In light of Veganuary, we have decided to taste and test some plant-based smoothies that can be found in your average supermarket. Smoothies have always been a great way to pack in your fruit and veg for those who find it difficult to consume at meal times. However, there has always been a debate about store-bought smoothies being a counter-active method of getting your nutrients due to such high sugar content from cheap juice concentrates and added sugars. Upon trying a various range of smoothies, we have listed qualities that we like and what we think needs improving whilst ranking each product using our scoring system of how good the label is, does it taste good and is it nutritious?
Naked
What we like:
- Their packaging is extremely eye-catching and they’ve made the contents of the smoothie visually clear through the use of illustrations.
- The vast range of innovative ingredients from spirulina, chlorella and blue green algae
Needs improving:
- Whilst marketing their product as a ‘
turbo charged gardeno’goodness ’, each bottle contains a staggering 49.5g of sugar which is 10g more sugar than an average can of soda.
Innocent
What we like:
- Innocent have incredibly strong branding. You can spot an innocent product from a mile away.
- Soy protein can taste extremely unpleasant and have a grainy texture, however, this soy protein smoothie makes us want more after 1 sip!
Needs improving:
- For marketing this product as a protein berry smoothie, the protein content isn’t as high as expected as it only contains 2.2g of protein per 100ml.
Press
What we liked:
- Instead of being heat treated or using cheap juice concentrates, Press smoothies are made by cold pressing the raw ingredients, therefore, retaining much of the nutritional value.
- The incorporation of ginger, turmeric and cayenne which, have anti-inflammatory properties and are rich in minerals, are great additions to this ‘immunity’ smoothie definitely living up to its name.
Needs improving:
- Whilst the choice of ingredients is unique to most conventional store-bought smoothies, the sugar content per 100ml is extremely high. Therefore, more product development in this area would be beneficial to counteract this issue.
Savse
What we like:
Savse has impressively managed to fit 8 different anti-oxidant rich fruit and vegetable in this relatively small bottle.- All their smoothies are raw and cold-pressed, therefore, maintains as much nutritional value as possible.
Needs improving:
- The bottle labelling and branding, whilst good, could be elevated further to reach the top spot for cleanliness of label.
Sainsbury’s Own Brand
What we like:
- The Sainsbury’ own brand smoothie range has done a stellar job on making the packaging look appealing and with great use of the informative illustration of the contents.
- In
addition they have also nailed the flavour profile of the tropical fruits and balanced out the sweetness with the addition of the lemon.
Needs improving:
- The ingredients included in this smoothie are very basic whilst holding minimal nutritional value to the addition of heat pasteurized juices and purees.
For Goodness Shakes
What we like:
- With their target audience being gym goers, they have impressively formulated a high protein, low fat and no sugar protein smoothie.
- Their ethical paper packaging using trees that have been sourced from responsibly managed forests making it attractive to the ethical shopper.
Needs improving:
- Sucralose has been proven to have negative health impacts, therefore, possibly switching to a formula with stevia would be beneficial to also suit the health conscious consumer.
That’s s wrap for our review on a range of plant-based smoothies this Veganuary. Moving on from smoothies, we will be reviewing various chocolate brands leading up to valentine’s day!
