My five-minute mini-research into the own-brand green pesto of three supermarkets and one "big brand" revealed the following additives that are not allowed anywhere near my home-made pesto:

Waitrose: salt

Tesco: Yoghurt, sugar, milk, bamboo fibre, cashew, salt

Sainsbury's: Rapeseed oil, salt, potato flakes, vegetable fibre, egg lysozyme, grana padano

Big brand (Sacla): cashew, salt, grana padano, glucose, lactic acid, potato flakes, flavourings


Rapeseed oil is ultra-cheap compared with extra virgin olive oil. Just wrong for pesto. Grana padano is a cheap Parmesan substitute which is banned from our house. Why anyone would need to add extra salt to something with a sufficiency of Parmesan just defeats me. The percentage of pine nuts, where stated, was one percent or less. Hardly any, in other words. I suppose cashews are much cheaper. One cashew nut per pot, d'you suppose? :-). As for some of the other additives, well I'm scratching my head...

The other thing is that, with home-made, you have full control over the QUALITY of the cheese, the oil and the basil.

I'm really glad you prompted my research project!