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

[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.