Tesco Value Cornflakes > Reviews (12)

*INTRODUCTION*
My kids, like most kids, are fickle creatures. One week they like one particular cereal, the next week they won't touch it. After months of indecision and mind-changing I had a cupboard full of half-empty boxes that had cost me a small fortune. 'Enough is enough', I thought and decided that from now on I would only buy them value brands - to save both cupboard space and money. Now, you can't go wrong with cornflakes (I thought) so Tesco Value Cornflakes, at 44p for a 500g bag, were a cheap option.

*PACKAGING*
Tesco appear to have re-vamped the Value range, now including pictures on many of the products. I think this is an attempt to make the products look more appealing but in my opinion is unnessessary - you don't buy Tesco Value for the pretty packaging. The bag in which my cornflakes were contained is white with the traditional red colour also prevalent. It has the 'Tesco' logo in the top left corner, with the distinctive blue stripes above, and the word 'Value' underneath - noticeably smaller than before. The word 'Cornflakes' is written under that, but the bulk of the front is taken up with a picture of a large bowl of cornflakes - just in case there was any doubt about the contents. On the back Tesco provide you with the usual information, the most important of which I'll detail below:
Nutritional Information -
375cals per 100g
1.2g of fat per 100g
82.4g carbohydrate per 100g.
It's also packed full of the vitamins and minerals you get with the other, more pricey, brands.

Ingredients - Maize, sugar, barley, malt extract, salt, plus the vitamins.

There is also allergy advice (contains gluten), and various other bumf that no-one ever reads.
One more note before I (eventually) get to the cornflakes themselves - the bag. It's one of them annoyingly loud, scrunchy bags and isn't particularly strong, so caution is advised when opening.

*THE PRODUCT*
Hooray you say, down to the nitty-gritty at last! Once opened, I poked my nose in the bag to get an idea of what lay in store. Not that I got any clue as all I could smell was the bag itself. Undeterred, I took a peek at the golden flakes of corn. Not good. They were far paler than other brands and much thinner too. Most of the flakes were small and they just looked like a pale imitation of well-known brands.
So to the taste test. I first tried the cornflakes dry and surprisingly, they weren't bad. They were crispy with a good texture and had a reasonable taste, if a little artificial and carboardy (is that a word?). Once milk was added, however, they metamorphosised into something quite vile. They suddenly developed a sickly taste, and left my mouth feeling coated with oil - which is strange considering how low in fat they are. They go soggy as soon as they're shown the milk and the soggy texture is just unpleasant. On the upside, they make the milk taste quite nice.
I gave them to my kids the next morning, in the hopes they would find them more pleasant. No chance. The assault on their delicate, discerning palates was obvious and swift and they refused to take more than one spoonful.

*CONCLUSION*
At 44p these are a bargain but are quite disgusting. I've used up the rest of my bag either mixing them with Frosties or making cornflake cakes, but even then the foul, artificial taste can be detected.