bread and butter can really put you off your lunch.

Now a study has found nearly half of popular choices such as BLT (a sandwich filled with bacon, lettuce and tomato) and prawn mayo don’t even contain as much filling as it says on their labels.

Removing a slice of bacon or a few prawns can generate huge savings for retailers given we spend almost

£8 billion (R141bn) a year on

3.5 billion packaged sandwiches. Those not prepared on-site must list percentages of the main ingredients under labelling laws. However, 14 of the 30 sandwiches examined did not live up to the filling proportions, new Channel 5 show Shop Smart: Save Money found. Researchers looked at five types of sandwiches: chicken salad, BLT, ham and cheese, cheese and onion and prawn mayonnaise bought from 10 shops in the UK.

The study found the percentage of prawns in prawn mayonnaise sandwiches, by weight, were 22% at Boots compared with 41% at M&S.

Sainsbury’s offered the most generous fillings overall, but its ham and cheese contained 20% less ham than promised. WHSmith was least generous overall, but its BLT was an exception, containing 50% more bacon than stated on the label. WHSmith said 12 of its 14 sandwiches contained at least the same amount as their closest competitor, while Sainsbury’s said it aimed to reduce variation in filling size. – Daily Mail