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Tayto Factory

Tandragee Castle Main Street, Tandragee, County, Armagh BT62 2AB

www.tayto.com

(028) 3884 0249

[email protected]

Tayto Castle in the Ulster countryside is where the terrific Tayto crisps are made. The castle is over 500 years old and was originally the home of the O’Hanlon clan, one of the mightiest and most powerful clans in all of Ireland. In 1619 King James I of England confiscated the castle from the O’Hanlon’s because they took part in a rebellion against Hugh O’Neill in County Tyrone. The ruins of the property were then passed into the hands of other families and became the home of the Duke of Manchester in the 1800’s.

In 1955 the castle needed repair and was bought by a visionary local businessman, Thomas Hutchinson. In 1956, he had the clever idea to make a new potato product called crisps, and started making Tayto crisps, creating one of the world’s best loved brands of crisps and snacks. Tayto became one of the first companies to sell different flavours of crisps with Smoky Bacon and Prawn Cocktail being two of the most popular as well as Cheese and Onion.

On the Tayto Factory Tour visitors will get the opportunity to meet Mr Tayto and experience the full magic of Tayto and see how our fantastic crisps and snacks are made. Pre-booking is required.

An enduring feature of Tayto has been Mr. Tayto, the brand’s lovable mascot. He’s a well-known and well-loved face across Northern Ireland and has travelled all over the world promoting Tayto, starring in many of his own advertisements.

Tours are conducted on Monday to Thursday 10.30am & 1.30pm and Friday at 10.30am only. The factory is closed on public holidays e.g. Christmas, Easter, May Day Bank Holiday and 12th July etc.

Adventure O'Clock

See the World Differently

Tayto Castle Tour: Realising The Dream

“Um, what? Where?” was my response the first time I heard about Tayto Castle. Despite being one of the UK's largest crisp manufacturers, I'd never even heard of Tayto, let alone their castle. I was assured this was a highlight of Northern Ireland, right up there with the Giant's Causeway. It was only when we were parked outside the castle however, that we realised the high walls and leafy trees completely obscured the view. We couldn't go in, couldn't see anything and ended up consoling ourselves with a packet of Tayto's crisps instead. Many years later, we finally realised the dream and joined a Tayto Castle tour to see their factory in action.

Welcome To The Tayto Castle Tour

After the safety briefing, our group was joined by a surprise visitor, Mr Tayto. Looking remarkably dapper in a smart red suit, the potato-headed mascot happily greeted us and a photoshoot ensued. It was then time to get dressed for the factory. We were each issued a blue plastic apron and an attractive shower cap style hat. Earrings were taped up and anyone with even the slightest hint of designer stubble was handed a beard net as well. With a healthy dollop of hand sanitiser for good measure, we were ready to go.

The Potato Store At Tayto Castle

First up was the potato store, a dingy and largely empty shed. Up to 400 tons of potatoes can be kept in one room here. They wrap the potatoes in a frost-protecting blanket, and leave them 'sleeping' in the dark until they're needed. It sounds like a lot but with Tayto Castle producing a million bags of crisps a day, they don't last long.

We dodged a forklift that zipped past us, depositing a crate of potatoes into a cradle suspended over a huge machine. The cradle flipped, dumping the potatoes into the hopper where they started their journey through the factory. Next, the spuds were de-stoned, washed and sliced before disappearing inside.

Ready For Our Tayto Tour

Keen to keep waste to a minimum, Tayto try to recycle wherever possible. The potato peelings are sold to farmers and used to make animal feed. Even the starch washed off the freshly sliced potatoes is dried out and sold to glue factories. This extra washing process doesn't happen to all of the crisps though. The poshest varieties are left with the starch intact.

Making Corn Snacks

As we walked on to the factory floor, we spotted a steady stream of crisps flying through transparent tubes.  The maize starch is shaped and baked in one part of the factory.  The freshly cooked corn snacks are then blasted elsewhere for flavouring and packing.

The Frying Room

Next up was the best bit, the frying room. We skidded and slid across the wet, oily floor to see the sliced potatoes disappearing into one end of the fryer. Just a few minutes later a torrent of freshly cooked crisps came flying out of the other end at around 30 mph. Surprisingly this didn't seem to damage the crisps.

