Most of them? Generics are frequently the same thing from the same manufacturer with cheaper packaging and no/very little marketing. There are very few things I've ever tried that were noticeably better in the name brand.
I was going to say everything. I mean its not everything but if you don't know its always best to give them a try if the price difference is good and if you don't like it then thats one of the few things not to get. Especially now. generics used to be pretty meh but man now they are sometimes better. Oh man dominicks had this store brand chunky peanut butter that I have not been able to find an equal to since they closed.
Sometimes store brands/generics have lower meat content for example, if you buy, say, meat balls or fish products. While other products are literally the same just with another logo. Always check the ingredients (at least in my country they give a lot of information)
oh I always compare the ingredients just like price per unit. Im one of those folks who forgets to mention things like this so thanks.
As long as your not a former roommate of mine. He would calculate price per slice of bread and buy the cheapest. He would do this for everything and would take hours shopping...
Im not that bad but I do sorta consider it a puzzle game. Sorta a "fun" math activity to keep my brain active like doing suduko. Honestly I don't see a point at price per slice as you would just get really thinly sliced bread. Should be per ounce. Honestly bread is one of those things I spring for the xspenciv stuff in the bakery section or I will do one of the fancy brownberry type with oats and nuts or potato.
I understand where you come but I do sympathize with him(he had 4 kids from 2 mother's so money was always tight). He took FOREVER shopping though.
One time we went shopping together, I got all my food, checked out, drove home, put all my food away, took a shower, watched a show on Netflix, drove back to the store and he said "almost done, 10 more minutes"...
ouch. don't tell you friend but the opening montage of idiocracy comes to mind.
Unless it's Kroger, never buy Kroger brand.
Interesting. Outside of chips, I've had a lot of luck with Private Selection (Kroger's no name brand). I've had quality issues with Food Lion and Walmart's perishables, but not as often with Kroger. Kroger's non perishables don't seem to be much different than Walmart's though.
Private Selection isn't bad, I was referring to Kroger brand as in it actually says Kroger, which is a suffering I wish on no one. It's also worth noting that Private Selection is a substantial bump in price over plain Kroger brand.
Still pretty cheap, but yeah. I've had little from the Kroger line that I'd buy again, so that's fair enough.
Eh, Oreo's are better than hydrox, at least the chocolate ones.
As far as I know Hydrox isn't a generic, it was the original brand. Oreo was an imitation and came later, but store brands/generic even later
You are 100% correct. This commenter seems to have confused "generic" with "competition".
That’s a placebo affect. Most generics are stuff that don’t meet the standards of the name brand, but is still fine to sell. Kind of a form of downcycling.
I don't know that placebo is the right word (or if you just pulled that info out of your ass) but even if it was, if people consume the generic and just feel like it was the same, then who cares? It's not like people are buying Kirkland chemotherapy, it's some cookies or lotion or whatever, and our feelings about those things are totally subjective anyway.
And even with medicine - not sure about cancer treatments, but headaches cured fine with generic ibuprofen vs more expensive Nurofen™ or similar
There's way WAY too many generic and store brands for them all to just be QC rejects.
They're not. I have celiac, and I've learned from reading labels that they often have completely different ingredients/manufacturing conditions.
They're not QC rejects, but they're also not the same thing repackaged.
It depends, especially with medication it's the same thing due to regulations.
My provider claims generics can have different fillers and such. The active ingredients have to be the same, though.
If I really wanted to be sure, I'd ask a pharmacist.
Yeah that's my understanding too but it's like preferring McDonald's over McBurger because they get the bag from a different distributor
Usually it is just cheaper ingredients but made in the same factory, and branded with a different label.
I love your username btw
See, this is what people say, but now that I've been reading labels I don't believe it.
For example, I cannot eat Kellogg's Rice Krispies, but some off brands are made with a different formula that doesn't include gluten and is manufactured in a safe environment.
Conversely, I can eat Cheerios, but not most store brands, Lucky Charms but not most store brands, etc.
And that's just cereal! Even drugs vary wildly. Sure, the active ingredients are the same, but the other contents can really vary.
Some foods have similar ingredients, but are either manufactured on shared equipment with wheat and dairy, or not.
I now believe that most store brands are made in a unique environment. I'm open to being convinced otherwise, but if you need more examples, I can check my cupboard and tell you all kinds of things!
It's more common that they're made by factories during what otherwise would be their downtime, like a production run wedged in at night.
Maybe there are a few examples of this, but in general this is just a blatant lie.
Any drugs. If you're not familiar with medications, just look at the active ingredients. They're most likely the same or very similar dosages.
Also, sleep aids are usually just diphenhydramine, aka Benadryl.
I'm not a doctor or a pharmacist. But just because it has the same ingredients doesn't mean it is the same. The way the medication is packaged, what fillers it has, etc. may have an impact on the way it works. Anecdotally I've heard of people having a different reaction to namebrand and generic because of some of these factors.
Good point, and worth keeping in mind! At the same time, the generics are often so much cheaper it's worth a try. I take Claratin daily for allergies and the Costco version is literally 10% the cost of name brand. It's astounding how much of a markup basic OTC drugs can have.
The article goes into how oversight over generic drugs is really low.
It's even more exciting in GMO-produced drugs like insulin where there are no generics, just 'biosimilars' because they're not made by the exact same strain of yeast/bacteria. Also then the excipients vary from brand to brand. For some reason some people have almost no effect from one insulin compared to another.
This is common knowledge.
This is why a lot of insurances only cover the brand name ones if there is a problem with the generic.
Vitamins and health supplements too. My mom works at a pretty big brand name one of them and they literally package the exact same stuff for a generic brand that's half the price.
Potato.
I told Latvian cousin to buy store brand potato. He laugh, I laugh. There is no store.
Is this like a Borat joke? Why Latvia? Latvia isn't underdeveloped or something.
The store by me has their own brand of pop-tart that's got more icing and filling as well as being half the cost. They don't have as many flavors, but they're not shrinkflated to the point of being a sad cookie. Shout out to Meijer toaster pastries.
