I tried supermarket maple syrup and there were two clear winners (2024)

With its smoky, caramel flavour, maple syrup is a good alternative to golden syrup. It's useful to keep in your store cupboard to add to granola, fruit crumble, griddled bananas, roasted carrots and parsnips, waffles and, of course, pancakes! As we look forward to Pancake Day, we decided to invest in some maple syrup as a treat.

It is made from the rising spring sap of maple trees native to Canada. Pure maple syrup is said to be healthier for you than sugar because it contains mineral manganese and the B vitamin riboflavin, plus small amounts of calcium, potassium, zinc and antioxidants, according to a Consumer Reports article. That is not, of course, to suggest that it isn't full of sugar so you really don't want to eat a lot of it.

I bought maple syrups from Tesco, , Aldi, Sainsbury's and Morrisons to see how they compare both in terms of flavour and price. I also wanted to see if there was any difference in the sugar content from each supermarket brand.

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Sainsbury's Pure Canadian Maple Syrup

Sainsbury's Pure Canadian Maple Syrup costs £4 for 250g, which works out to £1.60 per 100g. I liked the shape of the bottle, which was traditional with a little handle on the side. It didn't, however, have a pouring spout. I didn't expect it to be so runny and, as a result, far too much came out onto my plate.

The flavour was lacking sweetness. In fact, I found it quite unpleasant. It did, however, work well drizzled on roasted carrots. Per 15g serving, it contains 10.4g of sugar. I gave it 2.5 out of 5 stars.

Aldi Pure Canadian Maple Syrup

Aldi Specially Selected 100% Pure Canadian Maple Syrup costs £3.99 for 250g, which works out to £1.60 per 100g, just like the Sainsbury's one.

Again, this came in a cute bottle and I liked the fact it had a flip top, pouring spout lid as it was pretty runny so this meant it was easier to pour just a little onto your plate.

It had quite a strong taste, much more smoky than the Sainsbury's one. Per 15g serving, it contains 12g of sugar, which seemed pretty high. I gave it 3 out of 5 stars.

Tesco Finest Grade A Amber Maple Syrup

There are two choices at Tesco. You can choose between dark or amber, so I went for amber as it looked the most similar to all the other supermarket maple syrups. Tesco Finest Grade A Amber Maple Syrup costs £6.45 so it's more expensive than some of the others but it is a bigger 330g bottle. This works out to £1.96 per 100g.

It was a traditional bottle with a pouring spout lid, which I liked. This had a sweeter and thicker consistency than all the others. Per 15g serving, it contained 9.2g of sugar, so quite a bit less than the Aldi one. The flavour was light and subtle and I really liked it. I gave it 4 out of 5 stars.

M&S Pure Canadian Syrup

costs £5.50 for 330g so it's the same size bottle as the Tesco but slightly cheaper, working out to £1.66 per 100g so comparable to the Aldi price. Per 15g serving, it contained 9.6g of sugar.

Smoky and rich, I liked the caramel flavour of this one. However, like all bar the Tesco syrup, I wished it was a little thicker and that the lid had a pouring spout as it came out far too quickly. I gave it 3.5 out of 5 stars.

Lyle's Maple Flavour Topping Syrup

Morrisons doesn't appear to offer its own brand of maple syrup so I decided to try Lyle's Maple Flavour Topping Syrup. This is not pure maple syrup and is just maple flavoured so it is considerably cheaper. It costs just £2 for 325g, which works out to 62p per 100g. Per 15g serving, it contained 11.5g of sugar, so it had a pretty high sugar content.

This didn't come in a traditional glass bottle with a handle, which was good because you could spot straight away that it wasn't pure Canadian maple syrup. Instead it was plastic and it had a pouring spout, which was good for the children to handle.

My kids loved the smooth, silky, thick density of this pouring syrup. We all liked the smoky sweet flavour and gave it 4 out of 5 stars.

Overall verdict

There were two winners here - both the cheapest and the most expensive. For me, the best pure maple syrup came from Tesco as it had a good consistency and caramelly sweetness. For my children, however, they much preferred the considerably cheaper maple flavoured syrup from Lyle's, which is quite a big saving.