They flew through the optical sorter, a machine that detects overcooked or burnt crisps. Any crisps that aren't up to scratch are shot down by a quick puff of air and discarded. One of the factory workers has the important task of scanning the conveyor belt, picking out any rogue crisps missed by the machine. With the opportunity to eat freshly baked crisps all day, we wondered how she managed to stay so slim. We were told the workers at Tayto Castle very quickly get over the novelty of the crisps. Most of them prefer chocolate instead.

At this point, we found out why our protective clothing was so important. We were shown how to tie up the bottom corners of our aprons to form a sizeable bowl for carrying crisps around. Our new bowls were filled with fresh, unflavoured crisps still warm from the fryer. They were delicious. We snacked on these as we learned about the flavouring process. Crisps and their flavourings rotate together in a large drum until the crisps are properly coated. They are then sent for packing.

Packaging Tayto Crisps

We saw carefully measured portions of crisps being dropped into long tubes of packaging. A couple of hot rods simultaneously seal the bag and cut it off from the main roll. The bags are then packaged by hand into boxes labelled WIP, or Work In Progress. Our bowls were refilled with the WIP crisps and we continued munching as we walked.  We passed a small lab where the WIP crisps are tested to ensure they are up to scratch.  They certainly tasted ok to us.

Once Tayto are happy that the crisps are perfect, they're properly packaged in branded boxes. A couple of robot arms were constantly whirling around, grabbing boxes and stacking them onto palettes. A giant spinning machine then wrapped the full palettes in plastic, much like the baggage wrapping machines at an airport.

The Number One Tayto Flavour

How many crisps can we eat.

Our guide ran around collecting different flavours and types of crisps for us to try. We sampled many of Tayto's original flavours along with their corn snacks, low-fat options and fancy crisps specifically branded for local supermarkets. They fed us so many crisps that even our guide was joking about the risk of tour participants being sick on the way home.

When we couldn't eat any more we were given bags of crisps to stuff in our pockets for later. And at the end of the tour, we were invited to choose yet more crisps from their shop to take home. In a moment of madness, they had nominated Chris as a responsible adult. He had to wear a high viz vest and help herd our tour group around the factory. The reward for his efforts? More crisps!

Who Are Tayto?

After being used by the US Army in WWII, Tandragee Castle was sold to Thomas Hutchinson.  He had come across the newfangled idea of potato crisps while travelling the world and was keen to get involved in this up and coming industry.  Shortly after, Tayto was born.  The first crisps produced at Tayto Castle were sold in tins and were only available in one flavour.  Over 60 years later, the original cheese and onion flavour is still the most popular.

Tayto make crisps and snacks for many of the big supermarkets in the UK but they're mainly sold under the supermarkets' own brand names.  They also export crisps to the USA.  Called O'Hanlons after the original owners of the castle, these crisps have an authentic Irish theme.  Each packet is decorated with Celtic patterns, shamrocks and even a photo of Tayto Castle itself.

At Tayto Castle Entrance

How to take a tayto castle tour.

Tayto Castle only offer tours on weekdays.  Monday to Thursday there are two tours a day.  There is only one tour on Fridays.

Tours can be quite busy so book in advance.  You can book a tour on the Tayto Castle website, or phone Tayto directly.

The tour lasts around 90 minutes and there can be up to 45 people in a tour group.  When we visited, there were about 25 people but we were split into 2 groups when we entered the factory.

Tayto Castle Tour Tips

We were asked to fill in a couple of forms before our tour.  Arrive early so you have time to complete the paperwork before the tour starts.

You will have the chance to meet Mr Tayto so have a camera ready if you want a photo.  After that, you will be asked to leave your camera, and other belongings, at the front desk.  You will not be allowed to take photos inside the factory.

If you have any visible piercings, it's a good idea to remove them before the tour.  Otherwise you will be expected to tape them up.

The information we were given in advance stated that all jewellery had to be removed before entering the factory.  In practice, anyone wearing rings was given a pair of gloves to wear.

The factory floor was wet in several places and the frying room was particularly slippery.  Wear sensible closed-toe shoes for your Tayto Castle tour.

How To Get To Tayto Castle

Tayto Castle is on the main street in Tandragee.  Use the smaller of the two gates next to the war memorial.

The easiest way to get to Tandragee is to drive yourself.  However you can take a bus from Portadown, Lurgan or Newry.  Coming from Belfast, take a train or bus to Portadown.  Then change to the No. 63 bus to Tandragee.

