The Cost of Convenience Rip Off Food

Each year we spend £5,000 per household on food and drink.

The competition for your pound is tough.

We'll leave no shelf untouched in our quest to champion YOU

the weekly shopper.

This is the series in which we'll be exposing the hidden rip offs,

and letting you in on the tricks of the food trade.

And, most importantly, we'll show you how to be a smart shopper.

Welcome to Rip Off Food!

Today, we pit bottled water against tap to check out the real

winner on value and taste.

I think it just had a bit of a crisper taste.

No. Really?

How major retailers hike the price of sarnies depending on

where you buy.

They're taking an opportunity to make money out of people.

And we'll see how some takeaways have tried to pull the wool

over our eyes by selling us fake lamb.

Now, earning a living generally means a daily commute,

and unless you're lucky enough to be at home for breakfast, lunch

and dinner, you'll be on the go when that hunger strikes.

Now, like a lot of people, I don't work from home, so, therefore,

I am here, there and everywhere, every day. Lunch for me

might be a sandwich, a bowl of soup, something like that. But on today's

programme, I'm going to put you in the know about food on the go.

So first up - the portable drink. I don't know about you,

but I'm forever buying bottles of water when I'm out

and about. But is it really worth the price we pay?

Now, you might think that water is an uncontroversial

and humble product, but you'd be wrong because bottled water

is a drink with cache and sometimes comes with an A-list price tag.

Like this 750ml bottle of water. £6.50 from Harrods.

To be honest, I'm a great fan of this convenient product -

along with many other people it seems.

I just prefer the taste of bottled water.

-We drink bottled water.

-Bottled water.

If I buy bottled, I buy sparkling.

I tend to drink tap water based on the extortionate, ruinous

cost of bottled water.

You drink more water if you have a bottle on you.

You're not going to walk around with a glass, are you?

Going, you know, "Oh, where's the tap round here?"

In 2011, we bought more than two billion litres of the bottled stuff.

It's a market worth over £1.4 billion.

Now, I assume that bottled water is healthier

and tastes better than tap water.

I think many of us feel we're making the right choice.

But are we being fooled into paying a premium

when in fact we could drink as good for a fraction of the cost?

So I'm here at a water treatment plant in Walton on Thames

that supplies nine million customers with water on tap.

Now, here at Thames Water treatment centre I have to tell you

they know a thing or two about providing us with tap water.

I'm just about to meet the man in charge.

I must warn you though, I'm no push over,

and I'm certainly not going to let one of their senior managers,

Jerry White, bamboozle me with statistics or spin.

-Jerry, I take it? Hi, how are you? Nice to see you.

-Nice to meet you.

-Big plant. I knew I'd find you somewhere.

-Yes, indeed.

Here we are absolutely surrounded by water.

Now, I have to admit, I'm looking down here at the water.

It is muddy, it is filthy looking, it is disgusting, if I might say so.

In a way, I can understand why a lot of people might say,

"Oh, I think I'll have the bottled stuff, you know?

"It's a bit better."

Tell me about just where you get all this water from.

We're obviously taking it out of the river here from the Thames.

We do take water out from the ground as well,

from the ground water bore hole.

But most of the water from the ground ends up in the river,

and then as it flows down we'll take it out certain points, and yes

it does come back into the river from a sewage treatment works.

The site here treats around about a 150 million litres of water a day.

-A day?

-A day. And that's about enough for about a million people.

What is the time span from gunge here to tap?

Well, it'll be through the process here within a matter of hours.

So what you're really trying to tell me that if I do have a little

pee here, I could be drinking it out of that end tap before I go home?

-You could be, Gloria.

-Or yours, which would be even worse!

Would you show me round the rest of the plant,

-particularly where you purify it?

-Yeah, absolutely.

I think Jerry's going to have to do better if wants to convince me

to drink the end result of that water.

And the first stage of the process is not reassuring.

Oh, bad. I mean how do you classify this mangy looking vat?

Well, this is where we've added an iron coagulant,

which makes all the bits of the dirt

and soil stick together in the water. Then you bubble air up

through it, and all the air floats in to the surface and it sticks

together, and you get all this sort of horrible foam on the top here.

