Episode 4 Rip Off Britain

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

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

Sometimes when you have these offers on in the supermarket,

you think you're getting a good deal.

But if you're actually throwing it away it's not a good deal.

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.

What really winds me up, I suppose,

is the price of so-called healthy food

compared with the unhealthy stuff.

The unhealthy stuff seems to be so much cheaper.

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

we'll uncover the truth about Britain's food

so you can be sure you're 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 once again, we're lifting the lid on

what you need to know about food.

And today, we're exposing the secrets of

some everyday favourites that perhaps you haven't really

given a second thought to.

But after you've seen today's programme, I bet you will.

And that's because a number of you have asked us

to take a much closer look at some well-known foods that may not

be everything that you've assumed.

At least when it comes to what's inside them.

And of course, a few of the products that you've contacted us

about may cost a little more than some of the cheaper alternatives.

So we'll be trying to find out what you're actually getting

to justify paying the extra money.

So, as we get to the bottom of whether you really do always

get what you pay for,

hopefully you'll pick up a few tips that may well save you some money.

Coming up...

Why the rules that protect a Cornish pasty could put

this cheesemaker out of business.

It is very frustrating.

It can happen just like that and it's totally out of your control.

So, so, it's a difficult thing to get used to.

And have you switched sugar for honey?

Find out if it's really any better for you.

A lot of people use honey in favour of sugar cos

they think it's a lot better.

Honey does have some nutritional value to it,

but it's not as great as people tend to think.

After spending decades in the culinary

and nutritional wilderness,

copping the blame for everything from heart disease to

high cholesterol, many people are delighted to say that butter

is back on the menu.

And being honest, in our house it never really went away.

But when is butter not quite butter?

That's the question one viewer asked after noticing what

he thought was the real deal was actually nothing of the kind.

And he wanted to find out why.

Ah, butter.

It's natural, tastes great, and for generations,

was a staple of every family kitchen.

From our morning toast to our tea-time cakes...

Here you are. It's butter too. Real butter.

Mm. Wonderful.

Only butter tastes like butter.

But as the health-conscious 1980s dawned,

butter went firmly out of fashion,

as the saturated fat it contained was linked to heart disease.

For years we had a love affair.

Then we found out the butter we loved had cholesterol.

We were all told that not only was modern margarine

better for us, but it would spread straight from the fridge as well.

But over the years,

butter has battled its way back into our hearts.

And in 2015, the original warnings made about it were found

to have been based on flawed data,

therefore cementing its place in our hearts once and for all.

And by now, a range of new products sought to prove that you could

still get that buttery taste and spread it straight from the fridge.

They look like butter. Their names sound like they are butter.

But they are not.

Rip-Off Britain viewer John Lomax from Preston wasn't happy

when he realised that that was the case with the one that he'd bought.

I thought, "Oh, butter."

But when I looked at the list of ingredients

I found that it only has about 20% butter content.

And that shocked me.

Although John had assumed from the name it was butter,

Tesco's Butterpak only contains 26% of butter.

The rest is mainly oils and water.

I thought that they couldn't do that.

They are pulling the wool over our eyes.

In fact, Tesco isn't pulling the wool over anybody's eyes.

The store didn't comment on John's concern but its Butterpak is

clearly labelled as a spread and not as a butter.

And spreads don't need to contain as much butter as the real thing.

The law says that true butter

has to contain between 80% and 90% milk fat.

So when it comes to buying spreads or butter, always check the label

as spreads only usually contain butter as one of the ingredients.

But when you have spreads being produced by some of the best-known

butter manufacturers, often under the same name

and with their buttery taste being the main selling point,

it's easy for the shopper to get very confused.

So would you know how much butter

some of the best known spreads contain?

Let's have a bit of a guessing game, then.

Here we have Anchor.

Which is a very popular-selling one.

-I'd say 80%.

-80%.

-54%.

-Is it?

-54.

And this one?

-60.

-26.

-My goodness!

-I use that one.

-You do? OK, you like the taste?

I like proper butter.

Would you be surprised then to know that only 64% of butter?

..butter, is it? Yeah.

I knew it wasn't all butter because when you get the blocks,

-you can't spread them in winter.

-No, it's true.

-Mm.

What do you think that one would be?

-Butter.

-Butter.

-Mostly butter.

-Mostly butter? OK.

-In actual fact, it's only 33%.