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Tayto Factory Tours

In a nutshell

Ever wondered how potato crisps are made? Children aged 5+ can join a tour at the Tayto Factory based in Tandragee, County Armagh and see how snacks and cri

Tayto Castle, Tandragee, Craigavon

Contact details

Tel: 028 3844 0340

Activity type

Indoor Activities

Suitable for

Ages 5 - 12, Schools and Groups, Teenagers

Price guide

£16.00.

(based on family of 4)

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Set deep in the heart of the Ulster countryside is Tayto Castle, where Tayto crisps and snacks have been made for OVER 60 years

Tayto Baby Bibs

Tayto Lanyard

Tayto Christmas Sack

Tayto Bobble Hat

Tayto Sports Bottle

Tayto Shopping Bag

Tayto Toffee Popcorn (10x170g)

Salt & Vinegar (32)

Rough Cuts – Roast Ox (32/36)

Beef & Onion (32)

Smoky Bacon (32)

Ready Salted (32)

Vintage Irish Cheddar & Onion (8x125g)

Slow Roasted Beef & Peppercorn (8x125g)

Tayto Cinema Sweet Popcorn (10x100g)

Rollers – Onion (20)

Cheese & Onion Socks

Ulster Weavers Tayto Tea Towel

Tayto Boxer Shorts

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Inside Walkers - the biggest crisp factory in the world

Seven million bags of crisps are made every day on the outskirts of Beaumont Leys

• 16:08, 10 JUL 2017
• Updated 11:57, 20 SEP 2019

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This is the seldom-told story of The Biggest Crisp Factory in the World; a vast grey building right here, in Leicester, on the outskirts of Beaumont Leys, LE3. This is where seven million bags of crisps are made every day. Yep, you read that right. Seven million. 7,000,000 bags of crisps come out of the Walkers crisps plant every single day.

The factory – you smell it before you see it; a heady whiff of fried potatoes hangs over the 16-hectare site – is the envy of the crisp-making world. They come here, crisp-makers from America, Europe, all corners of the savoury snack-loving globe, to see how Walkers do it.

The site, bought by the company in 1982 to prepare for a predicted rise in demand, has put Leicester on the map, not just in the UK, but also around the world.

So how do they do it? How does it work? How do they make the best crisps in the land at The Biggest Crisp Factory in the World?

This is what we wanted to know. It seemed to take a long time to find out. There were phone calls to Walkers, diverted to a big PR firm in London, more e-mails and endless conversations that seemed to drag on and on.

Why do you want to come here, they asked? What do you want to know? What does it all entail?

They seemed to have more questions than us. It was like getting into Willy Wonka’s Chocolate Factory.

Finally, after months of to-ing and fro-ing a date was set.

Come over, they said. We’ll show you how it works.

First, though, some facts.

Walkers is the most popular crisp manufacturer in the country, making 11 different varieties of crisp and maize-flavoured snack, selling about 60 million bags every week. Apparently, 99 per cent of the population eat Walkers crisps. In a vibrant snack market – we are, if nothing else, a nation of crisp eaters – Walkers is The Daddy. It has a huge market share.

The firm has six manufacturing sites around the UK, employing 4,000 people. The biggest plant, though, is right here, where 1,100 people work in two enormous factories – Bursom Road and Leycroft Road – and a huge, fully-automated warehouse where enough crisps are stored to sustain a small country.

This is snack-making on a scale so huge, so vast, it’s hard to take it all in. The factory operates 24 hours a day, 363 days a year. It closes on two days a year – Christmas Day and New Year’s Day. And yet all of this, this kingdom of crisps, the Leicester-based empire of salty snacks, began more by luck than judgement.

Once upon a time, in the late 19th century, Victorian butcher Henry Walker bought a small shop in Leicester’s High Street.

The success of his business producing pork pies and sausages led Walker to search for bigger premises. He found them in Cheapside, near Leicester market. He bought the shop in 1912.

The world-famous Walkers crisp was born in 1948, when post-war meat rationing left Henry feeling the pinch.

Walker had a choice – either branch out or go bust. He was going to make ice-cream, but decided he didn’t have enough room in his fridges.

Instead, he made crisps, peeled and chopped by hand and cooked in beef dripping in a rusty old frier.

Walkers crisps were born.

It’s not hard making crisps, site manager Simon Devaney. It’s just one ingredient, after all. It’s not like creating some fancy, five-tiered cake.

What is hard is making the perfect crisp – and then making it again and again, perfect crisps, every day, every week, all the time.