But underneath that layer of foam there's nice clean water.

I have to tell you it is vile looking.

It's likely to put me off drinking tap water for life.

This is really the first stage of the filtration.

So here goes.

Oh, yes. It's actually then, Jerry, just sort of skims it all off.

-Pushes it across, yes.

-And quite quickly as well.

Yeah, it'll move quite quickly.

Jerry says it's air bubbles that makes the water that milky

green colour - looks more than air in that murk to me.

Now, Jerry, what happens in the Ozone Gallery? Sounds very grand.

Well, we take liquid oxygen,

O2, and we put an electrical charge through it to create ozone.

Similar to what you get in the atmosphere.

If you look in here you'll actually see the bubbles of ozone

rising up through the liquid oxygen.

So what's exactly happening?

It breaks down pesticides, removes organic...dissolves organic matter.

-Most efficient way of doing it?

-Yeah.

After this process, what happens next?

Then we'll go and see what happens in disinfection.

Disinfecting, I like that bit. I'm a bit of a disinfectant freak.

-Are you now?

-Yes.

Well, the water's certainly looking cleaner,

but it's not quite got the appeal I'm used to.

So, Jerry, because bottled water is such a multi-million pound industry,

and it's presented in a very sexy, fashionable way, isn't it?

You know, we conjure up pictures of this wonderful mountain spring water.

Do you think we're being duped by this advertising hype?

Well, I'm sure in some places it does come from somewhere pristine.

However, most of it does come from the same place that

a lot of our water comes from, which is basically water that falls

through the sky, gets filtered through the rocks,

over a period of time, and then it's taken out.

And that's exactly what we do with tap water.

We then do some additional treatment to it as well.

We do even more samples on tap water than are currently

conducted on bottled water, so, for me, I think it's a very safe bet.

It costs just under 0.1 of a penny for a litre,

so it's very, very good value.

How do you feel when you see people paying extortionate amounts of money?

Well, I'm personally always a bit staggered when I see people

buying cartons and bottles of water in the supermarket when I know that

it costs such little, and it's also treated to such a high standard.

We've encouraged and we've worked with a number of restaurants

in London to try and encourage them to serve tap water over bottled

water, because it is a much more sustainable way of treating water.

-Well, restaurants have to do that now, don't they?

-They do.

Legally, anybody that sells alcohol has got to provide water

-free of charge.

-Yes.

So let's get to the bottom line of the cost difference between tap water

and bottled water.

Now, the water from here costs 0.1p per litre -

that's a tenth of a penny.

Let's see how that compares to the cost of bottled water

on the high street?

Kinvara Carey is General Manager of the National Hydration Council,

which represents the best selling UK brands of bottled water.

In the UK, 90% of the bottled water is actually a natural mineral

or spring water.

Natural mineral and spring water must come from a natural protected

and identified underground source, which also means it's bottled

at source and that it must be safe to consume without treatment.

The average cost of bottled water in the UK is just under 40p a litre,

and that, of course, includes VAT as well.

It's the retailers that set the prices though.

Well, at an average of just under 40p a litre it's

almost 400 times the price of Thames tap water.

Isn't it ironic that on a day when we're talking about water

it has not stopped raining the entire time?

But ultimately it all comes down taste -

so it's time to put it to the test. Jerry seems confident.

Intriguing - the sample room.

So this is what only three hours ago we saw in the Thames coming in.

-Which we talked about.

-Indeed. Would you like to try it?

I am going to try it, I'll be intrigued.

So this is a mixture of the river, all the gunge, the sewage,

everything we talked about before? And this is all in a matter of hours.

-I have to say it looks pretty clean.

-Hopefully, it tastes good.

I have to be honest, it tastes good.

Cheers, Jerry, you've convinced me. Very good.

-Oh, you're going to have one as well.

-Cheers.

Marvellous, thank you.

You're a real cheapskate. You might have treated a girl to a champagne at

-the end of all of that.

-Maybe next time.

Now, maybe it's Jerry's enthusiasm that's persuaded me in the end,

but shortly we're going to be putting bottled water head-to-head with tap

to see how it fares in a proper blind taste test.

