Episode 3 Rip Off Britain

There's a lot we don't know about the food on our plates.

And the shops and labels don't always tell you the whole story.

Sometimes there's just too many offers

and when you actually look at them, you're not really saving that much.

Whether you're staying in or going out, you've told us you can

feel ripped off by the promises made for what you eat

and what you pay for it.

If you buy six, it's cheaper. But I don't want to buy six.

I want to buy one.

From claims that don't stack up, to the secrets behind the packaging,

we'll uncover the truth about Britain's food, so that

you can be sure that you are getting what you expect at the right price.

Your food, your money, this is Rip-Off Britain.

Hello, and welcome to Rip-Off Britain where, as ever,

we've been busy fighting your corner and investigating

whether you're getting the best value with the things you buy.

Now, in this series, we're taking a closer look at some

of our favourite foods, and that's especially the case today, as

we'll be unpicking why some of you have been left feeling distinctly

unimpressed by the quality of some very familiar products.

And while not all our stories are about what's inside our food,

what they do have in common is that each of them

was prompted by you telling us you feel either underwhelmed

or even short-changed by what you've eaten.

And while we've been very happy to investigate those stories,

you can be assured that we've also got plenty of tips

and advice that you're not going to want to miss, so that the next

time you're out shopping, you really will know the sort of things

you need to look out for and that you can be absolutely sure

that whatever it is you're buying really is what it says on the label.

Coming up...

why pub favourite, scampi,

may not always have the taste or the quality that you might be expecting.

The texture was horrible.

There was no flaking, there was no sign of any fish at all.

Are you being short-changed by food that doesn't weigh

quite as much as is claimed on the packet?

I feel really angry about it, actually,

to be quite honest with you.

Now, sometimes it isn't just rose-tinted glasses that make

people question if their favourite foods didn't taste better

when they were younger. I'm sure you've heard that story.

It could be that over the years the manufacturing processes

have changed, perhaps to improve the flavour, or just as likely,

to speed up how things are made or even maximise on profits.

And it does appear that's the case with an everyday staple

that for many years has been very much enjoyed by one of our viewers.

But when he started enjoying it less,

he wrote to us to find out what's been going on.

Now, whether for breakfast, lunch or dinner, for some,

bacon can be a very welcome ingredient at any time of the day.

It's something that Rip-Off Britain viewer Philip Holmes has

enjoyed for years.

But these days, when he brings home the bacon,

he's increasingly put off by something he really doesn't like.

I first noticed it about 20 years ago.

But up to that point in time, bacon was great to cook

and you just had oil in the pan and bacon.

But now, it seems like you get a white gunge coming out of it.

The mystery white stuff, as Philip calls it,

has a technical name, it is called exudate, and is actually

protein from the meat which is carried out along with the mixture

of water, fat, sugar and salt

which is released when the bacon is cooked.

The amount of water content in your bacon, and indeed how it's

cooked, can influence how much of this white stuff comes out.

And while it's perfectly harmless, just doesn't look particularly

appealing, and Philip doesn't think too much of the taste either.

It's sort of bacony, but it's not very nice.

HE LAUGHS

All of the bacon we buy in the UK is cured, a process

developed before the days of refrigeration to preserve the meat.

And one reason we still do it today is because bacon's unique taste

and flavour comes as a direct result of that curing process.

But there are two distinct ways of doing this and one of them,

although more efficient for the manufacturers,

is the cause of Philip's frustration.

Because it's cheaper and quicker to produce, bacon that's been what's

called wet-cured, in other words, that's been soaked or injected with

liquid, is now the sort most likely to be found on supermarket shelves.

So Philip is right in thinking that the white stuff he

so dislikes seeing coming out of his bacon has become more common.

Meanwhile, the meat that he remembers

so fondly from his childhood is more likely to have been dry-cured,

that is, preserved in salt, sugar and seasonings,

applied directly to the meat without water, and then it's air-dried.

But modern production techniques have meant that this

type of bacon is now less common and more expensive,

often costing several pounds more per kilo than its wet-cured

counterparts. Which is why Philip got in touch with us to see

if we could bring back the bacon that he's been so missing.

I'm on a mission to find a decent piece of bacon.

I'd love to find something that I can guarantee when I bring it home

and cook it, it's going to be as appetising as I used to remember it.

So for Philip, it's straight out of the frying pan and into the fire.

He's come to grill a butcher called Simon Taylor on exactly what

has gone into and indeed coming out of the bacon he's been eating.

What I'm finding is that when I'm cooking the bacon,

there seems to be a white residue that comes from the bacon

and forms between the actual skin, as it were.

-Can you tell me anything about that?

