Clotted cream conundrum

[torkell]

Here's a puzzler for you: what's the difference between Sainsbury's clotted cream, Tesco's clotted cream, and Rodda's clotted cream?

All three are made by the same company (Rodda's, in Cornwall), look the same, and are supplied in exactly the same quantities and packaging. Yet on all of them the nutritional information is different. How does that work?

Comments

[omgimsuchadork.livejournal.com]

I don't know how it is in the UK, but in American packaging, I'm under the impression the list of ingredients goes in order of how much is used relative to the whole thing, not that the actual amounts are the same. You can have a list of ingredients reading "water, sugar, salt," for three different but one could be 95% water, 4% sugar, 1% salt; another 50% water, 40% sugar, 10% salt; and the last 40% water, 35% sugar, and 25% salt.

(Whoops, changed a few words and forgot to change some other accordingly.)

[torkell]

UK packaging is the same - ingredients are ordered by relative quantity, with some marked with acutal values if the manufacturer feels like it. For at least Sainsbury's and Tesco's clotted cream there's no difference there as there's only one ingredient (milk).

[omgimsuchadork.livejournal.com]

(I'd already replied but I don't see it as having gone through so I'll do it again.)

It must be the cows that produced the milk, then. Jersey and Guernsey cows produce a milk that's higher in fat content compared to some other dairy breeds. Or maybe something in the production method?

[torkell]

This is where you get into the wonderfully vague "Produced in the UK using milk from the UK" label.

That said, cornish clotted cream is a "Protected Designation of Origin" and so would have actually come from Cornwall. PDO is a EU scheme where only certain areas can produce registered foods. So Parmesan is actually from Italy and isn't some generic hard cheese, and Champagne really is from France. But Stilton cheese cannot legally be made in the village of Stilton as that's not in the countys that are allowed to produce it.

[ladyofastolat.livejournal.com]

I stumbled on a TV programme a few weeks ago in which the presenters (Hungry Fisherman, or something like that) were visiting the Isle of Wight, so I stuck around to watch. They watched clotted cream being made on a farm. It was basically "pour cream in enormous baking pan, an inch or so thick. Cook until the top goes thick and clotted." They explained that posh clotted cream consisted only of this layer of clots, wasting all the runny uncooked cream below it, whereas cheaper, poorer quality cream used the entire lot, both thick and thin. So assuming Roddas make it the same way as I saw on TV, could it be that each supermarket has given slightly different specifications for how clotted they want their cream to be?

Either that, or each supermarket has their own team of experts calculating nutritional content, and it's not an exact science?

[torkell]

That (the calculations) may be it for Sainsbury's and Tesco's - the difference is small enough to be a rounding error. But I'm pretty sure the Rodda's brand was significantly different, so maybe that's using the more expensive cream. I'll have to try one and see.

On quality: sometimes the only difference between two different brands is the quality control. A good example is Marks & Spencer's - some of their foods are produced at the same places that other supermarkets use for their own-brand stuff, using the same ingredients and the same process. Except M&S have their own staff running the quality control, and they're a lot more picky as to what they'll accept.