Having browsed the entire meat section, not just the tesco finest display and looked at the entire range I noted that the majority of the products were just boring standard meats and overpriced, without any sort of note on what made them extra special over the standard variety to pay extra (I.E provenence etc)
Looking at products to select many were in expanded packs where the meat had clearly began to pass its best as it had created gasses expanding the vacuum seal, also the “thinly cut” steak had all fat removed from them (which is the flavour adding component) and had been machine tenderised to within a millemeter of thier existence, which left rather deep cuts and something looking like it was on the verge of being a patty rather than a steak, and clearly all of its protien bonds had been broken which would have made it not taste and feel like a steak. I much prefer a thicker steak with nice trimmed even fat throughout, maybe lightly tenderised, but this had been battered so much it looked like it was ready for mcdonalds.
I continued to browse and most of the products seemed a bit pricey, with 6 pork medallions for £6 which were so small you would have a £2 coin of pork after cooking, although the joints looked like they would be nice the £30+ price tag with little provenence over the £10-15 equivilent was a little hard to swallow.
I’m not saying that the products are bad or poor quality, just maybe they had been on the shelves a little longer than the regular produce due to thier price tag and not as fresh as a result, so maybe a shorter best before date on finest products might be ideal to ensure they remain at thier freshest on your plate, and also a price reduction to make them more affordable, or even highlighting the provenence or what makes them extra special compared to the regular variety of the same meat from tesco, as otherwise it is hard to tell what exactly you are getting for quite a considerable price increase.
Coming to the finest sausages however I noticed a nice selection of fillings, ranging from cheese to mustard and challot. So at 2 for £5 I decided to go with those as these sounded very nice, although the selection was wide in pork I would have liked to see a tasty beef and chilli variety that use to be around but I have not seen for a long time as that was my favourite and definately worth the additional cost.
Upon cooking the sausages however I was dissappointed to find that the instant the skin touched the pan it blackened to such a severe degree that the outside was burnt (at a regular steady heat, not particularly high) and the middle remained raw, so I had to leave the sausages to burn to a dry crisp on the outside just to cook the sausage to an edible degree, this left the promise of flavour lacking as the charred (burnt as char would be acceptible but this was beyond barbequed) outside took over the flavour and left the expected special tastes hiding very distant in the background, and left for a rather dissappointing dry sausage sandwhich.
All in all I recommend tesco products, and if you wish to spend extra perhaps there is some extra provenence or the animals are treated better in a finest standard meat product, but from a regular standpoint it was hard to tell if any of this was noticable, if the animal had lived a longer slower better life, if the product istelf was anything above and beyond the standard, I personally would stick with regular tesco meat and get considerably more for my money, and have it fresher than was on the shelves for the finest range here.