The other two tasted like tap water, that tasted like nice, still,

fresh clean water.

Next up, a fast food that might not only leave a bad taste

in the mouth but also leave you feeling cheated.

We are a nation of takeaway lovers,

and people eat this convenient treat almost once a week.

My favourite take-away is probably sushi.

-Pizza.

-Chinese.

-Probably Indian.

-Good lamb shish with decent cheese sauce.

And listen to this, over the course of a lifetime the average person can

be expected to consume 188 takeaway kebabs and almost 800 curries.

You may not know it,

but each year we spend £276 on takeaway food.

Well, it's a bit like a quick fix, isn't it?

It's hot, it's cooked, it's ready to go.

You can eat it on the way home,

or have it in the comfort of your own kitchen.

But when it's not what it says on the menu then - it's a rip off!

Now, Warwickshire is usually associated with our renowned

playwright - William Shakespeare.

But even in this Midsummer Night's Dream of a county, with idyllic river

settings and tourist attractions, Trading Standards has to be ever

vigilant to protect the unwitting consumer from a dodgy take-away.

For example, could your lamb kebab or curry be harbouring

a guilty secret?

James Greenaway, is our undercover Trading Standards man on the job.

It's important that Trading Standards keep an eye on

take-away food, cos consumers only have the take-away menu to base

their purchase choice on and it's important for us to examine and test

food to make sure the ingredients that should be in them are.

Often a consumer won't know from the menu what's

actually in the product they're buying.

And that's why we have a Trades Description Act,

so we can expect to be served the food as advertised.

And if a menu boasts a dish like Lamb Shish Kebab or

Lamb Curry, well, it's simple, isn't it? It must be made from lamb.

We visited four towns in Warwickshire - Warwick, Stratford,

Nuneaton and Rugby and we found problems in all four towns.

We used to go in undercover to purchase items from their menu

and pay for them. We'd then take them back and seal them as evidence.

In this covert operation, Trading Standards officers

visited 20 restaurants

and bought 39 lamb dishes, including 19 kebabs and 20 curries,

and had them tested to find out what meat they actually contained.

We found the results surprising, because of the curries

we tested only three came back as only having lamb in, four came back

with no lamb at all and the others were a mixture of lamb and beef.

What no lamb in them at all? Whatever next?

Of the kebabs, 19 we tested and none of them came back with just lamb.

We had a mixture of chicken and lamb, chicken and beef and lamb,

one even had a mixture of pork, so quite amazing.

You'll agree - it's just not on.

I would definitely mind if I had received a lamb kebab

and it had chicken and pork in it. It's not what I'd asked for.

I'd be surprised, and I'd be extremely disappointed.

Confused and disappointed. Bordering on angry.

If I found that the meat wasn't to what I expected

I would be extremely annoyed.

This face would not be smiling.

The team chose to look at kebabs and curries made with mince,

because those are the dishes that most easily disguise any

adulteration of meat.

I like lamb shish kebabs and lamb balti as well,

so it's a bit disappointing.

After we've got the results, we approached

the restaurants and takeaways

and some of the restaurants have actually said they use chicken

as a binder with their lamb, so that it sticks to the kebab when cooking.

Consumers should really be concerned

if they're buying shish kebabs or sheek kebabs or any kebab where the

lamb is made up of mince or has been formed up around the skewer.

So the minced chicken is simply there to bind the kebab to

the skewer. But does that excuse stick?

Well, we checked this out by visiting one of the oldest Turkish restaurants

in central London - they've been making kebabs since 1974.

Do they have to use minced chicken in their kebabs?

We are putting a 100% lamb in our chopper.

The lamb is a good mixture in your mouth, it's a good taste.

-Never ever put chicken in and mix it...

-Together.

It's lamb.

Red meat is red meat. White meat is white meat.

Never use the minced chicken, 100% has to be lamb...

..forget about chicken.

Burak and chef Aykun prepare their kebabs from scratch,

cutting up and mincing whole lambs and adding herbs and bread crumbs.

This is the skewer, we call it shish in Turkish.

