Yesterday, I visited a West Hartford, Connecticut Stop & Shop supermarket in search of a few specific items, including fresh Italian bread. Having eaten several excellent desserts from Stop & Shop’s in-store bakery as well as having heard good things about their bread, I wanted to try it alongside a home cooked pasta dinner.
This fresh Italian bread is incredible. On a regular basis, I purchase and eat fresh-baked Italian breads produced by two different Hartford, Connecticut bakeries and the Stop & Shop Supermarket Fresh Italian Bread is just as good as, if not better than the bakery produced Italian breads.
Presented here, in an effort to assist the consumer, is an article which reviews and examines Stop & Shop Supermarket’s Fresh Italian Bread.
Size
The net weight of the standard sized loaf of Stop & Shop Supermarket’s Fresh Italian Bread is 16 ounces (one pound). According to the nutrition facts label that is affixed to the bread’s wrapper, the loaf contains eight 2 ounce servings. In physical size, this loaf of fresh Italian bread is quite substantial.
Interestingly, the shape of this loaf of fresh Italian bread is much wider than most of the other types of fresh Italian bread that I encounter. The other varieties of Italian bread that I regularly eat are roughly 3.5″ – 4″ in width and are usually 16-18 inches in length. Stop & Shop Supermarket’s Fresh Italian Bread is approximately 12-14 inches in length, but its width ranges from roughly 4″ at the ends to 6″ in the mid – section.
Price
The regular retail price charged for one 16 ounce loaf of fresh Italian bread from the in-store bakery at Hartford, Connecticut area Stop & Shop supermarkets is approximately $1.99. That works out to $0.25c per serving. Considering the bread’s great flavor and texture, large size and overall high quality, this price seems reasonable to me.
Texture / Consistency
For accuracy purposes, I am eating a piece of Stop & Shop Supermarket’s Fresh Italian Bread as I type this sentence. This bread is nice and chewy and it pulls apart easily. The thin crust is light golden brown in color and the inside of the loaf is bound together well, yet is still slightly fluffy in texture.
This is the type of Italian bread that is very difficult to stop eating once you’ve started. When I got home last night and spied the loaf of bread sitting on top of my refrigerator, I tried to keep myself from eating some of it, but the effort was short lived and futile. As soon as I tasted one bite of this bread topped with some vegetable oil spread, I was hooked. As it turns out, I ended up eating roughly one third of the loaf before I even ate dinner. The overall mouth feel offered by this fresh Italian bread is very satisfying.
Nutritional Facts
Stop & Shop Supermarket’s Fresh Italian Bread contains 140 calories, with 10 calories from fat, per two ounce (56 grams) serving. This excellent Italian bread also contains 0 grams of saturated fat, 0 grams trans fat, 1 gram total fat, 0 mg of cholesterol, 290 mg of sodium, 27 grams total carbohydrates, 1 gram of fiber, 1 gram of sugars and 5 grams of protein, per two ounce serving.
Taste / Flavor
This fresh Italian bread offers a mellow and pleasant flavor. It tastes so good, I can eat it plain, straight from the bag. When topped with butter, margarine or vegetable oil spread, its flavor is sublime. As stated above, this bread is so good I ate about one third of the loaf before I ate dinner.
Stop & Shop Supermarket’s Fresh Italian Bread tastes wonderful when it is dunked into pasta sauce and it is an ideal accompaniment for pasta dishes. As a matter of fact, I think this bread goes well with virtually any type of dinner.
To me, this bread tastes just the way a good loaf of Italian bread is supposed to taste. On a flavor scale of one through ten, I would assign this product a seldom-assigned rating of 10.
Packaging
Stop & Shop Supermarket’s Fresh Italian Bread is packaged in a paper bread bag / wrapper. The white bag features a brown, red, yellow and black label that reads ‘Authentic Italian Bread’ on the front.
An excellent packaging feature with this bread is the inclusion of stickers that list all pertinent ingredient and nutritional information. The bakery-made loaves of Italian bread that I normally purchase and eat do not list ingredient and / or nutritional information.
Overall Rating
A good, old fashioned loaf of delicious Italian bread. That’s what Stop & Shop Supermarket’s Fresh Italian Bread is. This is the type of wide Italian bread that my parents would bring home for spaghetti dinners when I was a kid.
Available at the in-store bakery at Stop & Shop supermarkets throughout the northeastern United States, Stop & Shop Supermarket Fresh Italian Bread is highly recommended by this food writer.
Sources :
Personal experience with the product
The product label