Really as long as they are labeled correctly and not like dairy treat vs ice cream it's probably fine
labeled correctly and not like dairy treat vs ice cream
I mean, that is labeled correctly...
Something to do with milk fat percentages. And since it's (relatively) expensive, once you go cheap enough they stop using it and legally can't call it ice cream. There's not enough cream to meet the legal definition
Yeah, for me just about any consumable I buy store brand for. They're pretty much equal the name brand (if not sometimes better). There are some exceptions, but as long as they're the same product, they're probably produced in the same factory even.
I'd say the other way around. The store brand version has nearly always been fine, in my experience. I'd instead use the store brand and make a list of cases where the store brand isn't okay. At least in my experience, it's pretty limited. What I can recall having bad experiences with, off-the-cuff:
Soup. I have had some pretty disappointing store brand canned soups.
Things with motors, like small kitchen appliances, blenders and the like. I've had a bunch of generic ones of those fail before.
Sodas. These aren't exactly the same. Some people particularly prefer the taste of one root beer or whatever, and it might be that they prefer a name brand. That being said, there are also people who prefer store brands, so...shrugs
There are also a few cases where I've run into a particular brand that doesn't have a store clone, and where I really like the name-brand product.
Pretzels. I particularly like Dot's. I haven't seen a store brand clone of Dot's.
Sardines. Bit of a niche, but I once went on some website with some guy that was absolutely rabid about sardines, reviewed them, wrote huge amounts about them. My dad always liked eating canned sardines on crackers. Tried a couple different brands, and yeah, there is a difference, but the big one is that stores in the US don't normally have heavily-smoked sardines (well, okay, sprats) in oil. I started eating Latvian "Riga Gold" sprats in oil, and they're just amazing. I don't like a lot of foods I've tried from Eastern Europe, but man, they hit it out of the ballpark on that. I don't think that we have a US-based comparable manufacturer.
Red Windsor cheese. It's not all that fancy, just cheddar with some port wine marbled in, but I really like the taste. Same thing on this -- I don't think that there are any companies in the US that make the stuff, so it's name brand or nothing.
If someone did clone any of the last three, though, I'd give 'em a try.
I'll piggyback on your comment with Worcestershire sauce.
Lea & Perrins make the original Worcestershire sauce, they also have never disclosed the full recipe, just the ingredients.
There are store brands and even Heinz makes a sauce. None of them are as good as the original.
That's a good point. A number of sauces/mixed condiments in general are kind of like sodas. There are definitely competitors, but they all have slightly different variants, even within the same field. And people seem to have definite preferences on the specific variant.
HP Sauce is the earliest brown sauce, and is the most popular brown sauce in the United Kingdom, accounting for around 75% of sales. Daddies, OK Sauce and Wilkin & Sons are other popular brands. Another is Hammonds of Yorkshire,[8] popular in Northern England.[9]
Most supermarket chains in the UK[10] and Ireland also stock their own brand of brown sauce.
Yea the heinz one sucked. I had to Chuck it I just couldn't get through it.
Heinz is particularly bad, they use soy sauce and corn syrup, and I don't think ferment it at all.
Whereas Lea & Perrins use zero soy, and ferment the sauce.
The absolute worst part about it all is that Lea & Perrins was bought out by Heinz in 2005, and yet the Heinz branded sauce is still shit flavored water.
The original is still made the same way, and is still good.
The absolute worst part about it all is that Lea & Perrins was bought out by Heinz in 2005, and yet the Heinz branded sauce is still shit flavored water.
No, this is the best part because L&Ps product didn't go to shit after getting bought out.
True. That is a good thing.
Trader Joe's smoked sardines in olive oil is delicious.
Store brand ketchup is always awful.
Mac and cheese is another with significant variety in flavor between brands.
Honestly, while not exactly the same, the Walmart Great Value Mac and Cheese is almost identical to Kraft Dinner. Slightly different noodles, and the cheese powder is fairly pale compared to the striking yellow name brand stuff, but once the milk and butter is mixed in the colour comes out and it looks and tastes pretty damn close.
Recently I've been buying the grocery store brand cereals. They're half the price and I honestly find them tastier and made with better ingredients. Kellogg's quality has gone down the drain and it's really noticeable when you switch over.
Personally I don't care about brand names but about quality, as long as it's not shit just buy the cheaper options. Mostly the brand stuff isn't worth it, at least here in Czech republic but here's whole different problem with us getting all the shittiest products from EU.
Birthday/Christmas cards
Nobody in this generation buys those.
I'd guess nobody younger than boomers has a significant percentage buying them regularly.
I'm a zoomer and I both buy and love receiving those.
Honestly, i've always approached this question the reverse of how it's posed here. Pretty much every store brand whatever is just fine.
But, picking a few fancier versions of things as exceptions is nice sometimes.
Lately for me, Kingdom aged organic cheddar and Kerrygold butter have been my indulgences. I don't eat much dairy, so they last me a long time. They're loaded with flavor. And, it's just nice to have a few things that feel special.
I guess you need to define "fine". Most things are fine to buy but some name brand items are, in my opinion, worth spending more on.
For example, for me it's certain condiments and spices. Red pepper flakes by a name brand such as McCormick just taste better and have a more potent flavor. Buying a generic brand is just "fine" - it gives a good kick to food - but it doesn't nearly taste the same or is as flavorful as the name brand. In my opinion!
Lol, just a FYI about McCormick they also produce the generic spices on the exact same lines with the exact same spices as their own brand.
I worked on the ground pepper line, the ONLY difference between McCormick and the black white 4oz cans was the amount that was considered "acceptable". Brand name was kicked off it was under filled below 3.75 while generic cans could be 3.5 oz and still considered acceptable.
