Name brand versus off brand

[jusnikki]

Here's one example of "What exactly is it"

Win-Dixie brand cat food. I buy one can per/day worth of the small cans of cat food for my outside cat, which I then mix with his dry food.

The name brand stuff has little pieces of *meat* in it that is in a gravy. Tuna looks like flakes of tuna. For sure, it's the part of the tuna that humans don't eat, but it's probably really tuna.

The Win-Dixie brand that is one-cent per/can cheaper is like brown paste stuff that all smells the exact same regardless of what the can says. "Chicken and Giblets"...yeah, right. More brown pasty stuff.

I think the cats call the brown stuff "Soylent Brown". Rumor has it that it's made from dead cats...Movie coming...

Hey, my little Kitty deserves the best. I pay the extra cent and get him the good stuff!

LOL @ at the cats. I feel the same way about my fur babies.

 

[Zhizara]

That's what I do...thanks for verbalizing it for me.

Me too! Thanks.

Especially the cream soups. I want a background sauce without a whole lot of flavor of it's own, so I can jazz it up my own way.

I like a lot of Walmart's Great Value products. I especially like their mini diced tomatoes. I haven't noticed that available in any brand names.

 

[babetoo]

i will buy the off brand if the quality measures up. some things are just better in a brand name, ie chili,soup,frozen veggies are ok in off brand most of the time. store brand, milk, cream cheese, butter, all seem to taste as good as house brand. you have to pick and choose.

 

[martan]

I find that generally the store brands are just as good as the name brands at the stores I shop It's definitely a lot of trial and error though. If you're on a budget you might as well test out the store brands since they are often quite a bit cheaper but for certain things it's definitely worth it to buy the more expensive brand.

 

[Claire]

Having moved around a lot in my life, I usually try the store brands first. If they are good, and much less expensive, I stick with them. If not, I buy a "name brand". This subject came up once when we first moved here. Neighbors were having an issue. One spouse thought you should always buy the cheapest, the other thought name brands should be purchased. They asked me because they knew I'd been across the country, border to border, coast to coast. I just told them that ... that I buy the cheapest to start with and buy up when I can afford to and the name brand is actually better. My ex believed that you should only buy name brands. Great, except he wasn't earning the income to pay for it. Now I'm married to a man who occaisionally says, "we need to save a few bucks this month." It still, after 30 years, amazes him that I can pull several hundred dollars out of our budget. Without ever doing any math (I'm terrible at that), keeping a budget, etc. He laughs. How do you do it? I can save more money than he realizes we're spending.

 

[pacanis]

I'm pretty sure everything I buy is name brand. Since I buy virtually everything on sale, there's not enough price difference to make it worth my while to try the store's brand. Heck, there's even some name brand items I won't buy because I don't like them. It's just not worth the risk to me to save a dime/can, or 20 cents for a lb of butter to try something different from what I like (for example). I pretty much stick to the same brand items all the time.

Aunt Bea, I didn't know Wegmans made it down that far. They've really grown.

 

[Dawgluver]

They just had a thing on the news, stating that many store brands are made by the name brand companies, and very similar, if not exactly the same ingredients. The generic Sugar Corn Pops I used to buy were even better than the name brand. I do prefer name brand cream of something soups.

 

[spork]

Dawg, same news clip here, too, just minutes ago. Some generic/store labels are actually brand name products in disguise. Other than feeling like a schmuck about it, I'm glad to be a member of a relevant discussion forum.

 

[jabbur]

The issue for me on this good question, nikki, is not so much one of quality, but loss of diversity and choice on market shelves.

We are so spoiled here in the US. Here we are debating the qualities of name brand vs. store brand. My cousin is a missionary in Ecuador. One of the things she commented on in her first year is the grocery store. You buy what they have! Her first trip back home it took her forever to go through the grocery store because she didn't know what kind of bread to buy! In her missionary town, you buy a loaf of bread and it's whatever is on the shelf. One kind, no choice. We should be thankful we have so many choices to choose from!

 

[bakechef]

Here's how I see it.

if you are comparing processed/prepared foods, there are usually big differences in taste between store brand and name brand, often the quality is similar, but the taste can be very different.

If you are comparing items that are ingredients, like butter, milk, sugar, flour etc... there usually is very little difference in taste and quality. Where I shop, the price difference between name brand and store brand is usually pretty significant.

With that said, where I live, most grocers have very strong great quality store brands. Big chains need to get you hooked on their store brands because they make far more profit from them than the name brand stuff. Where I shop, store brands are great, frozen veg are every bit as good as the name brands, I can't tell the difference between store brand and philly cream cheese in my cheesecakes, and there are some store brands that I actually prefer over the big names.

I did work for a small regional chain once and their store brands weren't very good at all. We often were asked to test products, once we were asked to try a pecan shortbread cookie, and share our feelings on a ballot, everyone seemed to hate cookie #2, poor quality and very "off" flavor. Which cookie do you think they picked, #2 since I assume that gave them the biggest profit margin. When I worked for them, I bought very few store brand items, but I know now that they are the exception, not the rule, I buy many store brands now.

 

[spork]

We should be thankful we have so many choices to choose from!

I agree. I grew up when grocery shopping meant walking a couple blocks to a store. My pocket with mom's cash. My head with a list. Nervous about all the math. Unaware that I might have the added difficult decision about "brands" and economics. That was then. No sense pining for when bread/tofu was a simple thing for me. Today, most of us have no choice but to make a choice. I too wish my life and kitchen was more simple. hmm... it'd help if that store brand pasta sauce was in a glass jar versus a can....