-Oh, right.

-So are you surprised at that?

-Yes, I am.

-Yeah.

We contacted some of the brand leaders

in the world of buttery spreads.

Arla Foods, which makes the spreadable versions of Lurpak

and Anchor, told us that its packs are clearly labelled and are...

And the makers of Clover and I Can't Believe It's Not Butter both

said that their products are lower in saturated fat than butter

while maintaining a buttery taste.

While their butter content clearly varies, John wants to find out how

else these spreads differ from both the real thing and indeed margarine.

So we've brought him to Huddersfield University

to meet research scientist Dr Laura Waters.

So, butter is a really simple product.

It's literally just butterfat and water.

It's as simple as you can get.

If you go to the margarines, they would be vegetable oil based.

And the spreads, they would tend to be oil and butter mixtures.

They would have a lot less butter in them.

How can you make butter more spreadable?

You can make your own spreadable butter.

The way that industry does it is it adds in oils.

It will add in some water.

And because of that, it will also add other ingredients as well.

So it'd need to add some emulsifier,

which keeps the oil and water mixed together.

Industry may also add things such as preservatives,

to extend the shelf-life,

colourings and flavourings.

-Would you like me to show you how to make spreadable butter?

-Yes, please.

If you're going for the, say, 60% butter option,

obviously it's going to be 60% butter and 40% oil.

So, we have 60g of butter in there.

To this we're going to add 40 of oil.

And you simply mix the two together.

Now, it may look at this stage like liquid rather than a solid.

Once you've cooled this down in the fridge,

then it will return to a more butter-like consistency

that you might expect.

Dr Waters is making up two different types of spreadable butter

for us to put to the test.

One was 60% butter, similar to some of the brand-leading spreadables.

And one with 25%, around the same amount as the Butterpak

that John bought.

And we're going to see how they fare

in one of the toughest tests of all - baking a cake.

We've set up our own buttery bake-off

and we've asked these enthusiastic bakers from Huddersfield

to create their meanest Victoria sponge.

Each will use one of four different ingredients -

the two spreads Dr Waters has just made, a real butter,

and a margarine.

Now, our bakers have no idea which they've been given.

But Irene here is cooking with full butter.

It feels like the butter I use actually when I'm baking at home.

Megan is using a simple baking spread,

an off-the-shelf margarine that contains no pure butter whatsoever.

Kaye has Dr Waters' 60% butter spread.

And Lucy has Dr Waters' 25% butter spread.

It's a lot easier to whisk than theirs

so I've got that going for it.

So, ingredients beaten, battered, baked, cooled and decorated.

It's time to add some real heat for our bakers

as these discerning staff and students arrive

to judge their culinary creations.

It's a funny consistency, isn't it?

There's something about the sponge that just doesn't sit right.

Needs a bit more sugar.

I think it needs to be sweeter.

So, question is, which spread came out best in our test?

Most popular with our volunteers was the one made with margarine.

Five of them went for that one.

Two preferred the taste of the cake

made with Dr Waters' 60% butter spread.

And one plumped for the one made with 25% butter.

But none of them chose the cake made with pure butter.

I'm quite surprised this was made with 25% butter spread.

I'd consider using it myself.

The sponge was very nice. I thought it was perfect, in my opinion.

I'm not surprised it's made from margarine.

-Yeah.

-I agree, yeah.

So there you go. Top marks for margarine on the baking.

But all of this still leaves John with one crucial question.

We've been hearing over the past few years that butter's

good for you, butter's not good for you,

margarine is good for you, and margarine isn't.

Which is good, which is bad?

There are lots of studies which seem to say that the saturated fat,

so things such as the butter, they're not so good for you.

They can cause cardiovascular disease,

they can cause types of cancer, that sort of thing.

However, there are also lots of other studies

on the unsaturated fats,

so that's the oil-based products,

which say they're not so good for you either.

This is especially true if you're cooking with one of these products.

So, because there are studies for both sides,

I would say just keep it in moderation,

go for the one you prefer, and if you don't have too much

of either of them, then you should be fine.

But for John, there's no doubt which one he prefers.

Butter.

The taste is so much better.

I know it's personal preference

but at least I know what has gone into the product.

Now, there are some products where the difference between

the cheapest and the most expensive on the supermarket shelves

can be explained purely by the quality of the ingredients.

In other words, you're getting what you pay for.