Price discrimination is a microeconomic pricing strategy where identical or largely similar goods or services are sold at different prices by the same provider in different market segments.[1][2][3] Price discrimination is distinguished from product differentiation by the more substantial difference in production cost for the differently priced products involved in the latter strategy.[3] Price differentiation essentially relies on the variation in the customers' willingness to pay[2][3][4] and in the elasticity of their demand. For price discrimination to succeed, a firm must have market power, such as a dominant market share, product uniqueness, sole pricing power, etc.[5] All prices under price discrimination are higher than the equilibrium price in a perfectly competitive market. However, some prices under price discrimination may be lower than the price charged by a single-price monopolist. Price discrimination is utilised by the monopolist to recapture some deadweight loss.[6] This Pricing strategy enables firms to capture additional consumer surplus and maximize their profits while benefiting some consumers at lower prices. Price discrimination can take many forms and is prevalent in many industries, from education and telecommunications to healthcare.[7]
In a theoretical market with perfect information, perfect substitutes, and no transaction costs or prohibition on secondary exchange (or re-selling) to prevent arbitrage, price discrimination can only be a feature of monopoly and oligopoly markets,[19] where market power can be exercised (see 'Price discrimination and monopoly power' below for more in-depth explanation). Without market power when the price is differentiated higher than the market equilibrium consumers will move to buy from other producers selling at the market equilibrium.[20] Moreover, when the seller tries to sell the same good at differentiating prices, the buyer at the lower price can arbitrage by selling to the consumer buying at the higher price with a small discount from the higher price.[21]
You're undermining their reliance on consumers not having perfect information there.
Breakfast cereal 100%
I'd go out of my way to buy Malt-o-Meal cereals even if they weren't cheaper. Marshmallow Mateys 4 Lyfe!
I don't recommend the generic for mini wheats though. I tried it, and as someone who always seeks the store brand for stuff I was not impressed.
I actually like the generic mini wheats better. I much prefer the generic cinnamon toasts too. The name brands taste weird to me now, like they have too much iron in them or something. Tastes metallic to me.
With the mini wheats, there are also a few different styles, mostly in how finely shredded the fibers (or whatever) are, how they're compressed, what the size is, and the thickness of the frosting. Like, the Post is barely the same cereal as the Kellogg's, and the store brands play around with the ratios too. It's really a matter of preference.
I like store brand oat loops more than Cheerios. I feel like they are less powdery.
In Canada, No Name Brand. All the products are in non eye-catching packaging, and are quite cheap. They are quite popular with the college and university housing crowds.
Store brand frozen vegetables and canned vegetables are fine, however I've found that there's a huge difference in quality where canned beans are concerned. Generic refried beans are just awful, as are generic baked beans.
Green beans, also. Mostly, it's the texture and how good a job was done removing all the stems.
Refried beans are one of those items that need to be a very specific brand (la costeña obviously). Other bean brands are ok but nothing ever comes close.
Most things but I just wouldn’t buy processed food branded or unbranded.
Noodles. Premade sauce in jars, that's a different story, but the noodles themselves ... I simply can't taste any difference, so why should I pay five times as much for the same amount of noodles?
Same with rice. I usually buy a huge bag of no-name rice from a nearby overseas market every couple of months, which is a lot cheaper than buying the same amount of rice in small bags, and doubly so if said rice is a brand name grain.
I disagree, there is a huge difference for pasta. People tend to buy Barilla here which is both expensive and bad. There are other brands which are much better and sometimes even cheaper (e.g. Rummo).
But then again I find store bought sauces pretty uninspiring so it probably doesn't matter which pasta you use for those. It really matters for making pasta dishes which rely using the starchy pasta water for creating a sauce (like carbonara).
Frozen vegetables. They all grew out of the same earth, possibly even at the same farm. The only difference is the packaging.
Except frozen peas
Good quality frozen peas are heavenly, most store brand bags taste like nothing and are somehow dry even if cooked in water
The packaging can make a big difference though so make sure to use extra care with some no name stuff. The food inside will get freezer burned way quicker with a lot of the shittier no name packaging.
It's fine to buy , but tastes differ A LOT. try it with same veggie frozen and fresh, you can taste the difference right away
The comment is comparing generic to brand-name frozen vegetables, not frozen to fresh vegetables
I find many of my store brand (Publix) products are as good or better than the leading brands. Not all, but many.
But if you need a specific one, I'd say yellow mustard.
Publix is employee owned too, so I would rather buy their brand then others personally.
Holy shit, I didn't know that. Thanks!
Worth noting that one of the daughters of the founder has a significant share of the stock too, and she's kinda a right-wing chud
Agreed.
In the EU, any certified "organic" product
Worst comment on here. Not using poison to keep of pests and having to have some decency about how abuse methods are for the land you work on is usually a good thing. The eco labels in the EU mean something. We could argue about how they could be even better, but they’re certainly better than not having any.
I don’t know about other places though. Something to avoid is made up labels or esoteric bs like Demeter.
In the US, organic-labeled products typically used way more pesticides than non-organic because organic growing is much more vulnerable to pests. They just need to be approved "organic" pesticides. It's a meaningless label here.
To add on to this explanation, the food industry in the US is chock full of fake marketing terms that are designed to get more eco-conscious consumers to fall into their trap. This is a problem across large swathes of the food industry, but one of the most egregious is chicken.
"No antibiotics" is supposed to mean the chicken was never given antibiotics (shocker, I know). There is no regular methodology for verifying this label is accurate outside of random sampling of poultry at slaughter.
"No hormones" is a completely useless label you'll see used all the time. Hormones are not allowed in the production of chickens for slaughter in the US.
"Cage free" is another tricky one. Chickens are almost never kept in cages when raised for slaughter. Hens are frequently kept in cages for egg-laying purposes. If you see this on chicken breast packaging it probably doesn't mean anything.
"Free-range" means the chicken had some kind of access to "outside." There are no standards for how much "outside" space is required or what that "outside" space has to look like.
So unfortunately a bit more legwork is required to make sure product labeling statements are actually worth something. That's a problem in the US, but the opposite side of the coin is problematic too (like how many people now attribute "GMO" as meaning "toxic").