And then we are going to put the mince there, making the shape

and ready for the cook.

Burak has no problem at all getting minced lamb

to stick on the skewer without the help of chicken.

So maybe it's the price of lamb that's the real sticking point, and

kebab makers using chicken at half the price are simply cheapskates.

If it's not 100% lamb it's a rip off of our customers.

This is now ready from the preparation area to go upstairs.

Put in the charcoal grill and serve with the pitta bread,

rice or the salad and chilli sauce.

100% British lamb.

OK, Burak, I think I've definitely got the message

about what goes into your kebabs.

And let me just point out on Burak's behalf that that monster

doner kebab is also made out of, well, you guessed it, lamb.

But not all restaurants can trace their meat back to

the bone, and some clearly add more than breadcrumbs and herbs.

We also had the samples tested for artificial colours

and some of the kebabs came back as quite high.

We had one that was 18 times the limit and another 17 times.

One of the problems with excessive levels of colouring in food

is that it can have an adverse effect on children,

but also can trigger health issues in adults, like asthma.

So not only are you overpaying for a cheaper product, you might be

eating something that makes you ill.

And Head of Warwickshire Trading Standards, Janet Faulkner,

thinks we all need to be on our guard.

All businesses are under pressure economically now making...trying to

make ends meet, making their bottom line and so on.

So, yes, I've no doubt it's a UK problem.

If people think they're being ripped off then

they need to contact the Citizens' Advice consumer advice helpline.

And anything of a criminal nature or anything that

Trading Standards need to be aware of will be referred to us

and we will deal with it.

Well, after all of that I can tell you something for nothing,

in future, I'll be thinking twice, maybe even more than that, before I

have any kind of minced lamb, unless I'm at a restaurant where

I know that the lamb is the real deal.

Yum.

Now, back to water.

I've walked the length

and breadth of a Water Treatment Plant to find out why

I should choose tap over bottled water - it's certainly cheaper.

The perception seems to be that bottled tastes best,

and I was certainly surprised when I tried the Thames tap water.

But let's put it to a broader test.

We sent our researchers to a fun run at Canary Wharf in London

to carry out a blind taste test with some of these thirsty athletes.

Now we can clearly see which water is which.

On the right is a best selling bottled mineral water,

in the middle is tap water and on the left a supermarket own brand.

But the runners can't see the labels and have no idea which is which,

so will they taste the difference? And which will they prefer?

I think I'll go for this one.

I think it just had a bit of a crisper taste.

It just tasted more refreshing.

Tasted better.

The other two tasted like tap water, that tasted like nice, still,

fresh clean water.

There wasn't a great deal between them.

That just seemed to have more of a natural taste.

Number one was my favourite water, because it just felt really crisp.

It just tasted a bit smoother than any of the rest of them.

I'd say number three was my favourite.

Number two would be Evian.

I can't really tell much difference.

Well, now there's a turn up for the books.

Exactly half of our 22 guinea pigs actually chose tap water

as having the best taste.

You're going to tell me number two's tap water, right? You are? You are?

No! Really?

I'll drink more tap water now I think then.

Really? I'll stick to tap water.

-Nah.

-It shows that it's

not really worth spending much on the bottled water then, doesn't it?

There you go, good old Thames.

There you have it.

The experts say that it costs less, it's safe and there's very

little difference in the taste.

So to all you savvy shoppers out there,

if you really want to save money, you better get back on tap.

If you're out and about, why not carry a recyclable bottle

and a back a new campaign to encourage shops

and restaurants to fill up people's bottles with tap water on demand.

Now, we've looked at takeaways, but it's not a convenience food

we should eat every day - too expensive and too calorific.

There's another a shortcut to fast food that we're increasingly

reaching for.

Shoppers have embraced a new convenience food

wholeheartedly - sales of ready-peeled and cut up fruit

and veg have almost doubled over the last ten years.

They've taken an increasing share of the £186 million that

we spend on fruit and veg every week.

But who benefits most from the convenience of this grab and go

fruit and veg?

Are we paying over the odds for the ease of pre-prepared food?

Well, I'm having a marvellous day out

because I've come to a pick-your-own farm near Reading.

