In these belt-tightening times, you've probably considered switching to cheaper home-brand products to make your budget go the distance.
For basics such as fresh milk, pasta and paper towels, switching brands might not seem like that big a deal – chances are you won't even notice the difference.
And some supermarket-branded products are actually pretty good: check out the cheaper supermarket home-brand products that outperform big-name brands in our tests.
When it comes to indulgences like ice cream, though, we tend to stick firmly to our favourite brands and wouldn't dream of giving them up in favour of supermarket cheapies.
It's totally understandable: the price might be right, but will the flavour be? Is lower quality the trade-off for a lower price?
Is the bargain product's taste as tempting as its price? Or has the Cornetto persisted for 65 years for good reason?
In pursuit of an answer, we put long-time Australian favourite, the classic vanilla Streets Cornetto, up against Aldi's copycat version, Monarc Crowns.
Is the bargain product's taste as tempting as its price? Or has the Cornetto persisted for 65 years for good reason?
CHOICE staff selflessly scoffed both ice creams in one sitting to give you the answer.
CHOICE staff Mel, Liam and Sharon take ice cream testing very seriously.
How we compared Cornettos and Crowns
Here's what we did:
To ensure there was no bias, we tasked our volunteers with a blind taste test, which means they couldn't tell which ice cream was which.
Testers were asked to taste each ice cream and tell us what they thought of it. We also asked them which one they thought was the real Cornetto Classico, and which one they liked most.
Aldi Crowns (left) and Streets Cornetto (right).
And the winner is…
Here's the scoop: Aldi Crowns were the crowd favourite, and not just by a little bit.
Every single taste tester preferred the Aldi ice cream, and every single taste tester was absolutely convinced that it was the Streets Cornetto Classico.
That's right: the Aldi dupes were so good that they duped everyone.
Had they known the price of each ice cream, our testers might have found the Crowns even sweeter. They cost just $3.49 for a pack of four – that's 95 cents each.
Not only were the Cornettos less popular with our taste testers, they're also likely to be less popular with anyone on a budget: they cost a huge $2.25 each – more than twice as much as the Crowns!
Aldi's bargain vanilla cones were crowned the winner.
What people said about Aldi Crowns:
- The ice cream has more flavour and feels creamier
- More nuts and chocolate on top
- The cone is crispier and stayed crisp all the way to the bottom
- The ice cream tastes more like vanilla and is a lot denser
- Nice chocolate, especially at the bottom
- More chocolate at the bottom
What people said about Streets Cornetto Classico:
- The cone is OK but nothing special
- Cone waffle tastes stale
- The ice cream is a bit icy and not very creamy
- The wafer was crispy at the start but soggy by the time I got to the bottom
- The ice cream doesn't taste 'real' – it's less dense and seems like it has more air in it
- The flavours taste 'cheaper'
When is ice cream not ice cream?
While it might sound nitpicky, sometimes what we think of as ice cream isn't technically ice cream at all.
To be sold as 'ice cream', a product needs to contain at least 10% milk fat and 16.8% food solids.
There are plenty of products in the freezer aisle that don't meet these requirements and so aren't actually ice cream (according to the letter of the law).
If you look closely, some products might not actually have the word 'ice cream' on the label at all
If you look closely, some products might not actually have the word "ice cream" on the label at all – they might be called "vanilla classic", "creamy vanilla flavoured", "original" or something along these lines.
While Cornetto Classico packaging references "fresh milk and cream", the nutrition panel is a little more specific about what's actually in the pack: "Vanilla flavoured frozen dairy dessert".
The ice cream in Crowns is the real deal, though. The packaging says it "includes 10% milk fat minimum".
Stock images: Getty, unless otherwise stated.
