Whether it's a full English breakfast or a quick sandwich, bacon remains a beloved and savoury essential in countless British households. Yet with supermarket aisles overflowing with choices, determining which one truly offers the finest taste and value for money is not always straightforward.
The Ultimate Bacon Showdown
To settle this delicious debate, we conducted a rigorous taste test of premium bacon offerings from five major supermarkets: Aldi, Morrisons, Sainsbury's, Lidl and Marks & Spencer. Rather than selecting economy ranges, we focused on each supermarket's premium alternatives to ensure a fair comparison across all critical factors including texture, saltiness, crispiness and overall cost.
After carefully pan-frying each variety, we measured them against the familiar branded stalwart, Richmond, and the results proved genuinely eye-opening. While two supermarkets managed to outperform the big-name product, one emerged as the undisputed champion with a perfect score.
The Rankings Revealed
6. Marks & Spencer
According to Marks & Spencer's official website, their back bacon is sourced from outdoor-bred, 100% British pigs on RSPCA Assured farms, supporting higher welfare standards. Hand-cured with sweet demerara sugar, each rasher is then smoked over oak and apple wood chips.
At £4, this ranks among the more expensive options, yet the flavour and texture simply don't justify the premium price. The M&S bacon proved one of the more thinly sliced varieties and crumbled rather easily during handling. Despite its modest thickness, this bacon remained surprisingly chewy and lacked proper crispness.
Flavour-wise, this bacon proved rather underwhelming and missed the anticipated sweetness promised by the demerara sugar curing process. It also absorbed excessive cooking oil and lacked sufficient saltiness or that rich, meaty flavour you'd expect from premium bacon. Overall, this disappointing performance earned M&S bacon a score of just two out of five.
5. Lidl's Deluxe Smoked Back Bacon
Lidl sits marginally ahead of Marks & Spencer with their premium Deluxe line. For eight rashers of bacon, this option costs £2.49, which is £1.51 cheaper than M&S. Discussing their pork offerings, Lidl commented that their Birchwood British pork is 100% Red Tractor Assured, meaning great tasting meat that has been responsibly sourced to strict food hygiene, animal welfare and environmental standards.
The flavour was equally uninspiring, though it possessed a faint salty pork taste. The consistency was fairly thick, but when removing the bacon from the packaging, it broke apart easily. That said, the appearance of the bacon following cooking was extremely consistent and delivered a pleasant crispness. This bacon earns a respectable 2.5 out of five.
4. Morrisons The Best Dry Cured Oak Smoked Back Bacon
Morrisons' bacon is British pork that is dry cured then oak smoked for a firm texture and rich flavour. For £3.50, this retailer stocks one of the pricier bacons. However, in contrast to M&S, the flavour was genuinely scrumptious with a smoky, salty and slightly sweet profile.
This would be a cracking addition to a full English breakfast or as part of Hunter's chicken. The main drawback of this bacon, however, is its texture. While it does have some crispiness, for back bacon, it's rather thin and chewy. Had the texture been more satisfying, this could have been a serious contender, but it earned an overall rating of three out of five.
3. Richmond Thick Cut Smoked Bacon Rashers
Securing third place is Richmond's smoked bacon. The meat brand has reportedly been a favourite amongst British families for over 130 years. Retailing at £2.50, Richmond's bacon benefits from a unique seasoning blend including pork, water, salt, sugar, stabilisers, dextrose, black pepper, nutmeg extract, mace extract, preservatives, anti-caking agent, and ginger extract.
This bacon was incredibly flavoursome; you can really detect the added seasonings, particularly the nutmeg. However, this is actually its downfall as all the seasonings detract from the bacon's delightful natural taste rather than enhancing it. Richmond's bacon proved rather thin and fatty, while its rashers weren't particularly uniform. That said, there was a pleasant crispness to this bacon along with a decent smokiness, earning it a score of 3.5.
2. Aldi's Specially Selected Dry Cured Smoked Thick Cut Back Bacon
Taking us completely by surprise is our runner-up, Aldi. At merely £2.40, Aldi's bacon was scrumptious with the ideal balance of saltiness and smokiness. The pork flavour really shines through, unlike Richmond, and that's precisely why it tastes superior.
The bacon boasts a decent shape, with considerably more meat than fat. It had a slightly chewy texture, with crispy edges, but it was fairly thick, making it ideal between buttered toast for an outstanding sandwich. Good Housekeeping also assessed this bacon and noted its balanced salty and smoky aroma, though they found it had a very strong salty aftertaste.
The Undisputed Champion
1. Sainsbury's Taste the Difference Smoked Dry Cured Back Bacon Rashers
Achieving a flawless score is Sainsbury's bacon. According to the supermarket, their bacon is hand-cured with their signature recipe, air-dried, then smoked with oak wood chips. The outdoor bred pork comes from producers inspected to RSPCA welfare standards by the RSPCA's independently certified farm assurance scheme.
Sampling this £4 bacon (£3 with Nectar card), the rashers proved incredibly flavoursome and juicy. Even our toughest critic declared: "Now that's a good piece of bacon." Sainsbury's bacon delivers the ideal texture, without any chewiness and a satisfying crisp finish.
It's also among the thickest back bacon available with the most appealing appearance and colour. It's smoky, salty and wonderfully porky. Based on Sainsbury's reviews, one shopper wrote: "Every week I buy this product at Sainsbury's for its quality and value through the Nectar card discount price." Another said: "Some of the nicest bacon I've tasted for a very long time."
This comprehensive taste test demonstrates that while several supermarkets offer decent bacon options, Sainsbury's Taste the Difference range emerges as the clear winner, offering superior flavour, texture and overall quality that justifies its premium positioning in the market.