And here they grow all kinds of fruit and vegetables,

from apples to lettuce, and of course all the gorgeous soft fruits.

Now, if you haven't got time to pick your own, more than likely

you'll choose your greens from the supermarket and often there they

are pre-prepared, chopped, bagged, washed - a bit like this really.

Now, the question is - how much are you paying for the convenience?

Where we once only had the ready meal, now we get ready prepared fruit

and veg. Our carrots are sliced, our onions diced, broccoli floreted

and mangoes peeled.

And salads, which were the preserve of an iceberg lettuce and a dollop

of salad cream, are giving way to the pre-packed and prepped lettuce.

First, let's deal with cost.

How much do we pay for the ease of ready peeled and chopped?

We've come to an East London market with examples of bagged

and loose fruit and veg bought in major supermarket stores.

Tina, our friendly stall holder, is lending us her scales

so that we can find out just how much we're

paying for the convenience of grab and go greens.

Let's start with salad - a product that 92% of us buy.

This Morrison's chopped iceberg lettuce,

ready to eat in it's grab and go bag, weighs 210 grams.

But for the same round pound they sell a whole lettuce

weighing in at 510 grams.

Of course you're forking out

for the packaging and choice leaves, but is it worth the extra cost?

Now, we look at peeled mango segments from Sainsbury's.

These two, minus packaging, weigh in at 290 grams

and cost £3. Compare that to a 500 gram whole mango

for a pound, even if you do get the mango peeled, stoned packaged

and a plastic spoon to boot.

£1.50 for less than half a kilo of carrot batons from Tesco.

Compare this with the price of a kilo of whole carrots for £1.

Getting my drift? The batons cost three times more.

But is this price difference just the tip of the iceberg

when it comes to the issue of bagged fruit and veg?

How do they keep the cut up fruit

and veg looking fresh? It's baffling because a cut up apple

at home goes brown in a matter of moments.

Definitely a question for Peter Maynard,

scientist and Public Analyst.

Well, I'm here in the laboratories in Kent that do

a lot of the testing for Trading Standards.

What I've come to find today is how all this sort of fruit and veg

and this kind of pre-packed stuff manages to remain looking so fresh.

Obviously I need an expert and Peter Maynard is that man. Hi, Peter.

Let's look at this. How long are these likely to have been the packs?

Well, if you look at this one, for instance, it says packed in Ghana.

So that would have been cut up and put in this pack in Ghana.

So even by air freight it's bound to be a few days old...

Before it even gets to the fact of us buying it.

Before it gets to us, yes.

What's the process then of trying to make sure this does remain

fresh from Ghana to the supermarket shelf in England?

Well, it would probably undergo a couple of processes. First,

it will be peeled, cut up and the stone removed, and then it

would be dipped in a solution called ascorbic acid, which is vitamin C.

So it's not harmful,

it's just a dilute solution that will stop it going brown.

It will then be put into a pack

and sealed, probably with modified atmosphere.

What does that mean exactly?

Well, the normal atmosphere contains about 80% nitrogen

and 20% oxygen. If you replace that with carbon dioxide

and nitrogen instead of oxygen and nitrogen, there won't be any

oxygen present in this packet, which is what turns the fruit brown.

And in terms of this kind of wrapper on broccoli

and everything, is that a good idea or not?

It will certainly keep it fresh because it won't have access to

oxygen, and the air is what will make it go yellow and nasty and

-inedible.

-So this is a good idea?

-Yes. I think it is.

OK, let's move down to the chopped bit.

So what kind of air is in there at the moment?

Again it will be a mixture of gases, but it will probably exclude

oxygen, which is what is responsible for most of the browning action.

What do you eat at home? Fresh or bagged?

I pick my own from my garden, so it's always fresh.

Lucky Peter, a ready pick your own supply outside his back door.

But for the rest of us

who depend on the supermarket, does our need

for speed mean that we might sacrifice any nutritional benefit?

Nutritionist, Yvonne Bishop-Weston thinks we are.

In order to get something as simple as a carrot to be packaged

and prepared and convenient for us to take home and cook or eat,

the vegetable will first have to be washed in order to remove

the surface bacteria.