My brother in law works as a biologist for a large processed food company and he has to measure and track all the different batches of food they process. According to him it’s the exact opposite, there are measurable amounts of pesticide in all of the non-organic foods they get in (apples, sweet potatoes, etc) and absolutely zero measurable amount of pesticides in the organic food they receive.
I used to think the same as you until hearing it from him that it’s an actual measurable difference and the exact opposite of what I thought.
Not being soaked in RoundUp is a win.
Thanks for the info. I reside in the EU and I honestly did not know that "organic" was fake in the US. I will edit my comment accordingly. Sorry for you guys over there ...
Worst comment on here
Why do you say that? Please elaborate.
Not using poison to keep of pests and having to have some decency about how abuse methods are for the land you work on is usually a good thing.
Please translate that sentence into English, or German if that´s easier for you.
The eco labels in the EU mean something. We could argue about how they could be even better, but they’re certainly better than not having any.
I agree with that
Something to avoid is made up labels or esoteric bs like Demeter.
In fact Demeter is much more "organic" than stuff with just the EU Bio label, because their rules are way more strikt. I really don´t care if the farmers bury cow horns filled with manure in their fields during a full moon while praising Rudolf Steiner, if their products are simply of better quality than EU Bio label products and why would I? Everybody is free to live the way they choose ...
Hard to say. Gotta check the labels because I've noticed a lot of the store brand items (especially at Walmart) have known carcinogens in the ingredients.
To be fair, so do a lot of name brands.
You're right. I was just referring to items where the generic version did but the name brand version didn't.
Do you mean stuff like preservatives, artificial colors, or things called out on Prop. 65 warnings? The one I've seen for the latter is acrylamide, which is formed naturally from cooking things. It's odd how it's labeled on some products and not others.
Food city branded fig newtons are better than brand name. Lol
There's a lot of them. I find it easier to classify by the store. For example, Costco's and HEB's (in Texas) store brand products are considered great (and sometimes even better) than their branded counterparts.
Depends which store brand too. Costco stuff (Kirkland) is almost always really good. Safeway has a good store brand too (O Organics and Signature). Kroger's are like, okay (Private Selection). Walmart's (Great Value) are hit or miss. Natural Grocer's stuff is usually good, and Trader Joe's is usually great. Target's Good and Gather seems good though I haven't tried many since I rarely go there for groceries. Uh... so I guess I mean pretty much everything.
I personally think good and gather is really good. They also own a couple other store brands that aren't apparent. I pointed out an ice cream to my girlfriend, she turned it around and sure enough a tiny target logo.
Publix Monterey Jack cheese is, oddly, better than the other brands. Like it's the first one I ever tasted that wasn't just rubbery nonsense. Their milk and butter we like, and their coffee is good.
Whole Foods store brands are all pretty good stuff.
I buy any brand of canned beans (I don't buy refried beans, I refry them) or dry beans, unbleached white flour, egg noodles, fizzy water (though I do prefer Topo Chico, it's a weak preference), sugar, and a lot of what we buy is fresh fruit & vegetables, they mostly aren't branded.
For a couple of years, Kroger was selling some Ugandan whole bean coffee under its store label that was the best coffee I ever had.
It was perfect. And now it's gone.
Publix has great cheese in general for decent pricing. But holy fuck did everything else get so much more expensive in the last 3 years. Over a decade ago, Publix prices were comparable to Winn Dixie and only slightly above Sedanos or Presidente. Nowadays Publix makes Whole Foods look like Aldi's.
The fried chicken is still worth it though.
Yeah one of the odd effects of the food price inflation was a sort of flattening. The difference between whole foods and Publix just disappeared, I used to just get meat from whole foods (they probably thought I was a relentless carnivore) and food at other stores, but now it's about the same price, so just get most of the food from whole foods. Publix brand dairy stuff is so good (and I remember when they were the only big grocery to push back against RBGH) but Whole Foods has a literal cheesemonger training program with state board exams, their fancy cheese area is ridiculously good.
I would say pretty much anything. The only time I got a cheaper brand and absolutely hated it was when I saw a pack of Bar-S hot dogs for like $0.60. You know how the stereotype is that hotdogs are made from feet and assholes? Those Bar-S fuckers tasted like they actually were.
Sometimes the off brand is even better than the name brand. Oreos, for example, are way better than Hydrox.
I'll go one step further and say some of the generic store brands are better. Sring cheese I find is often better when it's store brand or a generic brand. Tends to be lower fat which makes it denser, more stringy, not just a stick of mozzarella.
While my original comment was being funny with it, I truly do think that is the case with some brands. I love the Dollar General brand of Pop Tarts more than actual Pop Tarts (the pastry bit is softer and the insides taste more like preserves than artificial jelly) and many of Great Value (Walmart's food brand) items are loads better than the name brands, like Doritos, Little Debbie's, juices, etc.
Kroger zesty dill pickles blow all other brands out of the water. I don't know how they do it
Gotta disagree with the Oreo part.
Getting rid of trans fats definitely knocked Oreo down a peg in taste.
They're still fine, and the huge amount of different kinds of definitely nice. But Hydrox beats the current regular Oreo imo.
You can still buy pasta for $1/lb at trader joes. It's completely fine.
I'm guessing this is an American thing, because branded versions of common grocery items are typically industrial, overprocessed garbage. Or maybe the OP means actively manufactured stuff like cereal or yougrt as opposed to actual common groceries like meat, cheese or vegetables? i don't know it's weird phrasing either way.
FWIW, not in the US and it's unbranded fresh/locally sourced stuff>store brand from specific stores>industrial brands for me in most cases. Except what? Olive oil, maybe? Cookies, in that locally made cookies are actually more expensive than the mass produced sugar pucks. Eh... I don't know, soft drinks and snacks? Basically if it's actively trying to kill you the big brands do it better.
right? it's so wild
i don't give a rats ass what brand something is unless it's nestlé, in which case i refuse to even use it if someone else has bought it.
what matters is ingredients, sourcing of the ingredients, and certifications. Sure it's a decent amount of effort to keep track of that but good god it's the least we consumers can do..