-Absolutely. There's a few reasons.

I mean, first of all, the wet-cure bacon, the pork is submerged

into a brine or injected,

so it's injected with a sort of salt and sugar solution,

and obviously that moisture and that salt, once it's cooked,

comes out as that sort of residue, coming out of the bacon there.

What does dry-cure mean?

So dry-cure literally means taking a dry cure

and adding it to this pork loin.

So when it comes to dry-cure bacon,

you are probably going to pay a little bit more.

That's simply because it is much cheaper, faster,

adding weight when you wet-cure, so it's less labour-intensive.

You get better yields. So it is a bit cheaper.

Simon is frying up an example of both types of bacon, dry

and wet-cured, to compare just how much water each one leaves behind.

So, as you can see, as a comparison, we've got

very little water from your dry-cure,

and we've got quite a puddle that has now formed out of the wet-cure.

But Philip is convinced that in recent years,

all the bacon he buys from the supermarket,

wet and dry-cured, has been getting more watery, and as far as he's

concerned, that means he's not getting the same value for money.

Current labelling regulations mean that producers must declare

that water has been added to bacon

if it makes up more than 5% of the total weight.

But they don't have to tell you exactly how much extra

water has been added.

Which means working out from the label just how much your

bacon is going to shrink during the cooking is pretty much impossible.

So we've rustled up a few rashers to see for ourselves exactly

what happens when you cook the bacon most frequently found in the shops.

We fired up a random selection of unsmoked bacon with the wet and

dry-cured version bought from each of the four leading supermarkets.

Obviously, we knew there'd be some shrinkage, but there was a

significant difference in how our cooked bacon turned out.

As you'd expect, when we ranked our rashers,

it was a dry-cured bacon that, size-wise, came top of the fry-ups.

This Sainsbury's Taste The Difference dry-cured,

outdoor-reared British bacon ended up just 30% smaller

when it came out of the pan that when it went in.

The four dry-cured meats that we looked at lost

an average of 44% of their weight when cooked, although on this

particular occasion, one of them lost a fair bit more.

Tesco's Finest back bacon came out of the pan 54% lighter

than when it went in.

Closer to what we typically find with the wet-cured meats.

On average, our wet-cured samples lost half their weight after cooking.

But the one that lost the most, this Butcher's Selection wet-cured

back-bacon from Asda was 59% lighter when it came out of the pan.

As for the wet-cured bacon that kept most of its weight,

that was Morrison's Prepared By Us unsmoked back-bacon,

which tipped the scales at 43% lighter than before it was cooked.

Of course, our little test is no more than just a snapshot,

but perhaps surprisingly, it does suggest that whichever

way your bacon is cured, what comes out when it is cooked may end

up being more than actually ends up in your butty, and while forking out

extra for a dry-cured rasher does generally mean you will get more

actual bacon for your buck when you eat it, that wasn't always the case.

Only Sainsbury's, whose Taste The Difference dry-cured bacon lost

the least weight of all our samples, wanted to comment on our findings.

It put its good result partly down to additional

air-drying that it goes through after curing.

But as Phil and all bacon butty lovers know,

what really matters here is the taste.

And there's only one way to find out whether the way your bacon is

cured makes any difference to its deliciousness.

I have to be absolutely honest

and say that I'm rather partial to a bacon sarnie every so often.

However, I never really thought too much about wet-cure versus dry-cure.

Today, we're going to put it to the test.

I've come to a very busy cafe in Whitstable where I'm playing

waitress for the morning.

OK, well, I'm going to take the order then.

-Starting with your good self.

-Yes, two bacon sandwiches, then.

Two bacon sandwiches? All for you? OK.

'In return for my help, the owner, Debbie,

'is letting us carry out another test with some of her customers.

'Some will be served with wet-cure bacon in their butty

'and others dry-cure, and we'll see if they can tell any difference.'

So, Debbie, what have we got here?

We've got two different types of bacon, obviously, yeah.

-This is a dry-cured.

-Mm-hm.

And this is a wet-cured, and we'll see how they cook.

-'And just like that...' This is the dry-cured bacon.

-Thank you.

And this is the wet-cured bacon.

So I'm just going to pop myself down here while you do a taste for me.

-I'm your waitress for the day.

-Lovely!

'It's the moment of truth.

'Will our volunteers prefer the taste of the more expensive

'dry-cured bacon

'or the cheaper, but typically more watery cut of the meat?'

-Oh, that's really nice. Mmm.

-You like that? So, that's dry-cured.

-The dry one. And yours?

-That is very good.

-Very good?

-It's beautiful, in fact.

-So that's the wet-cured one.

-Wet-cured.