And that's normally done with a solution with chlorine in it.

It's then going to be peeled.

The peel on a vegetable such as a carrot can be quite

dense in vitamins and minerals.

So we really don't want to be removing the peel

unless we absolutely have to.

Then the vegetable will have to be chopped up.

And when we chop something up we're increasing the surface area,

because we're increasing the amount of that vegetable that is open

and exposed to the air, and all those cell membranes that have been

cut through will allow the nutrient loss of vitamins,

especially vitamin A and the beta carotene family.

These vitamins are protecting us from many things like heart disease,

potentially some cancers and all the diseases associated with ageing.

All the degenerative stuff that happens to our bodies.

One of my key concerns as a nutritionist

is that we are losing our connection to food.

If we buy something like a mango and we cut into that mango we're

going to smell the freshness, it's going to look really appealing.

It is going to be different to just opening up a bag and taking out...

..a piece of ready prepared mango, which is going to have lost

some of those molecules and isn't going to be quite so appealing.

We're not teaching our children that food should be something that is

part of our daily lives because it's absolutely vital to our existence.

Obviously vital to our health,

and our happiness, cos it controls mood as well.

And turning a natural fruit or veg into a processed quick fix

has implications for shelf life.

Unlike loose fruit and veg

the bagged stuff will have a use-by date.

And if you miss the use-by date, this is where it ends up.

I'm afraid a lot of it ends up there too.

We throw away half the salad we buy

and a quarter of that is attributed to bagged salad leaves.

OK, welcome to this session on love food, hate waste...

Emma Marsh from WRAP, a Government funded campaign to reduce

food waste, goes out to spread the message.

We caught up with her in Oxfordshire,

where she was talking top tips to a group of parents.

How many of you buy bagged salad leaves?

We throw away half the lettuce and leafy salads we buy.

Emma puts a lot waste down to the fact that we can't make

sense of the simplest information on labels.

Date labels can be the bane of people's lives

because we don't understand them.

Do you think a bag of salad would have a use-by or a best before?

Best before.

So you think this would have a best before?

Actually this has a use-by date, because it's been prepared.

You can eat it right up to the use-by date,

but don't eat it beyond.

However, if you had a whole lettuce, because that hasn't actually

been pre-prepared you'd have a best before date.

So you can eat it past it, so long as it looks and tastes fine.

In the UK, we throw away 7.2 million tonnes of food

and drink, and that's just from our homes.

Most of that is good food, so it could have been eaten. That

costs us as consumers £12 billion every single year. For the average

family, that's £680 a year, £50 a month,

£13 a week. It really does add up.

One of the key reasons why we waste food is

because we don't store it correctly.

Take a Tupperware pot, take a small amount of kitchen roll...

..put it into the bottom, put your remaining salad leaves there

and seal up the Tupperware and put it back in the fridge.

It will keep this fresher for up to four days longer.

Who's ever had...

..a nice pack of peppers?

And you think, "Well I'm just going to have half." So you cut down,

you'd use that bit, and then this bit we'd cut out the stem,

cut out the pith and the seed, and then put it into the fridge.

But if you leave the stem,

the pith and the seeds in, it will actually keep a lot fresher.

Have you ever thought, "Tonight I'm going to make a curry." You get

the recipe and it says you want one chilli and an inch of ginger.

You've got three chillies left over and a couple of chunks of ginger.

It's not cheap to waste this food,

so a brilliant tip - you simply peel it and chop it.

And then you would take your grater

and using this side...

..you'd grate it down to a thin paste. You pop that

ginger into a bag, ready chopped or ready grated, pop it in the freezer.

You can do the same with chillies.

So that is a really great tip for making sure you're not wasting

the things that you think are quite small but actually quite expensive.

My last tip will be for carrots.

If you've got a carrot that's feeling a bit droopy

and you're thinking, "Can't really serve that up, it's a bit floppy."

Take your carrot...

..chop the top off...

..chop the bottom off...

..put it into a bowl of cold water and put it into the fridge,

and in 30 minutes you will have a crisp, tasty, fresh carrot.