 

[bakechef]

I was in the grocery store today and had to buy store brand Italian sausage because the name brand had MSG added. You would think that it would be the other way around! And the name brand was on sale, so I ended up paying more for the store brand. Since my SO is sensitive to MSG, I have to shop carefully.
I have used this store brand sausage before and it is quite good.

 

[Dawgluver]

I was in the grocery store today and had to buy store brand Italian sausage because the name brand had MSG added. You would think that it would be the other way around! And the name brand was on sale, so I ended up paying more for the store brand. Since my SO is sensitive to MSG, I have to shop carefully.
I have used this store brand sausage before and it is quite good.

We get the store brand Italian sausage too, it's leaner, fresher, has fewer preservatives, and tastes better than the brand names available here.

 

[Timothy]

Since my SO is sensitive to MSG, I have to shop carefully..

I'm that way also, bakechef. Once in awhile, I'll get a meal that has the stuff in it in what must be larger quantities, and it makes me dizzy as hell and gives me a panic attack and heart attack type symptoms. I hate it when that happens. Thank goodness it only happens once every couple of years.

The last was Chinese takeout. I told them when ordering, not to use it. I asked when I picked it up and they told me they didn't put it in the food.

It was loaded with it. I had an attack 10 minutes after eating it.

I spoke to the owner and let him know I wouldn't be back and would "spread the word" about his business practices.

 

[Dee Jsaan]

Re:

I grew up around women who had studied "Home Economics" (anyone remember that)

I was also taught much of what I know by them. I first became an efficient cook
and learned to do so much with so little I thought I could do anything with practically nothing at all. LOL

Then later I was taken camping and began learning from Dad and Grandad and was shocked by their "cavalier" attitudes with the resources at hand. In time I began to lean about having a "flair" for cooking in the sense of a creative artist.

So I'm kind of the same way when shopping the large Super Store Grocery Markets. I'll examine the store container and and notice where it was made and find
other Name Brands using the same shape of container, see where it was made, and look closely at those coding numbers on the container to see how similar they are.
Packaging often betrays the fact that a Name Brand producer also runs the product for Store Branded products.

Recently I noticed at a Kroger store the Dukes Mayo was the same as the Kroger Store Brand. And I had noticed a Dawn Dish Washing Liquid with "Oil of Olay" in it (for a big price) has a very similar product at the Dollar Tree stores where the bottle contains shay butter vitamin e etc and the bottle is the mirror image of the Dawn bottle. The cap is the same etc. The label layout very similar even containing
some of the same text. But it's about 5 more ounces for $2 dollars less. Granted it
may not be exactly as good.

Yes, I notice these things too. I'm always looking for knock off recipes for seasonings and the like where I can just about buy all the ingredients for what that bottle cost...and have enough to fill several more bottles of it.

 

[bakechef]

I grew up around women who had studied "Home Economics" (anyone remember that)

I was also taught much of what I know by them. I first became an efficient cook
and learned to do so much with so little I thought I could do anything with practically nothing at all. LOL

Then later I was taken camping and began learning from Dad and Grandad and was shocked by their "cavalier" attitudes with the resources at hand. In time I began to lean about having a "flair" for cooking in the sense of a creative artist.

So I'm kind of the same way when shopping the large Super Store Grocery Markets. I'll examine the store container and and notice where it was made and find
other Name Brands using the same shape of container, see where it was made, and look closely at those coding numbers on the container to see how similar they are.
Packaging often betrays the fact that a Name Brand producer also runs the product for Store Branded products.

Recently I noticed at a Kroger store the Dukes Mayo was the same as the Kroger Store Brand. And I had noticed a Dawn Dish Washing Liquid with "Oil of Olay" in it (for a big price) has a very similar product at the Dollar Tree stores where the bottle contains shay butter vitamin e etc and the bottle is the mirror image of the Dawn bottle. The cap is the same etc. The label layout very similar even containing
some of the same text. But it's about 5 more ounces for $2 dollars less. Granted it
may not be exactly as good.

Yes, I notice these things too. I'm always looking for knock off recipes for seasonings and the like where I can just about buy all the ingredients for what that bottle cost...and have enough to fill several more bottles of it.

Oh my goodness, I thought that I was the only one to do that, LOL. I have found that the off brand of the laundry detergent that I buy is the same product in two stores, the containers and text on the labels are the same, with only the graphic designs being different, I keep an eye on which store has the best sale price and I get laundry detergent dirt cheap.

I'm always comparing ingredient labels and container shapes on name brand and store brand items. Very often if the ingredients are the same and in the same order, they are the same product with different labels and different prices.

With that said, many store brand items are made by companies that make nothing but private label products, usually processed foods, but for the basics like canned tomatoes and veg, flour, sugar etc.. are usually produced by the big name brands as there isn't usually a proprietary "recipe" involved.

 

[JohnL]

I've found some of the store brands to be quite good, others errrr not so much. I do like the Safeway Select grapefruit soda, but the cola doesn't cut it. The Safeway southwestern salsa in the refrigerated section is pretty darn good too for a store brand.

 

[Dee Jsaan]

Re:

This may make an interesting ongoing thread. Where members post what they have found as off brands that are nearly the same as the name brand.