-It's very, very nice.

-Oh, it's delicious.

-Yeah?

-How's yours?

-Lovely.

-You like that one better, do you? Wet-cure?

Absolutely, yes, wet one as well.

You prefer the wet one? That's interesting, isn't it?

'Well, funnily enough, in contrast to Philip's views on this,

'the people who we asked in this cafe actually had a slight

'preference for the wet-cured bacon.

'But the meat wasn't all that they were bothered about.'

They're just as concerned about the type of bread,

the size of the bread and the butter.

Which I guess really proves that a good bacon sarnie isn't

all about the bacon.

But back in Surrey, Philip disagrees.

For him, it will always be about the bacon.

And he knows which sort he'll be shopping for in future.

Even if it does mean he'll have to fork out a bit extra.

Definitely, I think dry-cured bacon from the butcher's is definitely

the way I'll be going in the future and that's the bacon I like to eat.

Meanwhile, if like Philip, you're worried about the white stuff

coming out of your bacon, here's a tip to reduce it.

You keep your pan hot and make sure it isn't overcrowded,

which can reduce the temperature.

A hot pan seals the meat, which should keep more of the liquid

and the protein inside.

Now, even the most enthusiastic of shoppers,

and I count myself as one, can find stocking up at the supermarket

a chore at the best of times.

And while we've become used to examining all the labels to

make sure that we're getting what we think we are, one thing

we probably never thought we'd need to check is

whether the weight on a product's packaging is actually correct.

But a few months ago,

one of the biggest names in the business had to withdraw

tens of thousands of one particular item after an investigation

found that customers weren't getting quite as much as was promised.

And it seems, by the way, that that wasn't a one-off,

because plenty of you have been in touch to say that you've been

short-changed in exactly the same way,

buying products with less in the packets than is claimed is inside.

2015 was a tough old year for Tesco,

already reeling from very disappointing sales figures.

Britain's biggest retailer, Tesco,

has reported another big drop in half-yearly profits.

In October, it had to remove around £93,000 worth of products from

stores after an investigation found that a particular range of garlic

bread slices were found to weigh far less than stated on the packets.

But this isn't a problem confined to Tesco.

Other big-name stores have been accused of having underweight

foods on their shelves as well.

For some of you, this is going to sound very familiar

because quite a few of you have been in touch to point out that

what it says on the packaging of foods that you have bought

has proved very different from the actual weight of the food inside.

Mark Jackson in York told us

how disappointed he was to have ended up with a packet of pasta

that contained apparently only around 20% of the amount it should.

And Linda Barraclough from Cornwall went further, raising concerns

that her regular brand of cottage cheese is quite often underweight.

But if there is one group of people for whom the implications

of this problem can weigh the heaviest, it is home bakers.

And Geraldine Shanks is very proud to be one of them.

Over the last few years, when I've been baking,

I have definitely noticed underweight products,

such as sugar, butter and flour, certainly.

There are others but those are the bigger discrepancies,

I would say, in weight.

She has started keeping a list of the products

that she's noticed had fallen short, and for Geraldine,

that can often mean a trip back to the shops.

Personally, I am not an expert, but I do feel that

when you buy a product in a supermarket and it states

a specific weight on that packaging,

and you bring it home to your kitchen

weigh it on the scales and find that it is underweight, I just don't

know why I should be inconvenienced by this, put out of pocket.

I think it shouldn't happen

and something really should be done about it.

But it's not just the bakery aisle where the

problem of underweight food has reached a peak.

Pauline from Gravesend contacted us

to tell us she has had the same

thing happen when buying packaged meat.

She found that lamb, salmon and pork escalopes from her local

supermarket all weighed less than the figure stated on the packets.

And although the store in question did apologise

when she raised the matter, Pauline says it has put her off buying

meat from the same supermarket ever again.

Businesses in the UK are required by law to comply with EU

regulations on the quantity labelling of pre-packaged food.

And over here these rules are set by the National Measurement

& Regulation Office.

But as Daniel Maxim of the Chartered Trading Standards Institute

says, ensuring those regulations are stuck to is a mammoth task.

Businesses are allowed a margin of error so on a typical 100g

bar of chocolate, that would be round about four and a half grams.

If they start to seriously exceed that,

they will be liable to prosecution.

Each packet that is seriously underweight would amount to

about £5,000 fine.

So, for retailers and all the packers,

that could be a substantial fine that they would be facing.

In 2015, researchers at Queen's University in Belfast carried

out an investigation on behalf of consumer group Which?,

to see how widespread this problem is.

They weighed 467 food products bought from supermarkets

in Northern Ireland and found that 73 of those items,

around a fifth, in other words,

fell below the recognised margin of error.

