The Big Match Meat Feast Pizza (Food Review)

I recently purchased the Big Match Meat Feast Pizza from Tesco. Now, let me preface by saying I have less than no interest in football so the marketing on this product did zero in terms of persuading me to buy it. Like, seriously, if you think of the person in your life that has the least football knowledge then subtract another 40%, that’s me. I’d be hard pushed to fill two hands with names of players from the entire history of the game, and if we’re talking current players – forget it. I do, however, have an interest in pizza and I was on board as soon as I saw the meatball crust this one offers. That being said, if you’re into football I can see how the name and box might be appealing. I would imagine the target audience is probably friend groups of young men, picking up supplies to watch the World Cup together (I had to Google to make sure it was the World Cup that was on just now). But football-phobic pizza enthusiasts will also be tempted by this product.

The Big Match pizza is a limited edition product by the oh-so-creatively named The Pizza Company. I should note that I do not recall ever hearing of this company before or seeing any products by them, but that’s possibly just me. For all I know The Pizza Company could be a god in the pizza game and we have just somehow never crossed paths. I do have to say though, I did have a little chuckle when I saw the name on the box.   

In this review I will break down the main components of the pizza to determine how good they are individually, as well as how good the product is as a whole. I will also discuss the nutritional information, cooking and storage, best uses and pricing.

The pizza is comprised of the base with a ‘tasty meatball crust’, as it boasts on the front of the box, tomato sauce, cheese and pepperoni topping. So, how good are all of these things?

Taste

I was pretty impressed by the base. For a supermarket pizza, it tasted surprisingly fresh and authentic. I would say it is a kind of medium thickness – it’s not a thin crust so it isn’t crispy, but it’s not as thick as a deep-pan either. The base cooked nicely and I liked that it stayed dry on the bottom and didn’t become greasy. The crust is looped around the meatballs at the edges to keep them in place. Speaking as someone who doesn’t like too much crust on my pizza, I found that it got a little thick and dry in these areas. I ate it with a little sour cream dip to rectify this. The heat also caught the loops a bit more than the rest of the base during cooking so they did become a tad crunchy. I would suggest turning the pizza once or twice in the oven to avoid over-cooking in one area. Overall, the base was very good.

The tomato sauce was quite nice. There was a good quantity of it – not too little, not too much. You can taste the tomato but it’s not packed with flavour. Not much else to say about the sauce, really. It was fine.

The pizza has a combination of a few different cheeses, which is something I usually enjoy. The cheeses are Mozzarella, Edam, Red Leicester and Mature Cheddar. This gives a bit of dimension to the pizza, if only in appearance. Could I really taste that there were several different cheeses used? Honestly, not really. The cheese tasted decent but I’m not sure it would have made much of a difference if they’d only used one variety. It was fairly standard and as you’d expect, nothing special. Again, it was fine. 

The box makes a claim of ‘loads of pepperoni’. There was certainly enough to cover most of the pizza but no more than what I would see on any other pepperoni pizza. On a side note, most of the pepperoni was bunched up together when I opened the pizza and I had to spread it out. Not a big deal but perhaps worth mentioning. In terms of taste, the pepperoni was good. It had a slight hint of spice but was not too spicy at all. The pepperoni released some oils during cooking, as you would expect, but this did not cause the pizza to become overly greasy.

Now for the main event. The meatballs. Did they live up to their ‘tasty’ reputation? In short, yeah I guess they kind of did. They were fairly tasty and I do really like the fact that they were in the crust to give it more interest. When I saw the meatball crust, it reminded me of the cheeseburger stuffed crust pizza that Pizza Hut did a number of years ago. Does anyone remember it? Man, I loved that. Wish they still made it. Anyway, the meatballs in this pizza didn’t match that pizza but they were pretty decent. I could tell they weren’t of the absolute highest quality but they definitely weren’t the lowest quality either. I would categorise them as mid-range but still enjoyable.

Overall, I would say I did enjoy the pizza - it was good but not amazing. The base and meatball crust were probably the best parts but the sauce, cheese and pepperoni were all a little average.

Nutrition

The main nutritional facts are displayed on the front of the box and are based on a quarter of the pizza, which they class as a serving (maybe a bit mean?). A quarter contains 377 calories which I thought wasn’t too bad for a pizza like this. It also provides 15.6g of fat (22% of GDA), 5.4g of saturates (27% of GDA), 4.4g of sugars (5% of GDA) and 1.7g of salt (28% of GDA). I mean, hey, none of them are in the red, right? Of course, if you’re eating more than a quarter you’ll need to consider how this impacts these amounts, if that’s something you are concerned by. Total weight of the pizza is 525g.

  You can see more detailed information on ingredients and nutrition here.

       

Cooking and Storage

The pizza only takes 12 minutes at gas mark 6 in the oven if cooking from chilled. I found it did take just about its stated time, but I did give it an extra one or two minutes. It is suitable for freezing which is good to know if you haven’t managed to eat it before the use by date as, for me, there was quite a short date on it. You can also cook it from frozen, which it claims will take 18 minutes. I can’t attest to this as I didn’t freeze mine.

Best Uses

I would recommend this pizza for sharing with friends, weekend nights in and parties. I’d say it’s best kept as a now and again treat.

Price

Now for pricing. At full price this pizza costs £7. I have to say I was shocked when I first saw the price ticket. £7 for an average sized supermarket pizza seems incredibly steep to me. It is marketed as a ‘meat feast’ and while there is definitely a sufficient amount of meat, it isn’t exactly brimming over for seven smackeroonies. I would say there are other pizzas on the market with more meat at a much lower price. Needless to say, there was no chance of me purchasing this at full price. It is currently half price in Tesco for £3.50 which is much more reasonable.

In conclusion then, it was an enjoyable pizza with the novelty factor of a meatball crust. Definitely not worth the £7 full price tag but worth a try while on offer for half price.

Overall rating: 7.5 out of 10

Find it at: Tesco