Following on from yesterday’s blog post which covered Party Food, in this post I’m going to cover Christmas Gifts.

As noted in my previous post, I’m a member of Tesco’s Orchard Program. This program rewards me with money off vouchers in order for me to sample goods and review them either online, via Facebook, Twitter etc.

Buying online was a breeze, shopping via Tesco Direct‘s website and getting delivered to my local store (less than 10 minutes away). No hanging about waiting at home to have a parcel delivered!

I ordered some presents for family for Christmas and these where available next day for collection. The range was quite large and was pretty comparable to the large competitors such as ARGOS etc. Although it’s worth noting that Tesco has gone down the Amazon route and let other sellers list on their site. Therefore you need to filter on “Sold By Tesco” if you want to have it delivered to store.

Through TopCashBack (see my blog post Get paid to shop), I also received a 0.5% cashback on top of my spend. (I know it’s not much, but as they say, every little helps!)

This blog post may sound like an advert for Tesco… In actual fact, it pretty much is.

I’m a member of Tesco’s Orchard Program. Through this program, I receive money off vouchers for products, and in return need to tweet on twitter, share on facebook, write blog posts etc. Also I receive club card points too which can be redeemed for cash.

For a company wishing to promote their brands further, I think it’s quite a good way to have lots of SEO and inbound links to your site.

I don’t really buy party food much, just once in a while for special occasions. So when the program opened up and I received the vouchers, I decided to splash out. (Why not.. It’s Christmas!) In the local Tesco, there was quite a large range of party food – all on a 3 for 2 offer. Price wise compared to the standard product, it’s a little bit more expensive, but nothing major (a couple of quid more). We purchased the following:

• Mini Seak Pies
• Pesto, Cheese & Onion Soufflette
• Spring Roll Selection

One thing I do like with Tesco’s products is the detailed allergy information. Some supermarkets are very vague with their information, but Tesco covers Peanut and Tree Nut Allergies very well.

All the products needed to be put in the oven. To our surprise, all products went in the oven at the same temperature (It is annoying when the temperatures need to be different for each product as some stuff doesn’t cook properly)

Taste wise, the products tasted good, a lot better than the standard product. The only downside was that the pies where a little soft. I’m not sure if this is due to design or the trays which they require baking in.

Would I buy them again? It entirely depends on the event. BBQ with friends round… No. Special celebration with family… Yes.