Among those it was claimed fell short were Heinz Chunky Veg

Big Soup, Green Giant Niblets of Original Sweetcorn,

and Del Monte Peach Slices.

The manufacturers didn't comment at the time but when we retested

these and other items from the list on our own scales several

months later, they all weighed in at more or less the correct weight.

Indeed, some of them had more than stated on the label.

But as is clear from your e-mails and letters, that is

not the case with all the products on our supermarket shelves.

And as for Geraldine, for whom even a slight variation in weight

can mean the difference between perfect pastry or the dreaded soggy

bottom, it is a problem that still gets her very hot under the collar.

I feel really angry about it,

actually, to be quite honest with you.

I think that if this is what is happening in the industry

and the public are being duped, I think it is

an absolute disgrace and should be looked into.

I feel quite annoyed about it.

Next, a favourite dish you might associate more with

'70s dinner parties and pub menus than posh fish restaurants,

and I'm talking about scampi.

But is it always quite what it's supposed to be?

True aficionados know that the real wholetail scampi is delicious,

and they'd probably know what fish it comes from, as well.

But that isn't what you might typically buy in the shops,

or indeed be given in a restaurant, as became clear

when we were contacted by one Rip-Off Britain viewer left very

disappointed by the so-called scampi she was served up when eating out.

It's been a staple of pub menus for donkey's years.

But while scampi is hugely popular, with sales of more

than £40 million a year, it's also a bit of an enigma.

'Would you know, for example, where it comes from?'

-What do you think scampi is?

-It's basically a prawn, isn't it?

-It's a big prawn.

-A big prawn?

-Virtually, yeah.

-Yeah?

-Is it some kind of shrimp?

-Like a large shrimp?

-I always thought it was a sort of prawn.

-A prawn?

-A prawn.

Well, I can tell you that scampi comes from a shellfish

related to the lobster family - langoustine.

Actually, langoustine tails, to be precise about it.

But whatever you want to call them, whether breaded, fried, served

up with chips, peas and a good old dollop of tartar sauce, trust me...

they taste really, really good.

'Fellow scampi fan and all-round culinary enthusiast

'Christine Thomas couldn't agree more.'

I love scampi because it has lovely texture, a lovely taste.

You can put it into so many different dishes.

But as Christine discovered to her horror,

what passes as scampi in some pubs

and restaurants isn't always the lovely langoustine it should be.

I saw this little restaurant,

and I thought, "Oh, I'll pop in there for lunch."

I started eating the scampi, and I thought, "This is really strange."

-Good morning.

-Good morning.

Can you show me what nice or best scampi you have today?

As a former cookery lecturer,

Christine knows exactly what should have been inside those breadcrumbs.

But the quality of what she'd been served instead rather

stuck in her throat.

The texture was...horrible. It was... It was tough. It was solid.

There was no flaking,

there was no...

No sign of any fish at all.

And when you bit into it, it stuck to the palate.

So I've never had scampi again.

The restaurant apologised and gave Christine a free coffee.

But after her encounter with the suspect scampi, she wrote to us

and asked us to look into whether something fishy was going on.

-How's that for you?

-Thank you very much.

-That's lovely, thank you.

So we called in chef Kumud Gandhi to help shed some light on the matter.

When you order scampi on the menu, you should be getting a langoustine,

and you should be looking for around about 65 to 75% langoustine.

So a good-quality scampi should be about...this

length in size, and about this depth and thickness.

So that's what you should be getting inside that breaded coating.

And now for what you may sometimes get instead.

So in the lower-quality scampi, they may not be using langoustine.

They may be using just scraps of fish, processed fish,

and so you could have as little as 20%. Anything ranging from 20

to 40%. And anything less than 40% really is a very poor scampi.

To find out more, Christine's joining Kumud for a cookery

lesson, but this time as a student, rather than teacher.

We're going to make the lower-grade scampi.

I'm going to use a cheap white fish.

Proper restaurant menus don't always tell you what type of scampi

you're getting.

But if you're buying it from a supermarket to cook at home,

simply turning over the packet

should shed some light on what's really inside.

And when we did that with scampi on sale in British supermarkets,

this is what we found.

We looked at all the scampi products we could find offered

online by the four biggest supermarkets.

22 items in total.

On the day we looked, the highest percentage of scampi

we found was 45%, which was the amount in three separate products.

That's Tesco's wholetail breaded scampi.

Asda's breaded wholetail scampi.

And Asda's Big Saver breaded wholetail scampi.

And these were the three products containing the lowest

percentage of scampi.

One from Sainsbury's, one from Young's Seafood

and one from Whitby Seafoods.

