- PR
Christmas sandwich contest 2023
The Tour de Christmas Sandwich
From the telly adverts to the lights, there are staples of the festive season that have us merry with anticipation as early as October. Much like the best Christmas ads, the high street sarnie has opened up its own league of competition amongst retailers to be crowned the Christmas sandwich contest winner. Each passing year sees more variation than the last with vegan and gluten-free options now commonplace on the shelves.
This year, Sainsbury’s announced 11 sandwiches as part of its festive range, a dizzying variety to pick from. This hints to one thing; the 2023 Christmas sandwich choices on the high street is one saturated market. This is basically the tour de France with less bicycles and loads and loads of sandwiches.
Fear not – we’re here to help with my handy rating system from five key retailers, please feel inspired to take these categories forth when narrowing down your own search for the perfect Christmas sarnie.
Tesco’s – Yule Hog
Price: £2.85
The Tesco ‘Yule Hog’ stands out well on the shelf, not necessarily because of its looks, but because it has a great name. This positive appeal was followed up with confusion; it looks very moist, but is surprisingly dry. The flavour confused the Nexus team further; it was nice, but not very ‘Christmassy’ – similar to a hoisin duck wrap (even though it’s a different meat and sauce). Sadly, the texture is very one-tone with little variation. Overall, this is bang for your lunch-break buck but not very merry in flavour.
Looks: 3/5
Christmas factor: 2/5
Moistness: 3/5
Depth of Flavour: 3/5
Texture: 2/5
Boots – No Turkey Feast
Price: £3.00
To make this a fair trial, we enlisted our resident veggie, Rochelle, to give this one a taste test. After a silent tasting under exam conditions, we were relieved to have our deflated reaction validated by someone who hasn’t eaten meat in five years. To be clear – the shortcomings of this sandwich are not due to its lack of meat or dairy – it just tastes sad. There is no flavour to begin with, so we had to immediately disqualify it from the ‘festive factor’ rating. The one non-mushy component here is the very random layer of raw carrot.
Looks: 2/5
Christmas factor: 0/5
Moistness: 5/5 (but in a bad way)
Depth of flavour: 1/5
Texture: 1/5
Starbucks – Turkey and Chicken sandwich
Price: £4.60
The tangy cranberry was instantly welcoming, but the dryness of the malted bread was not. As a sandwich connoisseur, it would be wrong not to note the structural uniqueness of this one being cut into squares, not triangles.
By the time you’ve sampled four Christmas sandwiches consecutively, it’s hard to remain objective. However, we can’t help but praise it a little more for being less mushy than the competition. This is a friend who we’re not in a hurry to see again, but will definitely see next Christmas for a catch up.
Looks: 4/5
Christmas factor: 4/5
Moistness: 2/5
Depth of flavour: 3/5
Texture: 3/5
Waitrose – Turkey, Stuffing and Bacon
Price: £4.00
You can’t play it safer for a Christmas sandwich than Turkey, stuffing and bacon… but that’s not a bad thing. Sometimes that’s all you crave on a winter lunch break. How could this one be controversial? Weirdly, it was. After much office debate we managed to unite on its lack of Christmas factor. This could have easily have been your all-year round chicken and bacon sandwich. The cranberry did not work hard enough and the stuffing was scrimped on.
Looks: 3/5
Christmas factor: 3/5
Moistness: 4/5
Depth of flavour: 3/5
Texture: 4/5
M&S – ‘Brie-LT’
Price: £4.50
In the least dramatic way possible, this was nothing short of exhilarating. It’s a mouthwatering remix on the BLT, with at least four identifiable textures and maximum moisture. Every bite is different here – the soft, oozy brie is cut by the tangy chutney. The cotton soft bun. The smoky after-taste. Generous enough to share this with a colleague and safe say a winner of this race.
Looks: 4/5
Christmas factor: 3/5
Moistness: 5/5
Depth of flavour: 5/5
Texture: 5/5
