'I compared Aldi, Sainsbury's and Tesco Valentine's Day roses to find the best'

13 February 2023 , 12:17

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We decided to see which supermarket roses lasted the longest (Image: Freddie Bennett)

For Valentine's Day, giving that special someone in your life flowers is a great way of showing them how much they mean to you. But buying flowers can often be a bit of a maze as with so many different options to chose from it can be difficult to know which is best.

But the advantage of getting them from the supermarket rather than the florist is the bargain prices but you do not have to skimp on the quality by taking this option.

So we decided to put three supermarket flowers to the test and there was a clear winner.

There was one clear winner from the three (Freddie Bennett)

We opted to buy roses from Aldi, Tesco and Sainsbury's to see which would last the longest. Roses felt like a good option for this test as supermarkets have them all year round - but they're a classic on Valentine's Day, with an estimated 250 million sold worldwide for February 14.

I compared them against several criteria - how much they cost, the quality, freshness and how the flowers would fare over seven days. I then spent the week watching their progress so I could rank them from best to worst and give my final verdict.

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To test the flowers fairly, I trimmed all of the stems, put them into separate glasses half-filled with water and placed them in the same location. I also added the shop's designated plant food to each bouquet's glass.

Here is what I thought of each of the supermarket roses.

Sainsbury's

Sainsbury's was the first of the shops I hit up. As I expected there was a good range of roses options available. After a bit of a browse, I settled on the Rose Duo selection which were a little pricey at £8. But these were in the medium price range with plenty being more expensive.

When I first got these out of the packet, not too many leaves fell off and each of the petals looked vibrant and brightly coloured which was a very good sign.

Over the first few days these flowers remained pretty healthy and there was no sign of the petals starting to lose colour or any of the flowers starting to drop.

It would be safe to say these looked the most aesthetically pleasing out of the different flowers bought for this test.

By the latter end of the week there were some slight changes to the flowers in that the petals started to lose their colour slightly and the flowers had began to drop. However, they were still looking fairly fresh and definitely lasted well for the whole seven days.

Rating 4/5

Day one (Freddie Bennett)

Day seven (Freddie Bennett)

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Tesco

Next up on the agenda was Tesco and once again there was a huge variety of options available which initially gave me a lot of food for thought but after a quick search I saw the rose and lily duo for £6 so I decided to pick them up.

Similarly to Sainsbury's, on getting these out of the packaging, not too many leaves fell off - which tells me they were in a pretty healthy condition to begin with.

And on the first day they looked tall and vibrant with an array of yellow and red petals.

Some of the issues started to arise after a few days of the test as on the third day some of them had started to droop and lose a tinge of colour.

However, by the last day the flowers were still looking healthy enough but some had lost a bit of colour and some of the leaves had gone crispy so they did not last quite as well as their Sainsbury's counterparts.

Rating 3.5/5

Day one (Freddie Bennett)

Day seven (Freddie Bennett)

Aldi

Last up in the test was Aldi which did not have a huge selection to chose from but still offered a variety of roses. For this test I decided to pick up the Bright Fair trade Roses for £2.99.

On the first day these appeared to be the least healthy of the three with a handful more leaves falling out on getting out of the pack.

A few days in it was clear these weren't going to last well for the seven days as some of the colour started to leave them quite quickly.

By the end of the week, a lot of the flowers had completely wilted and lost almost all of the colour which made them appear far less aesthetically pleasing, making this the worst bunch of the three..

Rating 2.5/5

Day one (Freddie Bennett)

Day seven (Freddie Bennett)

The Verdict

Although the Aldi flowers were the cheapest they lost a lot of marks for how quickly they started to go bad and lose colour.

And despite Sainsbury's being more expensive it was clear that you were getting more bang for your buck as they comfortably lasted the duration of the test without many issues. This is not the first time Sainsbury's have come out on top in a flower test as the chain also beat out Tesco and Morrisons in a Mother's Day flower comparison last year. So the shop clearly knows a thing or two about their flowers.

Tesco came in second place as they were less expensive than Sainsbury's but did not manage to last quite as well as them which put them into the middle of the pack.

Freddie Bennett