Dukes is king

Mrs Wease disagrees

Mrs Wease agrees

Sorry but I’m not going to trust the tastebuds of someone married to a person that hates mayo

Thank you. Bury this.

Hellmann’s keeps its ingredients relatively simple with 77% vegetable oil (which on further investigation is actually rapeseed oil), water, free-range egg and egg yolk (8%), spirit vinegar, salt, sugar, lemon juice, flavouring, antioxidant and paprika extract. I’m told “the antioxidant is needed to prevent rancidity in the oil”.

Heinz uses 70% vegetable oil (specific oils aren’t specified to “ensure [Heinz] meets the recipe specifications whilst avoiding potential supply issues”), and again water, spirit vinegar, salt and sugar with free-range egg yolks (5%). This time though there is also the addition of mustard seeds, spice, xantham gum and guar gum, (which are included, according to Heinz, to “stabilise the mix of oil and water”) and an antioxidant.

Stokes keeps its mayo all natural, with rapeseed oil (75%), free-range whole egg (12%), water, extra virgin olive oil (5%), unrefined raw cane sugar, acetic acid (to give it its sharp flavour), Dead Sea salt and mustard flour.

Tesco Everyday Value, meanwhile, lists its ingredients like so: water, vegetable oil (25%), glucose-fructose syrup, modified maize starch, spirit vinegar, egg yolk (2%), salt substitute (potassium chloride), lactic acid, preservative (sorbic acid), stabilisers (xantham gum, guar gum), colour (lutein), flavouring (contains mustard). Tesco wasn’t able to provide information on whether the eggs used in its mayo were free-range.

Hellmann’s tastes familiar (it should do as the UK and Ireland’s number-one mayonnaise) with its distinctive tang.

Heinz is slightly sweet but still sharp. Tesco stands up well, and certainly doesn’t feel like a third of the quality, and has a slight mustardy flavour. And Stokes tastes the most homemade, perhaps due to the blend of oils (rapeseed and olive) but in a blind tasting I’m not sure you would guess it is the most expensive. It justifies its price tag by the “quality of the ingredients”, which in turn means it requires “much less salt” than other mayos (see below). It is also only made in small batches.

I think nearly any Norwegian would say that Mills is superior, but of the foreign brands, Stokes is great.

We don’t have Duke’s. Haven’t seen it abroad either, though I have not really been looking.

Dukes is only in stores in the southern US, but you can buy it online anywhere in the US

Duke’s Mayonnaise ingredients:

Soybean oil, eggs, water, distilled and cider vinegar, salt, oleoresin paprika, natural flavors, calcium disodium EDTA added to protect flavor.

We have it in stores in Michigan

Oh nice

our local here, QFC, in the boon docks also now sells it

But her tastebuds are not mine

illinois too, unfortunately.

Why unfortunately? Do they make you buy it?