Non organic and GMO foods. Oftentimes the only difference is the label. Even if truly "non GMO" that doesn't count for the thousands of years worth of selective breeding that are basically GMOs with extra steps.
Not to mention for organic and GMO food they often use a shit ton of pesticides because they can't use plants with built in insect resistance.
Another, perhaps controversial, item are non cage free/free range eggs and meat. Similar to the first point, most of these only differ in label and there is often no difference. Even if they are free range and certified by the government, the official definition for free range is a maximum of 5 chickens for a 1x1meter of space, hardly free range. Cage free is even worse, instead of many small cages it's essentially one large cage with thousands of chickens and much greater chance for workers to step on and crush them while attempting to work.
Food should be cheap but a company's soul objective is to increase revenue (high prices) and reduce cost (inhumane conditions). Even farmers markets are corrupted, many of the stands there sell goods from large producers to capitalize on peoples willingness to spend more for "local" and "humanely" produced goods.
That being said if they are genuinely a local farmer doing honest work then please support them. They need all the help they can get.
Everything but eyedrops
Winco if you have one. Their home brand stuff tastes WAY better than name brand, especially the Winco duritos
Most of them? Generics are frequently the same thing from the same manufacturer with cheaper packaging and no/very little marketing. There are very few things I've ever tried that were noticeably better in the name brand.
I was going to say everything. I mean its not everything but if you don't know its always best to give them a try if the price difference is good and if you don't like it then thats one of the few things not to get. Especially now. generics used to be pretty meh but man now they are sometimes better. Oh man dominicks had this store brand chunky peanut butter that I have not been able to find an equal to since they closed.
Sometimes store brands/generics have lower meat content for example, if you buy, say, meat balls or fish products. While other products are literally the same just with another logo. Always check the ingredients (at least in my country they give a lot of information)
oh I always compare the ingredients just like price per unit. Im one of those folks who forgets to mention things like this so thanks.
As long as your not a former roommate of mine. He would calculate price per slice of bread and buy the cheapest. He would do this for everything and would take hours shopping...
Im not that bad but I do sorta consider it a puzzle game. Sorta a "fun" math activity to keep my brain active like doing suduko. Honestly I don't see a point at price per slice as you would just get really thinly sliced bread. Should be per ounce. Honestly bread is one of those things I spring for the xspenciv stuff in the bakery section or I will do one of the fancy brownberry type with oats and nuts or potato.
I understand where you come but I do sympathize with him(he had 4 kids from 2 mother's so money was always tight). He took FOREVER shopping though.
One time we went shopping together, I got all my food, checked out, drove home, put all my food away, took a shower, watched a show on Netflix, drove back to the store and he said "almost done, 10 more minutes"...
ouch. don't tell you friend but the opening montage of idiocracy comes to mind.
Unless it's Kroger, never buy Kroger brand.
Interesting. Outside of chips, I've had a lot of luck with Private Selection (Kroger's no name brand). I've had quality issues with Food Lion and Walmart's perishables, but not as often with Kroger. Kroger's non perishables don't seem to be much different than Walmart's though.
Private Selection isn't bad, I was referring to Kroger brand as in it actually says Kroger, which is a suffering I wish on no one. It's also worth noting that Private Selection is a substantial bump in price over plain Kroger brand.
Still pretty cheap, but yeah. I've had little from the Kroger line that I'd buy again, so that's fair enough.
Eh, Oreo's are better than hydrox, at least the chocolate ones.
As far as I know Hydrox isn't a generic, it was the original brand. Oreo was an imitation and came later, but store brands/generic even later
You are 100% correct. This commenter seems to have confused "generic" with "competition".
That’s a placebo affect. Most generics are stuff that don’t meet the standards of the name brand, but is still fine to sell. Kind of a form of downcycling.
I don't know that placebo is the right word (or if you just pulled that info out of your ass) but even if it was, if people consume the generic and just feel like it was the same, then who cares? It's not like people are buying Kirkland chemotherapy, it's some cookies or lotion or whatever, and our feelings about those things are totally subjective anyway.
And even with medicine - not sure about cancer treatments, but headaches cured fine with generic ibuprofen vs more expensive Nurofen™ or similar
There's way WAY too many generic and store brands for them all to just be QC rejects.
They're not. I have celiac, and I've learned from reading labels that they often have completely different ingredients/manufacturing conditions.
They're not QC rejects, but they're also not the same thing repackaged.
It depends, especially with medication it's the same thing due to regulations.
My provider claims generics can have different fillers and such. The active ingredients have to be the same, though.
If I really wanted to be sure, I'd ask a pharmacist.
Yeah that's my understanding too but it's like preferring McDonald's over McBurger because they get the bag from a different distributor
Usually it is just cheaper ingredients but made in the same factory, and branded with a different label.
I love your username btw
See, this is what people say, but now that I've been reading labels I don't believe it.
For example, I cannot eat Kellogg's Rice Krispies, but some off brands are made with a different formula that doesn't include gluten and is manufactured in a safe environment.
Conversely, I can eat Cheerios, but not most store brands, Lucky Charms but not most store brands, etc.
And that's just cereal! Even drugs vary wildly. Sure, the active ingredients are the same, but the other contents can really vary.
Some foods have similar ingredients, but are either manufactured on shared equipment with wheat and dairy, or not.
I now believe that most store brands are made in a unique environment. I'm open to being convinced otherwise, but if you need more examples, I can check my cupboard and tell you all kinds of things!
It's more common that they're made by factories during what otherwise would be their downtime, like a production run wedged in at night.
Maybe there are a few examples of this, but in general this is just a blatant lie.
Any drugs. If you're not familiar with medications, just look at the active ingredients. They're most likely the same or very similar dosages.
Also, sleep aids are usually just diphenhydramine, aka Benadryl.
I'm not a doctor or a pharmacist. But just because it has the same ingredients doesn't mean it is the same. The way the medication is packaged, what fillers it has, etc. may have an impact on the way it works. Anecdotally I've heard of people having a different reaction to namebrand and generic because of some of these factors.
