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Best of Christmas 2013: the product road test

Our expert tasting panel tried several hampers' worth of Christmas treats to discover the best.

Richard Cornish
Richard Cornish

With every supermarket and food store barking for our attention in the quest to have us load up our Christmas tables with their products, we decided to put them to the test. We selected seasonal treats across all price ranges from around the nation to see if they were worth the money being charged. We put 40 items in front of a hand-picked panel of food experts in a blind taste test. The results were amazingly revealing, with some standout supermarket bargains unearthed and a handful of quality gems rising to the top. On the other hand, some well-known and trusted brands let us down and some artisanal products failed to make the grade. Click on each item below for the results.

The categories:

Shortbread

Fruit mince pies

Christmas cake

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The panel:

The Christmas tasting panel comprised: Allan Campion, Melbourne Food Experiences; Roslyn Grundy, co-editor The Age Good Food Guide; Stephen Hall, actor and comedy writer; Professor Russell Keast, Deakin University; Carol Rothschild, food consultant; Josephine Schneider, Pastry by Patersons; Mel Young, food consultant

Richard CornishRichard Cornish writes about food, drinks and producers for Good Food.

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