If your frozen treat of choice is a classic Magnum, you might want to reconsider after our taste test revealed a cheap chocolate-covered ice cream that tastes better and costs half the price.
More than 60 ice cream fans blind-tasted 10 own-label chocolate-covered ice creams from Aldi, Sainsbury’s, Tesco and more, alongside Magnum Classic and Cadbury Dairy Milk.
Just one supermarket ice cream was judged good enough to be named a Best Buy, after impressing our tasters with its indulgent, creamy texture and delicious, well-balanced chocolate and vanilla flavours. It offers brilliant value for money, too, costing less than 30p per ice cream.
Magnum vs supermarket own-label ice creams – find out which cheap, supermarket ice cream triumphed in our taste test.
Food assurance labels on ice cream: what do they mean?
When choosing ice cream in the supermarket, you might notice food assurance labels on the packaging, such as the Rainforest Alliance logo. This means that the cocoa used in the ice creams has been certified as compliant with certain sustainability and welfare standards. See below for what each logo means.
Rainforest Alliance
Of the ice creams we tested, Magnum Classic, Asda’s Heavenly Moments and Aldi’s Giannai ice creams use Rainforest Alliance certified cocoa.
Products that carry the Rainforest Alliance logo must have systems in place to protect the farm’s natural biodiversity and resources, such as restrictions on the use of pesticides. They also must ensure workers are treated fairly and that child labour is not used.
UTZ
Lidl’s Gelatelli Classic ice creams are made with UTZ certified cocoa. UTZ is a sustainable farming program covering social, economic and environmental issues. It merged with the Rainforest Alliance in 2018, so products carrying the UTZ logo are likely to soon be transitioning over to the Rainforest Alliance logo.
Cocoa Life
The cocoa used in Cadbury’s Dairy Milk ice creams is produced in accordance with Cocoa Life, Mondelez’s own sustainability scheme. Under this scheme, farmers are trained to increase yields and income, and adopt good farming practices to protect forests. It also works to empower workers and combat child labour.
For more information about the different sustainability, welfare and food safety certification schemes, see our guide to decoding food labels
How do you eat a Magnum ice cream?
Whether you like to nibble off the outer chocolate layer first or bite straight into it, the best way to eat a Magnum ice cream is a hotly debated subject.
To find out which method is most popular, we carried out a poll of 505 people on Which? Conversation.
Most people told us they just bite straight into it, while around one fifth told us that they like to eat the chocolate first, then the ice cream. See the full results of the poll below.
- Bite straight into it, eating the chocolate and ice cream at the same time – 68%
- Eat the chocolate first, then the ice cream – 21%
- Suck the chocolate and the ice cream – 11%
If you prefer eating your ice cream from a bowl or piled high on top of a cone, see our round-up of the best vanilla ice cream
How we tested chocolate-covered ice creams
We tested 12 chocolate-covered ice creams including branded and supermarket own-label options.
We served the ice creams blind to a panel of 64 tasters to rate. They assessed them in a private booth, rating the taste, texture, appearance and aroma of each one.
The overall score is based on:
- 50% flavour
- 20% appearance
- 20% texture
- 10% aroma.
For more summer food recommendations, see our pick of the best pork sausages, mayonnaise and salted crisps
source https://www.which.co.uk/news/2021/07/magnum-beaten-by-cheap-supermarket-ice-cream-in-which-taste-test/