OK, hands up ! Who's going to admit to putting a half empty tin of beans in the fridge rather than decanting the leftovers into a Tupperware box (or recycled ice cream tub, as we use in our house !) when you don't use up the whole tin ? Then, coming back to it a couple of days later, giving it a dubious sniff and looking at the manky dried up sauce around the top of the tin and throwing it in the bin ? I hate food waste and try to keep ours to a mimimum but I still own up to doing the above on a regular basis.
Well, when Heinz asked me if I'd like to try out their new fridge pack of beans, I wasn't expecting anything particularly new. I thought it would probably be a normal sized tin with a resealable lid to put over the top. I wasn't expecting the huge 1kg plastic jar full of Heinz baked beans that arrived ! It's the equivalent of two and a half tins which is great if you have a big family. One tin isn't enough for the whole Madhouse family but two is always too much so there's always a bit left over in the second tin, when we eat beans so this is the perfect size for us.
When you think about it, and once you've used the new fridge pack, selling beans - or any other perishable foods come to that - in a tin is a silly idea. It would be much better to put everything in resealable jars to keep them in perfect condition in the fridge.
As well as realising this and giving us a jar with a resealable lid, Heinz have provided a handy transparent gauge on the side so that you can see at a glance how many are left. Again, it's a feature I'd like to see on all food packaging as it would avoid nasty surprises like discovering there's only 1cm of milk left in the bottle when you are gasping for a cuppa ! Thinking back to my student days and some of the science experiments lurking in the back of the fridge (leftover slices of pizza or overripe tomatoes that harboured a surprisingly varied array of moulds, for example), the gauge also allows you to see if the food inside has gone mouldy without opening it !
I'm sure I don't need to tell you about the beans themselves, but just in case, they are high in fibre, virtually fat free and low in sugar. I actually didn't know that each serving counts as 1 of your 5 a day (as does some tinned spaghetti, which I couldn't get my head around !). They also contain no artificial colours, flavours or preservatives and they're a versatile ingredient, great for padding out chillis and casseroles as well as serving with your food. Since writing this review, I've been craving cheese and beans on toast so I think I might have to have that tonight now !
The Heinz Beans Fridge Packs are designed to fit on a standard fridge shelf and once opened, will stay fresh for up to 5 days which is much longer than usual. I'll be washing and recycling the Fridge Packs for other leftovers in the fridge, especially potentially messy-things like leftover soup or curry, as they're spillproof and I love the see-through bit on the side that makes life much easier when you have multiple Tupperwares in the fridge.
star rating : 4.5/5
RRP : £1.93 for 1kg
Other reviews you may be interested in :
I tried one of these the other day and I will admit that it did solve the half-a-tin-of-beans-in-the-fridge problem but it did cause another one... the I've got to eat beans every day for 5 days problem.
ReplyDelete