Starbucks Smoked Bacon Roll

The Starbucks Smoked Bacon Roll costs £5.60 and carries 400 calories with 21g of protein and 2.3g of salt. Hickory smoked bacon in a white roll, served warm.

2.3g of salt is the figure that matters here. The adult daily maximum is 6g, so one roll is roughly 38 percent of a day before anything else is eaten, and it is the saltiest single item Starbucks sells. Cured bacon is salt cured by definition and the bread carries its own, so the number is not a fault in the recipe; it is what a bacon roll is. The number is what lets you plan the rest of the day around it.

On everything else it reads better than its reputation. Fat is 13g, which is lower than the ham and cheese croissant at 20g and half the sausage sandwich at 28g. Saturated fat is 4.5g, below the vegan overnight oats. Sugar is 3.6g and protein is a genuinely useful 21g.

Carbohydrate at 49g is the highest of the hot breakfasts and that is the roll rather than the filling. It is a large white roll, and it is what makes this the most filling item in the category relative to its calorie count. At 400 calories it sits below the wrap, the sausage sandwich and every croissant on the menu.

Hickory smoked describes the wood the bacon was smoked over, and it does more than sound appealing. Hickory gives a stronger, more assertive smoke than beech or apple, which is why this bacon reads as smoky through a mouthful of soft white roll where a lighter cure would disappear entirely.

It lists barley, wheat and milk as allergens, the milk being butter on the roll. Prices reach £6.65 on delivery. The Beyond Meat sandwich is the plant based option at 432 calories, and the porridge is the low salt one at 0.17g.