That’s the key, says Simon, who has worked here for 13 years. Excellence and consistency. And this, he reckons, is where Walkers excels.

There are six steps to making crisps:

• The arrival of the potatoes
• Washing and peeling

That’s it. There is nothing more to it than that. It is just as you might expect.

What is impressive, though, is not necessarily what they do – but they way they do it, the size of the operation and how quickly a lorry full of potatoes are turned into crisps.

It takes just 20 minutes to make a bag of Walkers. They do it all – washing, scrubbing, slicing, frying, flavouring and bagging – in little more time than it would take you to nip to the shops, buy a bag and eat them.

This is the essence of Walkers, says Simon. Speed. Keeping the ingredients fresh.

We’re about to go on a tour, but first Simon wants to relieve me of everything I own.

No car keys. No phone. No watch. No wedding ring. No change. No glass, no plastic, no slightly-chewed Bic pen with removable parts.

I give Simon all of that. He gives me a hi-vis jacket and an Ena Sharples hair net. Men with beards have to wear beard nets, too. You can just imagine how dandy that looks. All this just in case I temporarily lose my marbles, presumably, and start throwing 5p pieces or bits of Biro into the crisps. “Can’t have that,” says Simon.

The Lady Rosetta is the queen of potatoes

Huge truck loads of potatoes arrive almost constantly at the Beaumont Leys site. Forty tonnes of potatoes, from one of 150 approved potato farms across the UK, are used here every hour. This is where the process begins.

“If you imagine the floor area of the Leicester Tigers stadium, and imagine that entire area covered with a carpet of potatoes – that’s how many we get through every single hour,” says Simon.

They use a potato called The Lady Rosetta at Walkers. It may sound like an underwhelming goth band from the 1980s, but The Lady Rosetta is the queen of potatoes.

“It doesn’t mash, it doesn’t boil or roast very well – it’s not a versatile potato – but chip it and fry it and it’s the best potato there is,” says Simon.

It’s not an accident that the Lady Rosetta is the finest potato for making crisps. It’s been developed that way, says Simon.

“We’ve researched its cell structure, its water content. It’s all been very carefully and purposefully developed.”

Little is left to chance in the construction of the nation’s favourite crisp. Farmers growing potatoes destined for the Walkers factory have a new app on their phones which can measure exactly how much moisture is in the ground, informing the farmer not only if the potatoes need watering, but also precisely how much water they need.

This is the appliance of crisp-making science, from the field to the bag.

'This is, surely, the worst job in the building'

The potatoes are placed into a giant drum and washed and scrubbed. No chemicals are used. Just water. The inside of the drum is lined with sandpaper. The process lasts for 45 seconds. The potatoes flip around the drum and roll out on to a conveyor belt. Some, you can’t help but notice, seem better scrubbed than others.

That doesn’t matter, says Simon. “We want only the very top layer to come off,” he says, “because most of the goodness in the potato is right under the skin.”

Spuds that don’t come up to scratch – potatoes that are too small, too bruised, covered in black eyes – are picked out by CCTV cameras, somehow re-routed from the conveyor belt and binned. It’s less than one per cent, says Simon.

The potatoes are about to be sliced. Just one man – sitting down, wearing gloves, overalls and a hairnet – stands in their way. It’s his job to check that no imperfect potatoes have managed to evade the CCTV cameras and slip through the net.

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He is the last in line. He looks, unsurprisingly, utterly bored. This is, surely, the worst job in the building: one man, and a conveyor belt of potatoes that never stops.

The poor chap must dream of potatoes, moving potatoes, rows and rows of them, every night.

Don’t worry, says Simon. “He gets regular breaks – and, thankfully, he doesn’t do it all day long.”

Three snare drum-sized steel @drums – each one equipped with razor-sharp steel blades – whirr constantly, slicing their way through acres of scrubbed and washed spuds.

This process, the cutting of the potatoes, never stops. The steel blades are replaced every 90 minutes.

It doesn’t sound long, says Simon. But they get through a lot of potatoes in an hour-and-a-half.

“We could perhaps leave them a bit longer – but that might compromise the quality of the slice,” he says. And you don’t want that, he adds.

We’re on the line where the Extra Crunchy range are made, so these potatoes are cut into exact 1.40mm slices.

“We like the crisps here to be a little bit thicker,” says Simon.