So I hope now you'll think twice before you grab

the bag of convenience pre-prepared fruit and veg.

And if you can't resist then do use Emma's tips on how to make you

a smarter shopper, who doesn't waste money or food.

Next, we're going to put one of Britain's most popular

convenience foods under the spotlight.

The sandwich is consumed at a rate of three billion a year.

That's sandwich making on an industrial scale.

-Oh yeah, butties.

-Doorstep.

-Sanger.

-Banjo.

No, it's just called a sandwich.

In fact, it's a market worth £6 billion a year.

My favourite sandwich is cheese and tomato.

-I do like a BLT.

-Chicken tikka sandwich.

I like prawns, prawns and mayonnaise.

And just in case you're wondering - it's the chicken sandwich

that's the country's number one choice.

By the way, the average high street sandwich costs almost £1.91.

£1.91 - not bad, I hear you say, and so it should be, but I'm about to

look at two areas where you, the consumer, may be cornered

into paying a much higher price for this great British convenience -

motorway service stations and, believe it or not, hospitals.

First, our researchers checked out sandwiches in service stations

along a 100 mile stretch of the M1.

We wanted to check out if there's a price difference between

identical sandwiches at service stations and high street stores.

We sampled prices at five well known chains

and found four charging a significant mark-up.

The fifth, WH Smith,

doesn't stock the same sandwiches in the service stations we tested

as they do on the High Street - so no valid comparison to make there.

Marks & Spencer's up 12.5%.

Waitrose up 15%.

Starbucks up 17% - a 55p price rise.

But it was Costa's sandwiches that we found the biggest hike - 21%.

And their British Chicken, Roasted Pepper and Rocket Panini

cost 87p more than you'd pay at a high street Costa.

100%, it's a rip-off.

It's the same company and it should be the same price.

It's always been a rip-off and always will be.

Motorway service stations have form.

Journalist Will Nightingale at What Car? magazine

has carried out research for their readers.

Hello, Gloria.

Obviously, all those sandwiches along the motorway have given you a lot of

-energy up those steps.

-Yes, it's a bit of an effort.

I don't think I could do that.

What prompted you to do this motorway survey?

It was really information from our readers, two thirds told us they

found prices in service stations a rip off.

A further 25% said that they were too high,

so it was really that that prompted our survey.

What kind of mark-up did you find?

On all sandwiches it was about 16%, so it's a big mark up,

and I think that was one of the lower price mark ups

that we found. It was up to 91% on a bottle of water.

-91% on water?

-Absolutely, nearly twice the price.

I think you really don't want to deter tired drivers from pulling

over at a service station for a cup of coffee or a bite to eat.

And did the sandwich companies themselves actually justify how

they could allow a much higher price as opposed to the high street shop?

Marks & Spencer told us that it

was actually the motorway service operator that sets the prices.

So we contacted Costa, Starbucks, Waitrose

and M&S, who said that they all seek to ensure their brand standards are

in line with the industry and the same, regardless of store location.

But they confirmed that they can't set prices at motorway

service stations, because the stores are run by franchises who

set their prices determined by higher operational costs.

Will knows all about the service station operational cost argument.

Well, the service stations told us that one of the big

reasons for these high prices is that the service station

themselves cost a lot to build - in the region of 25 million.

And they have to claw money back somehow.

I think something like 150 million people who pull into service

stations do not buy anything and they point that out to say

we provide free picnic areas, and we provide free baby changing

facilities, free toilet facilities

and in some respects that is a slightly

valid argument because you need those facilities and they're free.

You do and motorway service station operators

are required to provide those

services by law, so I think that is justification up to a point and

again I say that if these prices were slightly higher I don't think

anyone would have a problem, it's these huge mark ups that really

are a kick in the teeth for motorists.

When we checked for an update from service station operators

Roadchef and MOTO they said, "Motorway service areas must

"pay to construct their premises, open 24 hours a day

"and provide free facilities to all members of the public."

Roadchef added, "They believe their prices compare well

"with other major transport hub outlets." And MOTO said, "They try

"to ensure that key products are available at very accessible prices."

