Welcome to our new series: a battle of the brands in which our expert cooks taste and rate UK supermarket ingredients. Who wins for quality and flavour, and how much should you spend?

Tinned tomatoes are wonderful, essential, enduring things: what would we do without them? Of the various types – whole, crushed, pulped, passata – chopped are particularly accommodating, providing a pleasing tomato presence while being easily reduced to sauce, and good value, too. However, chopped tomatoes (unlike whole tomatoes) can also be an excuse for a lesser product and more preservatives, which is why tasting and comparing is essential.

I always taste tomatoes cold, straight from the tin, with my eyes closed – a helper is useful – because, while deep red chunks and sauce are pleasing, they may have no bearing on flavour. I hope for a good balance of sweet, sour (acidity), salty (savoury), bitter and umami; chunks that are firm without being unduly crunchy or unripe; and a sauce that is full-flavoured and has a nice texture, and which might be velvety, but could equally be thinner but juicy. The highest compliment I can pay a tinned tomato is feeling that I could eat the contents cold from the tin.