Low-cost lunches pack nutritional punch

Your lunchtime sandwich could contain as much salt as nine packs of ready salted crisps, but you might not realise because it doesn’t have to carry a nutritional label, says consumer champion Which?

The latest Which? sandwich report has unwrapped some surprising statistics:

- Subway’s 6-inch Meatball Marinara has 4.7g of salt – equal to nine packs of Walkers ready salted crisps and more than 75% of an adult’s 6g maximum daily intake.
- Marks & Spencer’s Wensleydale & Carrot Chutney has 25.5g of sugar – equivalent to more than five teaspoons.
- Asda’s Vintage Cheddar Ploughman’s (no mayo) has 15.2g of saturated fat, more than 75% of a woman’s maximum guideline daily amount.

Which? also compared 14 chicken salad sandwiches, and found that Morrisons’ Deep Fill Chicken Salad, the least expensive at £1.79, fared well nutritionally and contained almost twice as much chicken as Caffè Nero’s Chicken with Oven Roasted Tomatoes and Spinach, which was most expensive (£3.20).

Tesco’s Chicken Salad (£1.80) was also inexpensive, contained plenty of chicken and ticked the right boxes in terms of nutritional content.

Sainsbury’s Taste the Difference Butter Roasted Chicken Salad (£2.50) and Pret a Manger’s Herb Chicken and Rocket (£2.39) were highest in calories and contained the most fat.

It’s not mandatory for companies to provide nutritional information on food, but the sandwiches bought from supermarkets, Boots and coffee chains all did. Pret a Manger and Subway recently signed up to the Food Standard Agency’s scheme to provide calorie information when eating out, but Greggs has not yet committed to this. Which? is campaigning for all companies to provide nutritional information at the point of sale. British consumers spend around £5.3bn on pre-packaged sandwiches a year.

Martyn Hocking, Editor, Which? magazine, says:

“A sandwich might seem like a pretty healthy option, but there can be shocking amounts of salt, sugar and fat in some of them and you’d have no idea if they’re not labelled.

“We’re pleased to see that some coffee shops and sandwich chains have signed up to the Food Standards Agency’s pilot scheme to provide calorie information when eating out, but we think all food outlets should provide this information as a matter of course.”