Sunseed is the king of oils

Slices of freshly-cut potato fall from the drum-sized slicers – flat, 1.4mm thick, perfectly formed – fall on to another conveyor belt and into a huge vat of boiling oil.

Sunseed oil, if you want to be exact. They’ve been doing all kinds of complicated scientific experiments to find an oil that is lower in fat but doesn’t compromise crunch or taste.

After years of research, sunseed oil was found to be the best oil. It fries the potatoes perfectly, but it’s 80 per cent lower in saturated fat. The crisps enter a huge, covered vat of sunseed oil. They go in on the left and come out on the right, after a quick 10-minute dip into a bath of oil heated to precisely 170 degrees centigrade.

The oil is constantly renewed and changed every eight hours.

The Extra Crunchy crisp is fried for nearly 10 minutes; your standard crisp gets just three minutes. They come out of the frier a golden shade of light brown: perfectly cooked, still warm. This section of the factory smells glorious.

The crisps go on to another conveyor belt. They are a foot deep, winding their way towards a huge revolving drum where they are salted and flavoured.

Simon digs into this never-ending river of just-cooked crisps and spreads out a good handful on a tray. They are hot. They have just been cooked.

“Would you like one?” he says.

Would we like one? They disappear in seconds. They are magnificent.

“Shall we just stay here all day?” says the photographer, Mikey, his face full of crisps.

To the left us, they’re making Wotsits. To the right, it’s sweet chili Sensations in bags the size of small pillows. Everywhere you look, crisps in various states of completion are being ferried around on conveyor belts.

Our crisps – the ones we have followed for just 15 minutes – are about to be salted. They are tipped into a huge drum and sprinkled with salt from salt mines in Cheshire.

That’s important, too, says Simon. All the ingredients should be British. “Our potatoes are British, the salt is from Cheshire, the tomatoes we use are from Worcestershire.”

There’s even real British chicken in the chicken-flavour crisps, much to the ire of savoury snack-loving vegetarians.

Sorry about that, says Simon. “But it’s only right that chicken flavour crisps should contain proper chicken rather than something that has been nowhere near a chicken.

There are other flavours, if you can’t eat the chicken, he adds.

They have reduced their salt content by more than 50 per cent in recent years. The trick here, says Simon, is to get the salt on the crisps – and not in the bag.

“It’s why the speed, getting the crisp still warm into the drum, so the salt will stick to the crisp, is crucial.”

So that’s it, really, says Simon. Potatoes. Oil. Seasoning. That’s all there is to it. “It’s not how crisps are made that’s important – it’s the way we make them,” he says.

The final step: the bagging.

It’s all done by machine. From start to finish, the crisps have been untouched by human hand.

'Everyday luxury'

It’s probably why they can do it all so quickly – from truck to bag in 20 minutes. I’m not sure what I envisaged, frankly. I didn’t expect to see a row of old women peeling potatoes, men with aprons frying potatoes in little fryers. I knew it would be big. I just didn’t think it would be that big. The scale of the operation is massive.

Rolls of plastic are formed into bags, the crisps are digitally weighed so the exact amount goes into each bag, and they’re bagged, boxed – most of this is done by machine, too – and sent by monorail to the warehouse.

The warehouse is 24 metres high. Inside are 33,000 pallets of crisps. They’re on the supermarket shelves in days.

And then the whole process begins again, over and over, day after day after day.

In an era where most businesses have been affected by the recession, Walkers has stood firm.

“It hasn’t really affected us. I think we’re called an everyday luxury.

“If people have been cutting back, they haven’t really cut back on crisps. We’ve done well, here, really. It’s something Leicester should be proud of. It’s a real success story.”

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It’s the perfect place for us, because it has a warmer climate (by British standards!) which potatoes love. In fact, a third of all potatoes in the UK come from East Anglia.

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A collective which includes most of our potato suppliers, the majority of whom are within just 30 miles of our factory. They work alongside us to ensure that our potatoes, our relationships with our farmers and our supply chain are the best they can be.

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We’re testing out new varieties all the time, to make better KETTLE® Chips and to reduce our environmental impact, such as improving the number of potatoes we get from each harvest, and exploring varieties with lower water requirements.

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We were delighted to be the recipient of a £1m grant from the European Agricultural Fund for Rural Development, which allowed us to grow our business further in Norfolk.

This funding supported our £2.7m project to improve potato in-take at Kettle Foods, which we used to contribute towards an additional building at our Norwich site. Now, we are able to handle extra volumes of potatoes, reduce damage and waste at the same time, as well as provide a new home for the Kettle Growers Group sampling and lab services close to our growers in North Norfolk.

