What's really in takeaway foodOur research

We compared takeaway and supermarket meals

We tested how many calories and how much sugar, fat, saturated fat and salt there is in Chinese, Indian and pizza takeaways. We checked the details given on standard supermarket versions of the meals, which were bought from Asda, M&S, Morrisons, Sainsbury’s, Tesco and Waitrose.

Indian and Chinese food

We ordered meals from 10 Chinese and 10 Indian takeaways within a two-mile radius of our office that offered a delivery service. Our Indian meal was chicken tikka masala, pilau rice and a plain naan. Our Chinese meal was sweet-and-sour chicken, egg-fried rice and a portion of vegetable spring rolls.

As takeaway portions tend to be bigger than supermarket versions, we created a standard Which? meal to compare the two. For the Indian and Chinese meals this was a 350g meat dish, 200g of rice and 100g of naan or spring rolls. Typically, the Indian takeaways served an individual portion of 400g meat, 300g rice and 200g naan.

An average supermarket portion for one was 280g meat, 204g rice and 108g naan. Chinese takeaways had a typical individual portion of 400g meat, 250g rice and 150g spring rolls. A supermarket portion for one averaged out at 230g meat, 220g rice and 98g spring rolls.

Pizzas

We tested medium thick-crust cheese and tomato pizzas and medium thin-crust pepperoni pizzas from Domino's Pizza, Perfect Pizza and Pizza Hut. A typical takeaway cheese and tomato pizza was 600g, and the supermarket one 425g. A typical takeaway pepperoni pizza was 450g, the supermarket one 300g. We used a standard 300g Which? portion.