But we've been contacted by one viewer who wanted to know when that

explanation still stands for the staple of her diet, which is honey.

Now, the priciest jars can cost as much as ten times more

than the most affordable.

So how much do they actually vary in quality?

Should you stick with the cheaper pots?

Or is it actually worth paying just that little bit extra?

British shoppers now spend more on honey than on jam -

a whopping £119 million last year.

And it's a trend which some people put down to

people switching from using sugar,

which is certainly what Rip-Off Britain viewer

Yvonne Sayer has done.

But Yvonne wrote to us wondering why there is such a huge price gap

between the cheapest and the most expensive varieties on sale.

I want to know, what is the difference between £1 jar

of honey and a more expensive jar of £15 and even more?

The cheapest honey on sale in British supermarkets

typically sells for around £1.

Then there is the mid-range of honeys costing between £2 and £4.

And at the top end,

specialist honeys, like Manuka, can sell for up to £100 a jar.

So what is the difference?

Well, to help answer Yvonne's question, I've come to meet

David Wainwright, President of the National Bee Farmers Association,

at his farm in Aberystwyth.

-Hi, David.

-Hello.

-Nice to see you.

-Nice to meet you.

So are we going to go out and see your hives, are we?

David's farm yields about 25 tonnes of honey a year.

This might sound like a lot, but actually,

British bees are only producing a fraction of all

the honey that we consume in this country every year.

It's other countries like China, Russia, Argentina, Mexico,

who are the big honey producers.

But David says he prefers the taste of British honey.

We produce a lot of different varieties.

And all these varieties of honey have got a unique flavour

and characteristics to them.

Because they are produced from a different plant

and that plant contributes slightly different flavours

and sugars to the nectar which the bees make the honey out of.

To show me just how varied honey flavours can be, David is

putting my taste buds to the test with four very different types.

We've got English, French, Ethiopian and Welsh.

This is the English one.

That's from Salisbury Plain.

-And that's got a cinnamon type of flavour to it.

-Mm!

-This is the French one.

-That's French lavender

which comes from the lavender fields in the South of France.

A bit earthy, actually.

Ethiopian.

This is from the rainforest in the south-west of Ethiopia.

-Mm-hm.

-It comes from a large forest tree.

-It's quite sort of sweet and light.

-Yeah.

-Yeah.

And this one is the Welsh one.

-This is the Welsh one, gathered from hives around here.

-Right.

So this is from blackberry, willow herb, clover.

Mm!

Oh, yes!

-I can taste the flowers.

-Yeah.

Much like fine wine, it's these rich regional variations that give

pure honey its distinctive taste, which stands it apart

from the cheaper, processed jars in the supermarket.

These mass-produced jars contain a mix of honeys

blended together from different sources.

To show just how that affects the taste,

David has blended together the pure honeys that I just tasted.

What happens if we mix these four different types with

all their individual flavours?

What happens if we mix them all together?

Do the flavours sort of counteract one another

or can you still taste them?

What else comes out? Yeah.

And it quickly becomes clear that

all those subtleties in taste have gone,

replaced instead by a perfectly pleasant

but much more middle-of-the-road flavour.

It's sweet.

I can't any longer taste that distinctive floral that

I got from the Welsh or the lavender that I got from the French one.

It's very pleasant.

But it doesn't have a distinctive taste

-as they did when they were separate.

-Yes.

And of course, that's what's happening with the cheaper

-varieties of honey, isn't it?

-Yes.

You are not going for a specific flavour, you are just going

for honey, but not one that you can distinguish from anything else.

That's right. That's exactly it, yeah.

I think you've invented a new honey, David. HE LAUGHS

The increase in sales of honey has been linked to consumers

wanting to replace sugar in their diet.

Like Rip-Off Britain viewer Yvonne.

But she wants to know, was she right to switch?

I changed from sugar to honey

thinking it was better for me. Is it?

Yvonne says she buys three jars of honey a month

and uses it in place of sugar,

normally spending about £1.50 on a jar

that will typically last her between one and two weeks.

She wants to know whether that's money well spent

and whether it really is better for her than plain old sugar.

To find out, we brought Yvonne to meet nutritionist Ian Marber.

I wanted to know the nutritional value,

the difference between sugar and honey.

A lot of people use honey in favour of sugar

because they think it's a lot better.