Good point, and worth keeping in mind! At the same time, the generics are often so much cheaper it's worth a try. I take Claratin daily for allergies and the Costco version is literally 10% the cost of name brand. It's astounding how much of a markup basic OTC drugs can have.
Yeah there are less controls around generic prescription drugs than their name brand counterparts.
The article goes into how oversight over generic drugs is really low.
It's even more exciting in GMO-produced drugs like insulin where there are no generics, just 'biosimilars' because they're not made by the exact same strain of yeast/bacteria. Also then the excipients vary from brand to brand. For some reason some people have almost no effect from one insulin compared to another.
This is common knowledge.
This is why a lot of insurances only cover the brand name ones if there is a problem with the generic.
Vitamins and health supplements too. My mom works at a pretty big brand name one of them and they literally package the exact same stuff for a generic brand that's half the price.
Potato.
I told Latvian cousin to buy store brand potato. He laugh, I laugh. There is no store.
Is this like a Borat joke? Why Latvia? Latvia isn't underdeveloped or something.
Why Latvia? Is Joke?
No comrade, is meme.
Latvian no like meme, cannot eat.
https://www.chrisconnollyonline.com/2013/04/195-history-and-origins-of-latvian-jokes.html
Thanks. Mainly I was wondering 'why Latvia'?
Is joke. There is no potato.
Why buy potato with name?
Potato already have name: Potato.
I once buy brand name potato.
I kid, I am poor and store no have potato.
What is store, comrade?
The store by me has their own brand of pop-tart that's got more icing and filling as well as being half the cost. They don't have as many flavors, but they're not shrinkflated to the point of being a sad cookie. Shout out to Meijer toaster pastries.
Really as long as they are labeled correctly and not like dairy treat vs ice cream it's probably fine
I mean, that is labeled correctly...
Something to do with milk fat percentages. And since it's (relatively) expensive, once you go cheap enough they stop using it and legally can't call it ice cream. There's not enough cream to meet the legal definition
Yeah, for me just about any consumable I buy store brand for. They're pretty much equal the name brand (if not sometimes better). There are some exceptions, but as long as they're the same product, they're probably produced in the same factory even.
I'd say the other way around. The store brand version has nearly always been fine, in my experience. I'd instead use the store brand and make a list of cases where the store brand isn't okay. At least in my experience, it's pretty limited. What I can recall having bad experiences with, off-the-cuff:
Soup. I have had some pretty disappointing store brand canned soups.
Things with motors, like small kitchen appliances, blenders and the like. I've had a bunch of generic ones of those fail before.
Sodas. These aren't exactly the same. Some people particularly prefer the taste of one root beer or whatever, and it might be that they prefer a name brand. That being said, there are also people who prefer store brands, so...shrugs
There are also a few cases where I've run into a particular brand that doesn't have a store clone, and where I really like the name-brand product.
Pretzels. I particularly like Dot's. I haven't seen a store brand clone of Dot's.
Sardines. Bit of a niche, but I once went on some website with some guy that was absolutely rabid about sardines, reviewed them, wrote huge amounts about them. My dad always liked eating canned sardines on crackers. Tried a couple different brands, and yeah, there is a difference, but the big one is that stores in the US don't normally have heavily-smoked sardines (well, okay, sprats) in oil. I started eating Latvian "Riga Gold" sprats in oil, and they're just amazing. I don't like a lot of foods I've tried from Eastern Europe, but man, they hit it out of the ballpark on that. I don't think that we have a US-based comparable manufacturer.
Red Windsor cheese. It's not all that fancy, just cheddar with some port wine marbled in, but I really like the taste. Same thing on this -- I don't think that there are any companies in the US that make the stuff, so it's name brand or nothing.
If someone did clone any of the last three, though, I'd give 'em a try.
I'll piggyback on your comment with Worcestershire sauce.
Lea & Perrins make the original Worcestershire sauce, they also have never disclosed the full recipe, just the ingredients.
There are store brands and even Heinz makes a sauce. None of them are as good as the original.
That's a good point. A number of sauces/mixed condiments in general are kind of like sodas. There are definitely competitors, but they all have slightly different variants, even within the same field. And people seem to have definite preferences on the specific variant.
Like, the Brits have that brown sauce stuff.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brown_sauce
Yea the heinz one sucked. I had to Chuck it I just couldn't get through it.
Heinz is particularly bad, they use soy sauce and corn syrup, and I don't think ferment it at all.
Whereas Lea & Perrins use zero soy, and ferment the sauce.
The absolute worst part about it all is that Lea & Perrins was bought out by Heinz in 2005, and yet the Heinz branded sauce is still shit flavored water.
The original is still made the same way, and is still good.
No, this is the best part because L&Ps product didn't go to shit after getting bought out.
True. That is a good thing.
Trader Joe's smoked sardines in olive oil is delicious.
Store brand ketchup is always awful.
Mac and cheese is another with significant variety in flavor between brands.
Honestly, while not exactly the same, the Walmart Great Value Mac and Cheese is almost identical to Kraft Dinner. Slightly different noodles, and the cheese powder is fairly pale compared to the striking yellow name brand stuff, but once the milk and butter is mixed in the colour comes out and it looks and tastes pretty damn close.
Recently I've been buying the grocery store brand cereals. They're half the price and I honestly find them tastier and made with better ingredients. Kellogg's quality has gone down the drain and it's really noticeable when you switch over.
Personally I don't care about brand names but about quality, as long as it's not shit just buy the cheaper options. Mostly the brand stuff isn't worth it, at least here in Czech republic but here's whole different problem with us getting all the shittiest products from EU.
Birthday/Christmas cards
Nobody in this generation buys those. I'd guess nobody younger than boomers has a significant percentage buying them regularly.
I'm a zoomer and I both buy and love receiving those.
Honestly, i've always approached this question the reverse of how it's posed here. Pretty much every store brand whatever is just fine.
