Judges' consensusPackaging

The Bird's Eye and Young's packaging is similar in terms of design, with bold blues and reds adoring the rectangular cardboard boxes. Both feature a large photo of the product, with Young's choosing to point out its product is 100 percent fillet on the front of the box - a fact Bird's Eye leaves to list on the back of the box, along with the health attributes of various ingredients - selenium, iodine and protein.

Bird's Eye's logo is smack bang in the middle of the pack, dominating the product, whereas as Young's is more subtle. Both paste their sustainability credentials to the box, with Bird's Eye displaying the MSC logo front of pack alongside its own 'Forever Food Together' logo. Young's, on the other hand, keeps the logos slightly more hidden, placing its own 'Fish for Life' logo on the flap at the end, next to a Union Jack logo pointing out theirs are 'the only branded fish fingers made in the UK'.

The supermarket own brand fish fingers we chose were minimalist in their pack design, with a plain white background and a basic product image. The minimal text included front of pack highlighted the product used as line caught "cod fillet pieces" that were responsibly sourced. It also carried the MSC logo.

Inside the boxes, the fish fingers were all simply packed loose.

Preparation

Fish fingers are notoriously easy to prepare, and these were no exception -- rip open the cardboard box, pour the fish fingers out onto a baking tray (or in this case a Pyrex dish). Bake.Done.

However, on cooking, some differences did make some easier to handle than others, with the coating on the supermarket own brand and Young's product coming loose and sticking to the Pyrex dish. Bird's Eye's stayed more intact.

Eating
experience

My kids are ashamedly used to eating fish fingers, but I'm not sure they've ever taken note of what brand they are being fed or its particular flavor and texture profile, so I took their comments with a pinch of salt. Speaking of which, when asked for the first time in their lives, to analyze what they were eating all three kids (even two-year-old Jack) noted how salty all the fish fingers were.

Amongst texture descriptions such as "smushy" and "flaky crumbly", I was able to deduce that the Young's fish fingers were generally deemed to be a little drier than the others. Jamie also found them to be more fishy tasting than the others (a quality he deemed negative). However, overall opinions were mixed, with Jamie making Bird's Eye his clear winner (with a big old 5 out of 5) and Alice finding it a closer call, with Young's just edging an advantage (4 vs 3.5) for what she considered to be a crisper coating.

Encouragingly for the more expensive brands, the supermarket store brand came in a definite last (2.5s all round), with all the kids considering it a little soft in texture and a little bland in flavor.

Value

The Bird's Eye and Young's fish fingers were very similarly priced, coming in at £0.74 (€0.88/$0.97) per 100g and £0.71 (€0.85/$0.94) per 100g respectively. The supermarket own brand was markedly lower at £0.57 (€0.68/$0.74) per 100g.

From a parent's perspective (and despite the taste tester's lower marks) I would see no particular reason to pay almost 30 percent more for branded product over unbranded. All fish fingers were made with fillet (the cheaper one albeit cut from blocks), all were apparently sustainably caught and responsibly produced, and all were almost as convenient to cook.

We tried it: Editor's kids pick their favorite fish finger