So no change of heart at the service stations.

But surely it will be different with hospitals.

High street chains, like Marks & Spencer, with

outlets in hospitals can't surely use the same

justification for the price hike in service stations - can they?

As you can see I'm at the Royal Berkshire Hospital in Reading.

And I've bought two sandwiches for a very good reason.

I bought this one at the M&S on the high street for £3.25.

Shockingly in the hospital, remembering that people

are usually in a vulnerable position, I had to pay £3.75. Believe

it or not a price difference of 50p for exactly the same sandwich.

Our researchers have done the legwork and bought three test

sandwiches on sale today at the hospital and high street.

When you look at the Marks & Spencer sandwiches the packet says, "Food

"on the move," but we discovered that the price isn't staying put either.

I'm now outside the high street M&S, which is the nearest to

the hospital, bearing in mind there's

less than a mile difference between this shop

and the M&S inside the hospital itself.

And I've been carrying out a little experiment. I have compared prices

of three different sandwiches. There is a big differential because

these ones are definitely cheaper, and I suppose I assumed it, but

I wouldn't have thought there would be that big difference between them.

But maybe I should ask the passers by if they assume the same thing?

Now, first of all, as you can see, I have a club sandwich.

I have two of them, exactly the same.

Same filling, same bread.

This one I bought in the hospital shop, which is just up the road.

And this one I bought in the shop just behind me.

The next one as you see is roast beef, horseradish and mayo,

again exactly the same, the inner's exactly the same.

The third one of my experiment, the cheddar cheese ploughman's.

The hospital one is always on the left.

But they are exactly the same, we've checked them all.

Is it higher at the hospital, lower at the hospital or the same?

Many of the shoppers we asked thought the price would stay

the same or even be lower at the hospital.

They use the same cost of production for this one in the town

and the one in the hospital.

So to me the price should be the same.

Lower, because I think the high street would charge more.

All the sandwiches at the M&S inside the hospital, they're higher.

-Are you surprised?

-I am, very surprised, yeah.

The people we asked didn't think that was fair.

-Why do you think that is?

-No idea, no reason.

They've taken an opportunity to make money out of people

that are vulnerable.

It's stressful, in a stressful situation.

In this case there was 50p difference between these two.

50p on one sandwich. That's quite a lot of money.

I'm surprised Marks & Spencer allow them to be sold.

Do you think this is actually unfair?

It's taking advantage of a captive market.

There's more options on the high street, aren't there?

People can just go somewhere else,

-whereas in hospital you only have one choice.

-It's a rip-off!

The Royal Berkshire Hospital told us, "M&S Simply Food outlet

"is a franchise agreement between M&S and the franchise operator."

They added that it was, "One of a number of food outlets

"at the hospital and that the Royal Berkshire only set

"the prices in their own restaurant."

Marks & Spencer acknowledge that Simply Food franchise stores

at locations like hospitals do charge prices that are

a little higher than their high street stores, as they

are open longer and highly convenient.

They added that their franchise partners, "Work hard to keep

"prices competitive and in line with the industry."

So Marks & Spencer sandwiches - an inconvenient

mark-up for a convenient food.

It seems that hospital patients

and visitors are fair game for the high street franchises.

No reward for brand loyalty there, unfortunately for us.

And I just want to leave you with another top tip from

Emma Marsh at WRAP - it's delicious and will save you money. I promise.

Does anyone have these sitting at home?

They are starting to look a bit black, but the greatest tip...

Simply take your banana that's starting to go black.

Normally, you're thinking that would go in the compost or the bin.

Put it in the freezer.

Because you can either make something like banana bread,

if you're the type of person who really likes to cook like that,

or it makes the best fat free banana ice-cream.

All you do is take it straight out of the freezer and eat it.

And it's absolutely wonderful.

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

But I do hope that

because of the programme that you might from here on in start counting

the cost of convenience foods and try and avoid those rip-offs.

Remember, if it's ready prepared

and packaged you're probably already paying well over the odds.

So maybe the last piece of advice for the day is - why don't you

do a little bit of preparation for yourself

and save some of your hard earned cash.

Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd