We tried 23 tins of chopped tomatoes - two blew us away (and there's a great option for 47p)

Tinned tomato prices have spiked significantly over the past few years, so the team has been keen to do a taste test for a while now.

The hope: to find a cheap option that tastes as good on toast as it does in a sauce.

We tried 23 tins of chopped tomatoes, with prices ranging from 43p to a hefty £2.80.

Two received a full five stars, while one budget option stood out at the cheaper end of the market.

We came into this wondering how easy it would be to differentiate between each tin, but it turns out there's a lot more to a tin of tomatoes than meets the eye.

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Most interestingly perhaps, a majority of tins now contain a plastic lining to prevent the tomatoes from decaying the metal.

Many of these linings contain BPA, a chemical used to make rigid plastics, including food storage containers and refillable drinks bottles.

BPAs have been associated with health concerns.

On this, the Food Standards Agency says: "Where it is allowed to be used, tiny amounts of the chemical may be transferred from some packaging into food and drinks; however, the level of BPA detected in food to date in the UK is not currently considered to be harmful."

Counterintuitively, our testers found that the tins with a plastic lining tended to come with a metallic smell.

The tins with no plastic lining were almost exclusively at the budget end where there was no pull ring: Lidl Simply, KTC, Tesco Growers Harvest, Aldi Essentials, Asda Just Essentials, Morrisons Savers and Sainsbury's Stamford Street.

Only one premium brand, Casalinga, actively boasts of being BPA-free.

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A few other notes...

• At times, the origin of the tomatoes is hard to distinguish - "packed in Italy" could mean anything. We haven't noted the wording on each tin but, if this is something you care about, do look before you buy;
• Only two tins are purely tomatoes with a bit of salt - Mutti and Cirio. The rest contain citric acid;
• All the tins in our test contain 65% tomatoes and the rest is juice, unless stated.

With all that said, to the scores - and first, the two cans that received full 5/5 mark... Casalinga and Mutti.

Top marks

Imported by celebrity chef Gino D'Acampo and Scottish-Italian food expert Marco Silvagni, Casalinga has a distinct rich flavour, with a creaminess that comes through after cooking, making these tomatoes perfect for any kind of sauce or simply on toast. If you're able to justify £1.45 on a tin of tomatoes, these can't be matched.

At £1,10, Mutti aren't cheap either - and they're chopped super fine, so might not be for everyone. But they are exceptionally tasty, with the natural sweetness of tomatoes prompting our testers to say they'd happily eat them cold on something like bruschetta. They also have by far the longest "once opened" shelf life of five days.

Best option below 50p

Scoring a respectable 3.5, our favourite lower-cost option was Ocado's own brand. These are thinner and have a few more bits than other options at Ocado, but the taste holds up. Not too tangy and slightly sweet, there's a slight sourness to them.

What mark did our testers give your favourite tin? Scroll through our graphic to read the scores and our full verdicts:

(c) Sky News 2026: We tried 23 tins of chopped tomatoes - two blew us away (and there's a great option for 47p)