Honey does have some nutritional value to it

but it's not as great as people tend to think.

-You might put it in some tea, for instance.

-Yeah.

-So you put like a tablespoon in or a teaspoon?

-Oh, no. No, no.

-A teaspoon.

-A teaspoon is very interesting because that teaspoon,

which is that amount, is actually going to have 10g of sugar in it,

which is actually the same amount of sugar that you're going to find

in four squares of milk chocolate.

And Ian reckons that honey's reputation for being

rich in vitamins and minerals is also a bit of a myth.

This is a tablespoon of honey, 21g.

And in that you've only actually got 1.3mg,

not grams, 1.3mg of calcium.

-OK? So it's not a huge amount of minerals in there.

-No.

To give you an example,

there is 210mg of calcium in an ounce of Cheddar.

Some of the expensive honeys will have more vitamins

and more minerals in them.

But because there is a halo of health around foods like honey,

we are likely to eat more in one go.

We actually tend to use more of it because we think it's better for us.

The problem is that it's still rich in sugars -

a different type of sugars

that are processed very slightly differently -

but the truth is, though, that once it's past your mouth

and past your stomach and it's in your intestines, it's not

treated any differently than sugar that might be in milk chocolate.

Ian's advice for Yvonne isn't simply to swap one

kind of sugar for another, as she has effectively done by switching

to honey, but to reduce her taste for sweet foods altogether.

So less is more?

Absolutely.

I think that's the key, getting used to food that's less sweet.

So there is no need for Yvonne to turn her back on honey altogether.

But armed with Ian's advice, she's planning to change

the way that she sweetens her food in the future.

I'm really surprised about the little difference

between processed white sugar and honey.

I'm certainly going to use less.

I'm certainly not going to pay for the very, very expensive.

I'm going to be very careful, but cut down.

Wensleydale cheese from Wensleydale.

Melton Mowbray pork pies from Melton Mowbray.

And traditional Cumberland sausage from...

Well, you've got the picture.

All part and parcel of our food heritage.

And to some people, that's worth a lot.

I think buying British is important.

We should support local producers and local suppliers

rather than importing the food that we grow in this country.

I just think it's better to buy local.

I mean, if I can support the local farmers or whatever,

that's what I like to do.

I think it supports our economy.

And not only that, I think the food is better.

You know where the quality is coming from.

So I do prefer buying British, yeah.

Some of the best of this British food has been able to obtain

what's called geographically protected status.

That means, under EU law, it can only be sold using a particular name

if it meets certain requirements.

Most often that it's been produced in the area where that

specific product first came from, using a very particular method.

Examples of these could include a Melton Mowbray pork pie

or for many, a big favourite, the Cornish pasty.

But what about the food producers

living outside these geographical areas?

They may have been making exactly the same products for generations,

but now because of EU laws,

they will no longer be able to call them the same thing.

So why, if essentially they are the same no matter where

they are made, does it really matter where they actually come from?

That's very much the view of the dairy farmer Mark Hardy.

He's in the business of making cheese.

Not, however, one typical of West Sussex, where he farms,

but halloumi, more commonly associated with Cyprus.

So, Mark, for me

it's always fascinating to come into the hub of everything.

He's been making it for 25 years,

and he used to produce feta cheese as well

until in 2002, the European Union gave that crumbly favourite

a protected designation of origin, or a PDO for short.

It meant that to be called feta the cheese has to be made in Greece.

What was your reaction

when you heard that you couldn't call feta feta any more?

Well, I was obviously annoyed cos it's a part of our business.

But we just carried on, really.

We renamed the cheese Mediterranean sheep's milk cheese -

Mediterranean-style sheep's cheese.

Cos you can't use anything that sounds like feta in feta.

We still sell quite a lot of it but it's not one of our major cheeses.

And now Mark's halloumi is under threat as well.

The UK currently represents the biggest market

for halloumi cheese in Europe

and Mark is one of a handful of producers in this country.

But that could all change

if an application by Cyprus to restrict the use of the name

halloumi to only cheese made in that country goes through.

What's the current situation?

Currently, the EU are discussing it and working out

whether they are going to let it through or not.

It's a period of consultation and any company, such as us,

who have been making cheese,

we've all put in a written application to the EU stating

our case and why halloumi shouldn't be a protected cheese.

One of the reasons Mark has objected is that, just like feta,

halloumi isn't the name of a place but a type of cheese.