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MINI Plant Oxford Tour

Experience innovative technology and sustainable mobility at one of the oldest automotive plants in the world – the MINI Plant Oxford

The MINI Plant Oxford has been in continuous production since 1913. It is not only one of the oldest automobile plants in the world but also the birthplace of the MINI. Following the launch of the new MINI in 2001, the car ensured the brand’s worldwide success: more than 10 million MINIs were sold in 110 countries around the world. Today, following significant investment over the years, the plant is among the leaders of technology and sustainability in automotive production. Every day, employees at the plant produce around 1,000 cars in three different body styles. Before and after the tours, you will have the opportunity to visit the MINI Museum. There you can follow the development of the cult car from the Bullnose to the classic MINI.

i FACTORY EXPERIENCE at the BMW Group Plant Oxford

In 90 minutes, you will gain fascinating insights into the body shop and the final assembly. At the MINI Plant Oxford, which is two and a half times the size of the famous Westminster Abbey in London, up to 1,000 cars are manufactured everyday. Starting in the body shop, you will see how 1,200 robots and 650 employees produce the basic framework of the MINI from steel sheets. Continue on to the final assembly hall, where you can watch live as the MINI takes shape – from the installation of the cockpit to the wedding of the power units and through to validation – where the car is put through its paces.

The Family Tour takes families with children and teenagers on a journey into the world of automotive production. In around 90 minutes, the contents of the Basic Tour are conveyed in an age-appropriate way. Discover how a MINI is created from thousands of individual parts in the body shop and in the final assembly. If you have any questions, please contact our team: [email protected] .

Book your iFACTORY EXPERIENCE at the MINI Plant Oxford now. We look forward to welcoming you to the plant soon!

Please Consider These Points Before Visiting the Oxford Plant:

• Current global events can have a significant influence over our production. As a result, tours may have to be cancelled for operational reasons. Should this happen to you, we will offer you an alternative date or schedule a refund as soon as possible.
• Children under the age of 14 are not allowed on the factory premises. Children between the ages of 14 and 16 may only enter the plant premises if accompanied by an adult. School classes are an exception, here the following regulation applies: schoolchildren as young as 11 are allowed to enter the factory premises. However, school classes with children aged 11 to 14 must be supervised. An adult may supervise a maximum of two children at the same time.
• Children between the ages of 14 and 18, students, severely disabled people, pensioners and BMW Group employees receive reduced admission. Please have a valid ID ready.
• Closed shoes must be worn during the tour.
• Photography and filming are not permitted during the tour.
• Animals are not allowed in the facility.
• Personal items, especially electronic devices such as smartphones or tablets, must be left in a lockable cabinet as they are not allowed on the visitor path.
• The tour is not suitable for pregnant women as well as for people with an electronic medical implant (e.g. pacemakers, insulin pumps, etc.).
• The consumption of food and beverages is not permitted during the tour. Smoking is also prohibited.
• No restroom visits are allowed during the tour. There will be opportunities to visit restrooms before and after the tour.
• Tickets are available at the ticket store. Please note that all tickets for tours must be purchased in advance. There is no ticket purchase available on site.
• Audio guides with headphones are provided for a full tour experience. Wearing the headphones is mandatory. If you are unable to wear headphones for health reasons, please contact the booking centre prior to your visit to the factory.

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A new competitor has emerged on the condiment shelf - Nando's ketchup.

It's being advertised as a twist on the traditional sauce, with a touch of "peri-peri magic" for your chips, burgers or bolognese.

This translates into a small amount of spices like cayenne pepper, bird's eye chilli, ginger, garlic, and paprika, as well onion and lemon purees.

