A SUPERMARKET’S own-brand cheddar has been crowned winner of a blind taste test, pipping Cathedral City to first place.

The group of shoppers, put together by consumer champion Which?, gave the top spot to a retailer’s Best Buy cheese.

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The Tesco Finest 12-month Matured Cheddar was praised for its firm but smooth texture, saltiness and strength of flavour.

Tasters also said the 350g pack, on sale for £4, was crumbly and creamy.

Overall, shoppers gave the classic cheese a 78% rating factoring in flavour, aroma, appearance and texture.

A Cornwall cheddar came second in the blind taste test, which asked tasters to try a range of own-brand and branded packs.

The Davidstow Classic 12-month Matured Cheddar, on sale at Amazon, Morrisons, Ocado, Sainsbury’s and Tesco from £4.75 for a 350g pack, scored a decent 75% rating from shoppers.

They rated the cheese highly for its strength of flavour, crumbly texture, saltiness and creaminess.

M&S’ Cornish Cove Mature Cheddar got a 73% overall rating from shoppers and was classed as a good all-rounder.

Shoppers said the cheddar’s salt level was just right while its smooth firm texture also had tasters singing high praise.

The 350g pack came in at £4 and can be bought at M&S in-store or via Ocado.

Shoppers also tested out six other major cheddar cheeses, including from Aldi, Asda, Co-op and Sainsbury’s.

The Castello Tickler Mature Cheddar on sale at Ocado and Waitrose for £4.75 for a 300g pack, came in fourth place.

Shoppers said it tickled their taste buds but a few who tucked in wanted a slightly stronger hit of cheddar.

Major brand Cathedral City’s 350g pack of Our Mature Cheddar came in at £3.50 and while many loved the taste, shoppers also said it lacked a tangy punch.

Meanwhile, two cheeses from Aldi and Co-op came in second bottom and bottom place, with 68% and 66% overall scores.

Here is the full list of cheeses and how they fared in the taste test:

• Tesco Finest Mature English Cheddar Cheese – 78%
• Davidstow Classic Cheddar – 75%
• M&S Cornish Cove Mature Cheddar Cheese – 73%
• Castello Tickler Mature Cheddar Cheese – 71%
• Cathedral City Our Mature Cheddar – 70%
• Pilgrims Choice Mature Cheddar – 70%
• Sainsbury’s Barber’s Mature Cruncher Cheese, Taste the Difference – 69%
• Aldi Specially Selected West Country Mature Cheddar – 68%
• Co-op Irresistible Somerset Mature Cheddar Cheese – 66%

Natalie Hitchins, Which? head of home products and services, said: “Finding an affordable and tasty cheddar cheese is a must for many shoppers.

“Tesco emerged as the preferred choice in our taste tests for its firm and smooth texture and was awarded a Best Buy.

“This narrowly beat Davidstow’s Classic Cheddar, proving that own brand products can be just as delicious and more affordable than the big brands.”

It’s worth bearing in mind, the prices included in Which?’s taste test are correct as of October 7.

That means you might have to pay more or less when you come to buying one of the packs as supermarkets change prices on products regularly, sometimes daily.

It’s worth using a price comparison site like trolley.co.uk which compares prices on thousands of products to find the best deal.

The cheddar blind taste test is not the first Which? has carried out in recent months.

The consumer website, a non-profit which advocates for consumers, recently revealed the results of a blind taste test of Irish creams.

And shoppers gave the top spot to Sainsbury’s Taste the Difference tipple ahead of the branded Bailey’s.

Do you have a money problem that needs sorting? Get in touch by emailing money-sm@news.co.uk.

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FOUR in 10 holidaymakers are now equally or more likely to have their ‘main’ holiday in October and beyond, rather than the traditional summer period.

A poll of 2,000 adults found 67 per cent would consider switching their ‘main holiday’ to the autumn period.

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Whereas 60 per cent are likely to take shorter holidays in the summer and October, rather than one longer trip.

Nearly half (48 per cent) believe holding off until October provides them with better value for their trip – estimating it will save them over £400 per person by travelling a few months later.