But despite that, for anyone producing halloumi outside Cyprus,

there's an added geographical spanner in the works.

And it's all to do with ingredients.

Some protected products, for example, the Cornish pasty,

can have their ingredients sourced from anywhere in the world,

as long as the product is simply assembled in Cornwall

and follows the designated set method.

But the specific type of protection Cyprus has applied for

means that the key ingredients in the cheese

would have to be from that country as well.

So no matter how authentic his method of production,

if the application is agreed, without upping sticks

and moving his farm to Cyprus and sourcing his ingredients

from there, Mark simply won't be allowed to call his cheese halloumi.

How much do you think it will affect you?

If you go to a supermarket and say,

"Buy our halloumi cheese, it's not called halloumi,"

people won't recognise it. They won't buy it.

So is it a big worry for you?

It's a worry. 25% of the cheese we make is halloumi cheese.

If we can't call it halloumi, it's bound to affect our business.

We employ 12 people here. It's bound to affect them.

Now, of course, there are many businesses in the UK

that have benefited from protected status,

which is why so many people and the authorities

so eagerly get behind British products seeking such recognition.

And some experts are enthusiastic supporters of the scheme as well

because it provides an assurance of trust in a product

that has tradition behind it.

I would take the view that protective foods names,

broadly speaking, are a good thing.

They are good for the consumer because

if the consumer wants to buy a specific food

which is made in a defined place, they have the guarantee that

what they are buying is an authentic product

if it's a protected food name.

I think one of the reasons for the halloumi application

is that it unites both the Greek and Turkish aspects of Cyprus.

I mean, food often brings people together.

And in this example,

the act of actually formulating the protected food name together

is an example of two disparate sides with disparate cultures

actually collaborating for a change.

With the date for a decision unclear,

Mark remains on tenterhooks as to what it will mean for his business.

So to see what potential customers think, he has set up a stall

with his halloumi and a Cypriot one from the local supermarket

to try and find out

whether passing shoppers can tell any difference between the two.

-Would you like to try some cheese?

-Yes, please.

How bothered with people be

whether the cheese is made in Cyprus or in Sussex?

Can you taste any difference?

-This one.

-Yeah, I like that one.

-Lovely and creamy.

This is the halloumi that we make

and this one comes all the way from Cyprus.

I think the second one. To be honest, there's not a lot in that.

I mean, they are both nice. But I think I prefer the first one.

I'm the same. I think I prefer the first one.

Of the nine people who tasted both cheeses,

seven preferred Mark's halloumi.

But would they still buy it if it wasn't allowed to call itself that

and the one they didn't like as much had the rights to the name?

Would it bother you if we weren't allowed

to call our halloumi halloumi?

-No.

-Tastes good. So...

-It's about the taste, not about the names.

-Yeah.

You should call it I Can't Believe It's Not Halloumi.

MARK LAUGHS

The EU passed around 62 of these applications in 2015,

agreeing protected status for products such as

a boiled Tuscan sausage,

a specialist veal from a region of Spain,

and purple and white asparagus from France.

But some applications didn't get this far.

Jersey butter, for example, was rejected as it was judged

that its character came from Jersey cows rather than the island itself.

And Lincolnshire sausages failed to get protected food name status

partly because other butchers complained

that there was no evidence

that the recipe originated in Lincolnshire.

But for Mark, until the EU makes a decision on halloumi,

the fate of a big part of his business hangs in the balance.

And for now, I'm afraid all he can do is wait.

It is very frustrating. It can happen just like that.

And it's totally out of your control.

I'd like to think they'd stick with us,

if they think it's nicer than the imported halloumi.

Well, as we've said many times before, it's amazing what you

find out when you read the full ingredients of the products we buy.

Because when you just look at the name or

the description on the front, you can

make assumptions that may not be entirely correct, to put it mildly.

Exactly. But it's important to point out that none of the products that

we've talked about today are in any way hiding what they've got in them.

But unless you are right across the full details of all

the ingredients, it is very easy to leap to

conclusions about some of the things that we eat and drink.

And when we find out that we are wrong, well,

then it's too easy to think that perhaps we've been short changed

when in fact, that may not be the case at all.

We'll be back to answer more of your questions

and problems very soon. Until the next time we are together,

thank you very much for your company.

-From all of us, bye-bye.

-Bye-bye.

-Bye.