We've taken a look at how it stacks up against the other ketchups on Asda's shelves below, with some key takeaways:

• Hellmann's has the most tomatoes and the least calories per serving
• Asda's own brand is by far the most affordable - with a very similar ingredients list to market leader Heinz
• Nando's is, just, the most expensive per 100g, though it's tricky to compare against all the below as some are only available in bigger bottles
• The main ingredient in Leon's, uniquely, is not tomatoes but water
• Leon's has the least sugar per serving

Price per 100g: 94.3p (for normal sized bottle) Main ingredient: Tomato paste (140g tomatoes per 100g) Calories: 17kcal per serving Sugar per 100g: 20g

Price per 100g: 80p (for normal sized bottle) Main ingredient: Tomatoes (148g per 100g) Calories: 15kcal per serving Sugar per 100g: 22.8g

Asda own brand

Price per 100g: 14.9p (only available in jumbo sized bottle) Main ingredient: Tomatoes (148g per 100g) Calories: 15kcal per serving Sugar per 100g: 21g

Price per 100g: 92.2p (normal sized bottle) Main ingredient: Water (with tomato paste second at 25%) Calories: Not available Sugar per 100g: 16.6g

Price per 100g: 29.2p (one up from normal sized bottle) Main ingredient: Tomatoes (117g per 100g) Calories: 17kcal per serving Sugar per 100g: 22g

Price per 100g: 40p (two up from normal sized bottle) Main ingredient: Tomatoes (168g of tomatoes per 100g) Calories: 13kcal per serving Sugar per 100g: 18g

Asda is the first to offer Nando's tomato sauce but it is expected to roll out at Sainsbury's, Tesco and other supermarkets in the coming months.

Virgin and Clyesdale Bank have announced a slight drop in their standard variable rate mortgage rates - in what could be seen as a precursor to a base rate cut in a few weeks' time.

From today, their SVR stands at 9.24% - down from 9.49%.

Barclays and Halifax have also announced they are dropping selected fixed- rate deals from tomorrow - continuing a trend we have seen in recent weeks.

Cowboy builders face a crackdown on trader recommendation websites under new guidelines proposed by the industry watchdog.

The Competition and Markets Authority says the web pages must tackle fake reviews and vet the tradespeople they advertise after "worrying evidence" emerged.

The regulator has published a first draft of its advice following concerns over websites that fail to sanction rogue traders, offer a complaints process, or monitor traders while making misleading claims about their trustworthiness.

Plusnet customers will from today see their mid-contract price changes expressed as "pounds and pence" rather than percentages in a bid by the internet provider to make information clearer for customers.

Price comparison service Uswitch has praised the move which gives "greater clarity" to consumers.

"The new model provides certainty when it comes to the cost of your contract and makes it easier for customers to manage their finances," the Uswitch telecoms expert Ernest Doku said.

The new model, which applies to new and existing customers who take out contracts after today, will see mid-contract charges at a flat rate for all customers - a yearly increase of £3 per month.

People with coeliac disease are paying up to 35% more for their weekly shop, research has found, with some even eating gluten to avoid paying higher costs despite the potential impact on their health.

A new report by Coeliac UK has found that 77% of people with the disease struggle to afford gluten-free products from supermarkets.

Seven in 10 people said shopping gluten free "adversely affects their quality of life" due to the cost and availability of the food on supermarket shelves and online.

Around 4% are choosing to eat gluten despite the risk to their health because of concerns around the cost of gluten-free food, while 27% would eat products with "may contain" for the same reason.

The research by Coeliac UK revealed that loaves of bread are 4.5 times more expensive on average, while pasta and plain flour are twice as pricey when made gluten free.

If you're thinking of stocking up on Sainsbury's snacks and drinks for Sunday's big game, you'd better do it ahead of time.

Like rival Tesco, the supermarket has announced it is closing convenience stores and petrol stations early across England so staff can tune into the Euros final.

More than a thousand branches will be closing at 7.30pm on Sunday, rather than 10pm or 11pm.

"We want to give our colleagues the chance to tune in live and cheer on England with friends and family. The atmosphere in stores is electric after last night's win," said Clodagh Moriarty, chief retail and technology officer.

Supermarket hours are unaffected as they usually close before the 8pm kick-off. 

Any online grocery orders which have already been booked will be honoured.

All branches will reopen at their usual time on Monday.

Earlier this week, business presenter Ian King answered questions from Money blog readers about what the new Labour government means for their personal finances.

One question related to the two-child cap on child benefit - which Labour have at times suggested they're ideologically opposed to, but won't commit to changing because of the cost.

Responding to a question about whether taxes could be raised for oil and gas companies to pay for scrapping the cap, King said: "The Resolution Foundation has estimated that the two-child benefit cap will save the government £2.5bn during the current financial year - which would rise to £3.6bn if applied to all families claiming universal credit.

"Labour is committed to raising the levy on North Sea oil and gas producers from the current 75% to 78% - and has earmarked the money raised will go towards funding its wider plans for energy and, in particular, decarbonisation.

