VALUE FOR MONEY: PITTA BREAD

Florentin Organic Pitta €1

Florentin Organic Pitta €1.60 for 200g, €8 per kg Highs: These small, circular pittas are quite dainty and there is an admirably simple ingredient list comprising just water, flour, sea salt and yeast on the packaging.

The bread is on the thick side, which means cutting it in two to create pockets for filling can be achieved without much difficulty. It's one of two organic options we tried.

Lows: But its organic nature comes at a cost. This has a per kilo price that is substantially higher than anything we could describe as good value - although we did source it in a health food shop as opposed to a supermarket, which might have added considerably to the final cost. While we'd never suggest pitta should have very strong flavours, it would be nice if it tasted of something, which this doesn't.

Verdict: Dear and tasteless

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Star Rating: **

The Flat Bread Company Pitta

€1.95 for 300g, €6.50 per kg

Highs: "Fill, dip and . . . joy," the packaging tells us in a stylish font, which suggests this product is going for the cool end of the pitta market. It has a nice wheaty flavour and is not as salty as some of its rivals. It smells lovely and fresh straight out of the toaster and the oval-shaped pittas are commendably substantial and can take a serious amount of heavy filling without falling apart.

Lows: "My bread is my word", the founder of the company assures us on the front of the packet, although who knows what that is supposed to mean - not a great deal, we suspect. We were also unable to find a weight on the packaging. It might have been there, but locating it was beyond Pricewatch.

Verdict: Nice and wheaty

Star rating: ***

Country Kitchen Organic

Pitta Bread

€1.79 for 360g, €4.97 per kg

Highs: If you like your pitta organic, then this is certainly the option to go for, as it is significantly cheaper than the other organic brand we tried. The company that sells these is Irish. However, that is not to say they were made in Ireland as all the packaging tells us is that they were produced somewhere in the EU.

These have a nice freshness to them and an airiness that some of the more stodgy options lacked. They are also a decent size, while still fitting comfortably into an average-sized toaster.

Lows: They might be a little too salty for some tastes and the ragged edges made them difficult to open with any degree of surgical precision.

Verdict: Good and good value

Star rating: ****

Eden Pitas

€2.95 for 400g, €7.37 per kg

Highs: With the Arabic script and designs on the front, these French-made pittas look authentic. Whatever about that, they taste pretty good too. When microwaved (the packet said we were allowed to, honest) they have a nice bready texture and when they're grilled they crisp up beautifully, making it easy to fashion dipping spears out of them.

Lows: They are undoubtedly on the pricey side and might be hard to track down. The packaging was also entirely in French, but we were able to deduce that these are made sans colorant and sans conservateur and are micro-ondes friendly.

Verdict: Fine, but hard to find.

Star rating: ***

Tesco Value Pitta Bread

€0.48 for 300g, €1.60 per kg

Highs: Once more, Tesco's Value range has managed to get a product onto the shelves that is incredibly cheap, and if you're planning a big party in which thin strips of pitta are likely to be drowned in dip, then these are certainly worth considering.

Lows: If on the other hand you want to showcase your carefully prepared falafel, then forget about these. They are very thin, very flimsy and on the small side. They also had quite a bitter, processed smell and taste and were made with three different types of preservatives and a dollop of vegetable oil, which seemed entirely unnecessary.

Verdict: Cheap, very, very cheap

Star rating: ***