And 18 per cent even think they can make their money go further by picking up holiday clothes and essentials in the post-summer sales.

Seven in 10 went on to agree that value for money is the biggest driver when booking a holiday.

Paul Sokes, from M&S Credit Card, which commissioned the research, said: “Our research has shown a growing trend of holidaymakers opting to get away in October, or later in the year.

“With 36 per cent saying they can still seek out the sun in Europe and further afield later in the year, now is the perfect time to take a trip.

“This not only allows travellers to make the most of the quieter holiday period, but can also unlock significant cost savings.

“With value for money top of mind for many of us when planning a holiday, October getaways can offer an opportunity for savvy travellers to make the most of their holiday budget whilst enjoying their their time away.”

When it comes to these autumnal getaways, sunny breaks in Europe lead the way, followed by a UK-based city break.

As one in five (19 per cent) estimate they will take the chance to go on more trips in October, or later in the year, in the next five years.

When it comes to organising their trips throughout the year, cost of accommodation, what the weather will be like, and cost and availability of flights are the most important factors.

And researching destinations, planning itinerary and booking flights and hotels are the ways in which travellers get excited for their excursions.

In fact, 90 per cent get their children or younger family members involved with holiday decisions and 46 per cent have even let them pick the location of the holiday.

Nearly two in three (64 per cent) have taken this approach because they want them to be more a part of the planning process.

But it’s not just the location young holidaymakers are influencing, with 54 per cent being allowed to pick activities, and 40 per cent selecting what sights to see.

The average age children, or younger travellers, begin having a say in holiday planning is nine.

Paul Stokes added: “Planning a holiday is increasingly becoming a family affair, as younger travellers are getting more involved in the decision making process.

“Involving younger family members and travellers not only teaches them decision making and budgeting skills, but also helps build excitement for the trip ahead.

“This collaborative approach can also make for a more enjoyable family experience, making memories everyone will remember.”

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PureGym plans to make the US its second-biggest market, with more than 300 sites by 2030, as it pursues a $105mn deal to buy dozens of outlets from collapsed chain Blink Fitness.

The UK’s largest gym operator last month offered to buy “a substantial portion” of Blink’s estate, which consists of 67 locations in New York and New Jersey, after it was put into Chapter 11 by owner, gym group Equinox, in August.

A final deal is subject to court approval, with PureGym having been given “stalking horse” status, putting it in pole position ahead of an auction for the assets that will take place on October 28.

“[The deal] will give us . . . great credibility in the market for further expansion of either our owned and operated sites . . . or that we can build around that stronger franchising relationships,” outgoing chief executive Humphrey Cobbold told the Financial Times. He will become chair next month with Punch Pubs boss Clive Chesser taking over as CEO.

“The US is the largest fitness market in the world, and if we can build a position and a growth runway in the US, it potentially transforms the scale of the group as a whole,” said Cobbold.

PureGym, which specialises in low-cost memberships, operates three sites in the US under the Pure Fitness brand, all near Washington DC. Cobbold said acquiring nearly 60 sites from Blink with their 350,000 memberships and rebranding them under the PureGym banner would help it find franchise partners more easily and scale up.

“It is a capital-intensive business . . . it would take us at least five and probably nearer 10 years to open as many sites,” he said. “If we have in the range of 300 plus sites in North America by 2030 that would be transformative for the business.

“The UK will be at 600 or 700 sites by then,” he predicted, compared with nearly 390 today.

Cobbold’s global expansion ambition comes as the group searches for the next source of growth following its rapid rollout in the UK thanks to its affordability — monthly options start from £13.99 at one of its Manchester gyms — and rising demand for “wellness” services, especially after the pandemic.

The UK’s budget gym segment — dominated by PureGym and its rival The Gym Group — has more than doubled its share of the private gym market by revenues over the past decade to reach 19 per cent, according to a PwC report published in March.

PureGym, owned by US private equity firms Leonard Green & Partners and KKR, has more than 600 gyms across six countries including Denmark and Switzerland, but more than 60 per cent are in the UK. It opened 20 new sites in the first six months of 2024 with a further 20 to 25 expected for the rest of the year.