"It would be ill-advised to raise taxes further. The decisions it has made have already had an impact on investment in the North Sea, as I report here.

"And don't forget, the cap is not just about saving money. It's also about avoiding awkward newspaper headlines and stories about big families being paid a small fortune in benefits of the kind that embarrassed the last Labour government and angered so many of its traditional working-class supporters in particular."

You can read all 21 of King's answers here ...

A "nationwide issue" has been affecting card payments.

Many social media users were reporting being unable to pay for their shopping in supermarkets this morning.

More than 600 people were flagging issues with Visa on Down Detector as of 9.45am, while over 100 had problems with Mastercard payments as of 10am.

A sign in one Sainsbury's store was requesting customers pay for their shopping in cash.

The supermarket said on social media it had been aware of a "nationwide issue" with card payments.

Vanessa Meehan, in Twickenham, said: "I've just been turned away at Sainsbury's as they can't accept card payments. Petrol station also coned off. The car is running on fumes and I need to get supplies."

A Sainsbury's spokesperson told Sky News at 11am that contactless payments had resumed after being "briefly unavailable for a few minutes this morning".

They said this was caused by an issue with its third-party payment provider.

"We're accepting all payments as usual and continue to monitor the situation. We're sorry for any inconvenience this may have caused," the supermarket said.

Asda also confirmed its payment systems were back up and running following temporary issues with Visa.

A Visa spokesperson confirmed to Sky News it had been aware cardholders were experiencing issues when making payments.

"While Visa's systems are operating normally, we are working with our partners to investigate," they added.

Mastercard said it was "aware of some payment transaction issues at select merchants in the UK" and was working to gather more information.

"There is no current indication that these issues are related to our network," a spokesperson said.

The UK's biggest supermarket chain has told customers its Express stores across England will close at 7.30pm instead of the usual 10pm or 11pm on Sunday - after England reached the Euro 2024 final.

It said the decision had been taken to allow its staff to get home or to the pub in time for kick-off at 8pm. 

Employees who do not want to watch the match will be paid as normal, it said. 

Stores will be open as normal the following morning. 

England are playing Spain in the final - and will have the chance to become the first England men's team to win a major tournament since the World Cup in 1966. 

By James Sillars , business reporter 

Faltering expectations for imminent interest rate cuts are playing out in financial markets today.

The pound is at a four-month high versus the dollar at $1.28.

That has been largely put down to remarks by Bank of England rate-setter Huw Pill, the Bank's chief economist, that the timing of the UK's first rate cut was an "open question".

He spoke up just 24 hours after another member of the monetary policy committee ruled out personal support for a reduction on 1 August.

Jonathan Haskel said too many stubborn inflationary pressures remained.

As such, financial markets now see only a 50/50 chance of a rate reduction to 5% from 5.25% at the next Bank meeting.

The chance of a cut had stood at 60% at the start of the week.

The pound has lifted as higher interest rates are generally supportive of a domestic currency.

Elsewhere, the FTSE 100 has opened to a flat calm - up just a couple of points at 8,000.

A big focus for investors this morning was the interim decision by water regulator Ofwat on what suppliers could charge their customers over the next five years.

To give you some idea of the reaction, shares in United Utilities and Severn Trent opened up by around 2%. Those of Pennon, the company behind South West Water, were up by more than 6%.

Water companies in England and Wales have been told they will not be allowed to impose the hikes to bills they have demanded, the industry regulator has said in an interim verdict on their business plans for the next five years.

Ofwat declared that it was minded to slash, by a third, the combined increases that the 16 companies had submitted.

It left the average bill, the watchdog said, set to rise by £19 a year or 21% over the period.

Read our report here ...

Meanwhile, more compensation, possible refunds and new customer panels have been announced as part of the government's "initial steps" towards ending what it describes as the crisis in the water sector.

You can read this story here ...

The appearance of finer weather helped the economy recover some lost ground in May, according to official figures that were better than expected.

The Office for National Statistics (ONS) recorded gross domestic product growth of 0.4% in the month, compared with its earlier determination of  zero growth during April .

A poll of economists by Reuters had pointed to a 0.2% increase for monthly gross domestic product in May.

On a quarterly basis, the UK's interest rate-driven recession of the second half of 2023 ended at the start of this year as the  Bank of England  ended its rate hiking cycle which was designed to cool inflation by choking demand in the economy.

Read our full story here ...

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