They were also amongst only four products we found which listed other

fish in their ingredients as well.

So the Sainsbury's Basics Breaded Scampi Fish Bites

contained 16% scampi, but also 12% minced Alaska pollock and 4% basa.

These Kiltie Scampi Bites

made by Young's Seafood had 16.5% scampi

but also 16% of what was simply described as minced whitefish.

And finally these Whitby Breaded Scampi Bites, which contained the

lowest percentage of langoustine out of all the items we looked at,

just 7%.

Instead it had 30% minced cod.

Whitby Seafoods also produce the only other scampi product

we saw which contained other fish as well.

This Whitby Seashore breaded scampi which had 20% langoustine

but also 17% minced cod.

'But while you might not have realised how little scampi or

'langoustine is in some of these products, none of them

'is actually breaking any rules.'

Regulations state that product labelling should not be misleading.

So for example, if it says "wholetail scampi" on the outside

of the packet, it should definitely be wholetail scampi on the inside.

However, if it only says "scampi", well, I'm afraid there are no

regulations to control exactly how much langoustine should be in it.

There is, however, an easy way to spot the products that typically

contain the least amount.

As a rule of thumb,

if what you've picked up in the supermarket has the word

"bites" in its name,

it's probably made with other fish as well as scampi.

But without knowing that, and if you were just looking at the packet,

how much langoustine might you expect to find inside?

'We went to a cafe in Whitstable to find out.'

What I want you to do is have a look at the package and tell me

what percentage of langoustine you think would be in this.

-OK. Nearly 80%.

-In actual fact, it's 37.

-37%?

OK, this one.

You haven't got a picture on the front, or anything.

But these are scampi bites.

I notice they've got cod and scampi, so I assume a bit less.

-30%?

-That's a good conclusion, actually,

as they do say cod on the front as well.

-It's only seven.

-Seven?

-7% langoustine.

-Are you quite shocked at the percentages here?

-It is surprising.

You've got to take into account it has got breadcrumbs on it, so it's

not going to be 100% the fish, but I would have thought it would

be a lot more than the percentages that are actually in there.

We got in touch with the manufacturers of the products

we found containing the least scampi.

Sainsbury's, Young's Seafoods and Whitby Seafoods.

All of them stressed that these particular products are just

part of a wider range and developed in response to consumer

demand for lower-priced alternatives to wholetail scampi.

Sainsbury's said not only are its Basics Scampi Fish Bites offered

with quality and value in mind,

but that the product is unique in stating clearly, not just in the

bag, but in the name of the product itself, that it also contains fish.

Similarly Young's Seafood told us that it uses the name Scampi Bites

to reflect that this particular product isn't whole scampi.

And Whitby Seafoods, whose Scampi Bites contained 7% scampi

and whose Seashore Scampi is mixed with cod, said that

while it offers a range of products to meet customers' "differing

"price points", its most popular product is in fact its Whole Scampi.

Each of the three companies also made it very clear that all

their products are labelled clearly and in accordance with regulations.

Meanwhile, back in the kitchen, the two types of scampi Kumud has

made are ready for Christine to taste.

First up it's the wholetail scampi.

Oh, that looks beautiful.

You can see all the layers of the fish.

BOTH: You can actually see the pink. Yes.

Absolutely delicious - really, really lovely.

And now for the cheaper scampi which has about 10% langoustine

and some added whitefish.

Oh, my gosh! That's just like I saw in the restaurant.

Look, it's a sort of mush! Do I really have to taste that? Oh, dear.

My gosh, it's like eating cotton wool.

KUMUD LAUGHS

Christine is determined that she won't get caught out ever

again in the same way.

I really felt strongly about people being sold scampi

and it isn't scampi.

So I'm really happy many people will be made aware and they will be

more careful and checking what they are really eating.

Well, I am afraid that's where we have to leave it for today.

Now, don't forget you can share your own food tips by joining

the conversations on our Facebook page and you'll find much more

advice on how to get the best value from what you buy on our website.

The address, that is if you need any reminder, is...

And of course that's also the place to send us

your own stories or questions about topics you'd like us to look into.

It doesn't have to be food-related, you can

write to us about anything you spend your money on.

And we'll keep investigating why what you get in return isn't

always what you expect.

So, any prices or promises that you come across that don't

quite stack up, let us know about them.

But I'm afraid that that is where we have to leave it for now.

Thanks to everyone who helped us with the stories that we

featured today and of course to you for joining us.

We will be seeing you here on Rip-Off Britain again very soon,

but in the meantime, from everyone on the team, bye-bye.

-Bye-bye.

-Goodbye.