The company, which has nearly 2mn members globally, increased revenues by 11 per cent to £300mn in the first six months of 2024. However, it posted a pre-tax loss of £30.5mn as finance costs rose.

PureGym’s offer for Blink consists of $105mn cash as well as the assumption of certain liabilities, such as customer creditors and certain employee-related costs.

In court filings, Blink said it had assets and liabilities of between $100mn and $500mn and around $280mn in debt. PureGym, meanwhile, said in September that it had secured commitments from an investor that will give the low-cost gym operator more than £450mn in available funds.

Good morning. We write a lot about the economic and geopolitical consequences of Brexit. But public policy ones are neglected — the consequences of a prolonged period from 2016 to 2020 when the government didn’t concentrate all that much on domestic public policy, before being hit by a global pandemic which, necessarily, took up much of the government’s focus.

One particular example of that is the crisis in special needs education in England, the subject of an excellent piece by Amy Borrett and Peter Foster which you can read here. Some further thoughts from me about the political causes of the problem and how that will shape much of the new government’s choices, not just in special needs education.

Where next for Send?

Here are two things that sound like they ought to be more closely related, but aren’t: since the 1990s, diagnoses of autism in the UK have increased by more than 787 per cent, a trend that is prevalent across much of the rich world, while since 2015, the number of autistic pupils in England with a formal Education, Health and Care Plan (EHCP) has more than doubled.

There’s a live debate about what is driving increased diagnoses of autism and other special needs — environmental, social, changes in diagnostic criteria — and I am going to go for the wet centrist answer of “it’s probably all of the above”. There are many contributing factors: our changing economy means that more people with various disabilities will need and receive diagnoses, the fact that in 2009 less than half of all local authorities had adult diagnostic centres and now essentially all of them do, environmental and social factors such as having children later, plus changing diagnostic criteria.

But the vast, vast majority of these diagnoses do not end with a child getting an EHCP. The big change is the passage of the 2014 Children and Families Act, which made almost all additional special needs funding conditional upon receiving a formal EHCP and deprioritised trying to educate as many children with disabilities in mainstream education in favour of special schools. (There is much more on this, plus an excellent dissection of Kemi Badenoch’s recent intervention on the issue over on Sam Freedman’s Substack.)

Obviously, when you make accessing funding conditional on passing a formal hurdle, you are going to increase the number of formal applications. And one problem is that meeting the cost of EHCPs has proved to be more expensive than the previous system, and it has not resulted in better outcomes for children with disabilities.

Now, it’s important to note here that the 2014 act had a lot going for it. To take an issue that is dear to my heart, it repealed the requirement of the Adoption and Children Act 2002 to give “due consideration” to race, religion and ethnicity in adoption. Of course, many people never consider adoption and many of those considering it are unable to do so. If you further restrict and discourage adoption on racial, religious or ethnic lines, you are going to, as the pre-2014 system did, end up with larger number of ethnic minority people waiting longer and longer to find their families.

There’s also an argument, albeit one that I am less sympathetic to than Sam is in his Substack, that the 2014 changes helped to usefully raise standards in mainstream education. I am dubious about this, but you know, I could easily be wrong! We can’t test the hypothetical here.

Now what should have happened in around 2018, and in the universe where the In-Out referendum had gone the other way, I suspect, was for the education secretary or the chancellor to clock that this aspect of the 2014 act was having a perverse impact and for a policy fix to be brought forward. This is what normally happens: to take an example in a very different area of public policy, successive governments have tweaked immigration legislation, usually with the same aim in mind as the previous government, whenever it has produced results it hasn’t wanted, or failed to produce the desired outcomes.

In some ways, from the perspective of the Labour government, this is a policy area where it has a real opportunity to get better outcomes for less money. It’s not like, say, healthcare, where there are global trends forcing healthcare spending upwards and thanks to the UK’s model of provision, an awful lot of the revenue raising responsibility falls on the state.

But it is a politically fraught topic and one with the potential for lots to go wrong.

Now try this

This week, I mostly listened to the soundtrack of the excellent new musical London Tide while writing my column.

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