Meal deals: which shops are the best value for lunch?
The lunchtime shop-bought sandwich was dealt a heavy blow by Covid, as city centres emptied and trips out were limited.
The return to the office and the lifting of lockdown restrictions have propelled it back on to the menu for millions of workers but the cost of living crisis, plus the fact that many people feel they saved a fortune on lunches, snacks and coffees during the pandemic, mean lots of us are looking for ways to make our money go further.
With that in mind, Guardian Money this week carried out a survey of lunchtime meal deals (typically a sandwich or salad, etc, a drink and a snack) from some of the main high street chains.
We were keen to find out the answer to these questions: What’s the most you can get for your money if you choose the most expensive items permitted? Which retailer offers the biggest potential saving? And because it’s important to have a lunch to look forward to, how do some of the bestsellers rate taste-wise?
The answer to the savings question, according to our (nonscientific) survey, is Tesco, where buying items through its meal deal resulted in paying 55% less for them than getting them separately. (It is possible Boots may be able to beat that as its meal deal is cheaper in most locations outside London.) In monetary terms, Boots was the winner, with a £4.21 saving.
Tesco has kept its meal deal pegged at £3 for almost 10 years, during which time most if not all of its rivals have increased the headline cost. For example, Sainsbury’s put up its lunchtime meal deal price from £3 to £3.50 in May 2021 (although it says it is offering more than three times as many choices as it was before the price change).
As of 19 January, the government no longer asked people in England to work from home if
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