Christmas pre-order food - Sainsburys vs M&S

[JoanCollected]

I have an order in for a few items at M&S, but just saw Sainsburys have a pre-order catalogue too. In the past I ahve suspected that they use the same suppliers across certain products, like frozen bags of cauli cheese seem identical. I notice the Sainsburys Porchetta is £22 for bigger size than M&S at £40. What are the chances that M&S is far superior?? They have many very very similar items but in different packages, could they actually be the same? Sainsburys is far cheaper. Anyone familiar with the Sainsburys Christmas food?

I was wondering much the same. I looked at both over weekend and am dithering!

The Sainsbury’s beef wellington is half the price and was absolutely delicious, same size, no way I could have justified paying £80 for it from M&S.

I bought the chicken from their food order a couple of years ago and it was really nice. Not a fan of turkey. Have ordered it again along with the apple and caramel ham, 3 different flavoured cocktail sausages, maple roasted veg plus roast potatoes as I can’t be arsed spending all day in the kitchen.

You only pay a £20 deposit at Sainsbury’s when booking plus this year they have a Christmas dinner for 4 for £45 which is a really good deal. Have ordered from M&S in the past but a minimum of £50 is a bit much.

We did both Sains an M&S last year and was impressed with sainsburys and this year we are going mainly with them. Pick up wasn't crowded like m&s usual chaos and you get your deposit back as a voucher then have to take your shopping to a till to check out with it. I did write a note in my christmas book to skip the fresh gravy,bread sauce, condiment pack as then gravy was tiny. There's also a lot more to choose from this year too.

I was very disappointed when I treated us to a birthday buffet from M&S recently. The portions were tiny! Yes it was delicious but I ended up getting a friend to pop out mid-party to local Sbys to buy frozen party food to pop in the oven to make sure all the guests had enough to eat. Will be ordering my xmas food from Sbys for sure.

Thanks thats all really helpful! I did a check of the ingredients for comparable products and they are suspiciously similar, right down to the mustard powder in one and mustard extract in another. I genuinely think suppliers are the same but they rewrite the ingredients in any way they can so reorder them and use slightly different terms. Or reshape the item (panacotta star vs panacotta loaf shape). I'm going mostly sainsburys!