Own-label investigation: Cheap at twice the price

The packaging is awful. They look and taste terrible. They’re so unloved by the multiples that they hide them away on the bottom shelf where they sell for mere pennies. And they’re not even that popular with consumers any more. Kantar Worldpanel data shows that volume sales fell by 12.1% in the year to 31 October – against an 11.1% rise the previous year – with value sales down 17.4% to £786,000.

So why do the mults persist in selling value own-label curry sauces, sometimes for as little as 17p?

On the face of it, it may seem like a daft question. After all, what’s so special about own-label curry sauce? But actually, with its echoes of the 3p economy baked beans of the mid-90s, cheap curry sauce illustrates perfectly a paradox particularly apparent at the value end of the own-label spectrum: the explosion of products that are apparently being sold below cost – during one of the worst economic downturns in history.

With even industry behemoths like Unilever admitting they’re struggling to cope with soaring costs, it’s counter-intuitive to say the least. So The Grocer decided to fi nd out what the motivation could be. We bought samples from Asda, Tesco, Morrisons and Sainsbury’s and asked experts to tell us what they would cost to produce, what they tasted like (see above) and what they thought was in it for retailers or, indeed, suppliers.

First, the cost. All of the products bear the slogan ‘produced in the UK’ and it didn’t take long to draw up a list of British manufacturers capable of making this type of product in the volumes required by the multiples. However, getting the manufacturers to talk about the subject, even off the record, was a diff erent matter entirely, although one manufacturing contact confi rmed that, based on the ingredient list of a typical supermarket curry sauce (see page 38), it would cost around 15p – give or take a few pence – to produce 500g of it. That’s just the contents.

The next thing to price up was the packaging. Three of the sauces come in glass jars with tin lids and one – Tesco’s Value sauce – is canned. “At current prices, jars with lids cost 6.5p or higher each and wet glue paper labels will cost less than 1p each, so much will depend on quantity, weight of glass, etc – but 7.5p-12p would be a broad range for reasonably large volumes,” according to a well-placed packaging source. “As for a can with a lid, it would cost 8p-10p, with labels costing a little bit more than on a jar.”

So a 440g glass jar of sauce has a manufacturing cost of as much as 20p-25p, while a 330g can would cost somewhere in the ballpark of 18p-20p. Yet Morrisons Value Curry Sauce and Asda Smart Price Curry Sauce sell for 19p apiece, Sainsbury’s Basics Curry Sauce carries a price tag of 25p and Tesco Value Curry Sauce retails for 17p – the latter was even available on promotion for 7p earlier this year. The most expensive of these sauces is still priced around 70p less than the cheapest branded curry sauce on sale in store.

The cheap-as-chips prices are reflected in the quality of these sauces. We approached Michelin Guide-recommended chef Dev Biswal, who produces his own line of spicy gourmet marinades, to sample these ownlabel sauces and assess them on criteria including aroma, flavour and colour. His damning assessment can be read above, but in summary Biswal felt that the use of the word ‘curry’ was wholly inaccurate.

“All of the sauces taste as if they have been produced by the same factory and adjectives used to describe the sauces such as ‘basic’ and ‘mild’ are misleading because none of them have any heat at all,” says Biswal. “The products should be described as a gravy of tomato purée with onion and coriander. The leading supermarkets make a big contribution to the degradation of so-called ‘curries’ by introducing such uncaredfor and low-end products. The general public has a right to eat authentic, healthy, affordable and good-tasting food.”

Unfortunately, the only box these own-label curry sauces appear to tick is affordability. They certainly don’t score highly on the health front, according to Kate Cook, nutritional therapist at The Nutrition Coach. “The trouble with cheap food is that you have to compromise on the ingredients,” she says. “All processed food has to use some form of preservative, for example sulphur dioxide. Other ingredients, like modified starch, have to be added to help it perform better, but can be of questionable quality.”

The curry sauce analysed by Cook also contained saccharin, which – while it was removed from the official list of carcinogens in 2010 – “is nevertheless thought, even if a weak carcinogen, to be an ingredient that needs a lot more research,” she says.

If they taste bad, they’re bad for you and retailers appear to be selling them at a loss, why sell them at all? Predictably, the big four refuse to comment on what profit they make on these products – if any.

“We would never disclose our margins on a product and in turn what is/is not a loss leader,” says a Sainsbury’s spokesman. “As Justin King has said previously, Sainsbury’s is a place that everyone, regardless of budget, can shop. This is why we work incredibly hard on the products in our 700-strong Basics range and why they are of such high quality compared with other supermarket value ranges.”

Tesco also swerved the question. “Our value curry sauces are incredibly popular and an important offering for our most price-sensitive customers,” says a Tesco spokeswoman. “Providing very great quality at an incredibly keen price, this is reflected in the high sales volumes we see for this fantastic value-for-money item.”

While the retailers are reluctant to admit the sauces are loss leaders, industry insiders are more candid. “In an attempt to hit a really cheap price point, they are willing to take a loss on a crap product,” says one source bluntly. Another is more damning still. “Yes, they clearly sell as loss leaders – God knows why,” he says. “The manufacturers who are making these products for the multiples are getting screwed into the ground on price. Not only do they have to compete against themselves because they will have their own curry sauce brand on shelf, but they have to produce these products for next to nothing so the retailers can sell them for next to nothing.

“The only reason the manufacturers are willing to produce them is because they want the business and they want to keep on the good side of the retailer, who is keen to sell this product because it strikes a chord with a certain demographic.” And that’s why retailers flog them. Although Kantar’s figures suggest consumers don’t like cheap curry sauce as much as they used to, it still has its loyal followers. You only have to look at websites such as Mumsnet, Money- SavingExpert and Dooyoo to find a host of consumers singing the praises of a product that allows them to feed a family of four cheaply by following the basic recipe suggestion on the side of the packs – fry off some chicken, pour in the sauce and then serve it up on a bed of rice.

With the margin on these additional ingredients more than making up for any losses incurred by the curry sauce, it’s a win for retailers and consumers alike. Suppliers won’t be so happy, but that’s unlikely to deter the retailers. Like it or lump it, cheap curry sauce is here to stay.

“Who is to say that they are wrong to sell these curry sauces at such a low price if it gains repeat sales?” says a buying expert. “But then again, so does meths.”