Our administrator Liz recently contacted the UK's major supermarkets to ask about iron levels in their ranges of ready meals. This followed her earlier work on breakfast cereals, which has proved a popular resource with members.

The supermarket's responses were mostly disappointing :

• Tesco – “queried with relevant team - they do not have this information for their ready meals as it's not something they'd quantify within that specification!”
• Iceland – “The Trading Manager has advised this isn't a detail we're able to provide as it's not something the supplier notifies us about.”
• Morrisons – no response after several approaches
• Aldi – “"We're sorry to learn that the information you seek is not available in our ready meals product.  As much as we would like to provide you the information for the iron content of our ready meals, we would be unable to provide the information as it is also unavailable from our system.  We may suggest to rely on the available information of the product online."
• Lidl – “Suppliers do not provide this information as not required for the nutrition section.”
• Asda – “I've had a response from the buyers team on your enquiry. I'm sorry to say I've been advised that we aren't able to provide you with an answer regarding the iron levels as iron is not required as part of standard nutrition testing so it doesn't state it on the labelling of the products, sorry once again"

However, Sainsbury’s could provide a detailed spreadsheet of their ready meals that have ingredients that tend to be higher in iron in them. 

So, if you are concerned about iron levels in ready meals, it looks like Sainsburys are your safest bet!