But, picking a few fancier versions of things as exceptions is nice sometimes.
Lately for me, Kingdom aged organic cheddar and Kerrygold butter have been my indulgences. I don't eat much dairy, so they last me a long time. They're loaded with flavor. And, it's just nice to have a few things that feel special.
I guess you need to define "fine". Most things are fine to buy but some name brand items are, in my opinion, worth spending more on.
For example, for me it's certain condiments and spices. Red pepper flakes by a name brand such as McCormick just taste better and have a more potent flavor. Buying a generic brand is just "fine" - it gives a good kick to food - but it doesn't nearly taste the same or is as flavorful as the name brand. In my opinion!
Lol, just a FYI about McCormick they also produce the generic spices on the exact same lines with the exact same spices as their own brand.
I worked on the ground pepper line, the ONLY difference between McCormick and the black white 4oz cans was the amount that was considered "acceptable". Brand name was kicked off it was under filled below 3.75 while generic cans could be 3.5 oz and still considered acceptable.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Price_discrimination
You're undermining their reliance on consumers not having perfect information there.
Breakfast cereal 100%
I'd go out of my way to buy Malt-o-Meal cereals even if they weren't cheaper. Marshmallow Mateys 4 Lyfe!
I don't recommend the generic for mini wheats though. I tried it, and as someone who always seeks the store brand for stuff I was not impressed.
I actually like the generic mini wheats better. I much prefer the generic cinnamon toasts too. The name brands taste weird to me now, like they have too much iron in them or something. Tastes metallic to me.
With the mini wheats, there are also a few different styles, mostly in how finely shredded the fibers (or whatever) are, how they're compressed, what the size is, and the thickness of the frosting. Like, the Post is barely the same cereal as the Kellogg's, and the store brands play around with the ratios too. It's really a matter of preference.
I like store brand oat loops more than Cheerios. I feel like they are less powdery.
In Canada, No Name Brand. All the products are in non eye-catching packaging, and are quite cheap. They are quite popular with the college and university housing crowds.
Store brand frozen vegetables and canned vegetables are fine, however I've found that there's a huge difference in quality where canned beans are concerned. Generic refried beans are just awful, as are generic baked beans.
Green beans, also. Mostly, it's the texture and how good a job was done removing all the stems.
Refried beans are one of those items that need to be a very specific brand (la costeña obviously). Other bean brands are ok but nothing ever comes close.
Most things but I just wouldn’t buy processed food branded or unbranded.
Noodles. Premade sauce in jars, that's a different story, but the noodles themselves ... I simply can't taste any difference, so why should I pay five times as much for the same amount of noodles?
Same with rice. I usually buy a huge bag of no-name rice from a nearby overseas market every couple of months, which is a lot cheaper than buying the same amount of rice in small bags, and doubly so if said rice is a brand name grain.
I disagree, there is a huge difference for pasta. People tend to buy Barilla here which is both expensive and bad. There are other brands which are much better and sometimes even cheaper (e.g. Rummo).
But then again I find store bought sauces pretty uninspiring so it probably doesn't matter which pasta you use for those. It really matters for making pasta dishes which rely using the starchy pasta water for creating a sauce (like carbonara).
Frozen vegetables. They all grew out of the same earth, possibly even at the same farm. The only difference is the packaging.
Except frozen peas
Good quality frozen peas are heavenly, most store brand bags taste like nothing and are somehow dry even if cooked in water
The packaging can make a big difference though so make sure to use extra care with some no name stuff. The food inside will get freezer burned way quicker with a lot of the shittier no name packaging.
It's fine to buy , but tastes differ A LOT. try it with same veggie frozen and fresh, you can taste the difference right away
The comment is comparing generic to brand-name frozen vegetables, not frozen to fresh vegetables
I find many of my store brand (Publix) products are as good or better than the leading brands. Not all, but many.
But if you need a specific one, I'd say yellow mustard.
Publix is employee owned too, so I would rather buy their brand then others personally.
Holy shit, I didn't know that. Thanks!
Worth noting that one of the daughters of the founder has a significant share of the stock too, and she's kinda a right-wing chud
Agreed.
In the EU, any certified "organic" product
Worst comment on here. Not using poison to keep of pests and having to have some decency about how abuse methods are for the land you work on is usually a good thing. The eco labels in the EU mean something. We could argue about how they could be even better, but they’re certainly better than not having any. I don’t know about other places though. Something to avoid is made up labels or esoteric bs like Demeter.
In the US, organic-labeled products typically used way more pesticides than non-organic because organic growing is much more vulnerable to pests. They just need to be approved "organic" pesticides. It's a meaningless label here.
To add on to this explanation, the food industry in the US is chock full of fake marketing terms that are designed to get more eco-conscious consumers to fall into their trap. This is a problem across large swathes of the food industry, but one of the most egregious is chicken.
So unfortunately a bit more legwork is required to make sure product labeling statements are actually worth something. That's a problem in the US, but the opposite side of the coin is problematic too (like how many people now attribute "GMO" as meaning "toxic").
My brother in law works as a biologist for a large processed food company and he has to measure and track all the different batches of food they process. According to him it’s the exact opposite, there are measurable amounts of pesticide in all of the non-organic foods they get in (apples, sweet potatoes, etc) and absolutely zero measurable amount of pesticides in the organic food they receive.
I used to think the same as you until hearing it from him that it’s an actual measurable difference and the exact opposite of what I thought.
Not being soaked in RoundUp is a win.
Thanks for the info. I reside in the EU and I honestly did not know that "organic" was fake in the US. I will edit my comment accordingly. Sorry for you guys over there ...
Why do you say that? Please elaborate.
Please translate that sentence into English, or German if that´s easier for you.
I agree with that
In fact Demeter is much more "organic" than stuff with just the EU Bio label, because their rules are way more strikt. I really don´t care if the farmers bury cow horns filled with manure in their fields during a full moon while praising Rudolf Steiner, if their products are simply of better quality than EU Bio label products and why would I? Everybody is free to live the way they choose ...
Hard to say. Gotta check the labels because I've noticed a lot of the store brand items (especially at Walmart) have known carcinogens in the ingredients.
To be fair, so do a lot of name brands.
You're right. I was just referring to items where the generic version did but the name brand version didn't.
Do you mean stuff like preservatives, artificial colors, or things called out on Prop. 65 warnings? The one I've seen for the latter is acrylamide, which is formed naturally from cooking things. It's odd how it's labeled on some products and not others.
Food city branded fig newtons are better than brand name. Lol
There's a lot of them. I find it easier to classify by the store. For example, Costco's and HEB's (in Texas) store brand products are considered great (and sometimes even better) than their branded counterparts.
Depends which store brand too. Costco stuff (Kirkland) is almost always really good. Safeway has a good store brand too (O Organics and Signature). Kroger's are like, okay (Private Selection). Walmart's (Great Value) are hit or miss. Natural Grocer's stuff is usually good, and Trader Joe's is usually great. Target's Good and Gather seems good though I haven't tried many since I rarely go there for groceries. Uh... so I guess I mean pretty much everything.
I personally think good and gather is really good. They also own a couple other store brands that aren't apparent. I pointed out an ice cream to my girlfriend, she turned it around and sure enough a tiny target logo.
Publix Monterey Jack cheese is, oddly, better than the other brands. Like it's the first one I ever tasted that wasn't just rubbery nonsense. Their milk and butter we like, and their coffee is good.
Whole Foods store brands are all pretty good stuff.
I buy any brand of canned beans (I don't buy refried beans, I refry them) or dry beans, unbleached white flour, egg noodles, fizzy water (though I do prefer Topo Chico, it's a weak preference), sugar, and a lot of what we buy is fresh fruit & vegetables, they mostly aren't branded.
For a couple of years, Kroger was selling some Ugandan whole bean coffee under its store label that was the best coffee I ever had.
It was perfect. And now it's gone.
Publix has great cheese in general for decent pricing. But holy fuck did everything else get so much more expensive in the last 3 years. Over a decade ago, Publix prices were comparable to Winn Dixie and only slightly above Sedanos or Presidente. Nowadays Publix makes Whole Foods look like Aldi's.
The fried chicken is still worth it though.
Yeah one of the odd effects of the food price inflation was a sort of flattening. The difference between whole foods and Publix just disappeared, I used to just get meat from whole foods (they probably thought I was a relentless carnivore) and food at other stores, but now it's about the same price, so just get most of the food from whole foods. Publix brand dairy stuff is so good (and I remember when they were the only big grocery to push back against RBGH) but Whole Foods has a literal cheesemonger training program with state board exams, their fancy cheese area is ridiculously good.
I would say pretty much anything. The only time I got a cheaper brand and absolutely hated it was when I saw a pack of Bar-S hot dogs for like $0.60. You know how the stereotype is that hotdogs are made from feet and assholes? Those Bar-S fuckers tasted like they actually were.
Sometimes the off brand is even better than the name brand. Oreos, for example, are way better than Hydrox.
I'll go one step further and say some of the generic store brands are better. Sring cheese I find is often better when it's store brand or a generic brand. Tends to be lower fat which makes it denser, more stringy, not just a stick of mozzarella.
While my original comment was being funny with it, I truly do think that is the case with some brands. I love the Dollar General brand of Pop Tarts more than actual Pop Tarts (the pastry bit is softer and the insides taste more like preserves than artificial jelly) and many of Great Value (Walmart's food brand) items are loads better than the name brands, like Doritos, Little Debbie's, juices, etc.
Kroger zesty dill pickles blow all other brands out of the water. I don't know how they do it
Gotta disagree with the Oreo part.
Getting rid of trans fats definitely knocked Oreo down a peg in taste.
They're still fine, and the huge amount of different kinds of definitely nice. But Hydrox beats the current regular Oreo imo.
You can still buy pasta for $1/lb at trader joes. It's completely fine.
I'm guessing this is an American thing, because branded versions of common grocery items are typically industrial, overprocessed garbage. Or maybe the OP means actively manufactured stuff like cereal or yougrt as opposed to actual common groceries like meat, cheese or vegetables? i don't know it's weird phrasing either way.
FWIW, not in the US and it's unbranded fresh/locally sourced stuff>store brand from specific stores>industrial brands for me in most cases. Except what? Olive oil, maybe? Cookies, in that locally made cookies are actually more expensive than the mass produced sugar pucks. Eh... I don't know, soft drinks and snacks? Basically if it's actively trying to kill you the big brands do it better.
right? it's so wild
i don't give a rats ass what brand something is unless it's nestlé, in which case i refuse to even use it if someone else has bought it.
what matters is ingredients, sourcing of the ingredients, and certifications. Sure it's a decent amount of effort to keep track of that but good god it's the least we consumers can do..
Non organic and GMO foods. Oftentimes the only difference is the label. Even if truly "non GMO" that doesn't count for the thousands of years worth of selective breeding that are basically GMOs with extra steps.
Not to mention for organic and GMO food they often use a shit ton of pesticides because they can't use plants with built in insect resistance.
Another, perhaps controversial, item are non cage free/free range eggs and meat. Similar to the first point, most of these only differ in label and there is often no difference. Even if they are free range and certified by the government, the official definition for free range is a maximum of 5 chickens for a 1x1meter of space, hardly free range. Cage free is even worse, instead of many small cages it's essentially one large cage with thousands of chickens and much greater chance for workers to step on and crush them while attempting to work.
Food should be cheap but a company's soul objective is to increase revenue (high prices) and reduce cost (inhumane conditions). Even farmers markets are corrupted, many of the stands there sell goods from large producers to capitalize on peoples willingness to spend more for "local" and "humanely" produced goods.
That being said if they are genuinely a local farmer doing honest work then please support them. They need all the help they can get.
Everything but eyedrops
Winco if you have one. Their home brand stuff tastes WAY better than name brand, especially the Winco duritos