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We eat mostly fresh & organic & as I've said before, I'm like an old prairie woman who cooks/bakes mainly from scratch. Even if the SO wants cookies, pie or a cake... I bake it from scratch, which I actually enjoy. But, as others have noticed, it depends upon the product. I don't normally use dried pasta or canned beans, but always have both on-hand. They all taste the same to me so I just buy the cheapest to keep in storage for what I call 'storm food'. However, many generics taste awful to me or make me ill. For example, 365, the Whole Foods' generic brand always tastes awful, from ketchup to mustard to cereal. Many of their products also give me stomach pain... why I don't know. So, I avoid them.
I know others feel all products are the same, only the packaging differs... but, being doubled over in stomach pain after eating a generic product tells me something differs.
I stick to organic, fresh & buy according to ingredients, not label. If I could eat hotdogs & canned beans & feel fulfilled & healthy, I would... sadly, I can't. If I could eat generic & feel the same, I would... my personal experience is it's just not the same.
I started buying a lot of store brands about a yr. ago when our weekly grocery bill for 2 was starting to average $150.00. I only buy my laundry det. and cleaning products at WalMart. I discovered Aldi from this Forum and as said, it saves me at least half & I always check the ingredients. I never buy canned vegetables bc. they have very few Vitamins, frozen is much better. Meats and fruit on sale & I try to buy as much Local as possible. No processed or boxed food. Our weekly bill is now $65.00 a week.
Store Brands are perfect,as you guys said already, why pay more than you have to. We buy no tins, only frozen vegetable in winter,and in summer I harvest a lot of my own produce. We pay for 4 people between $ 98.- and $102.- a week. That includes meat for my boys...lol
Most major grocery chains now have their own brand of food sitting right next to the original item. I notice Walmart has their 'Great Value' brand, and I've seen more and more over of it in the past year. There are many new prodcuts in direct competition with the name brand stuff.
I have a friend that doesn't trust any of it and refuses to buy it. She also thinks it is of an inferior quality. To some degree I agree. I mean I've never had an Oreo knock-off that was a good as the original. But for stuff like canned beans, I can't tell the difference. Do you buy the store brand items?
I worked as a teen for a commercial vegetable cannery that produced private label/house brand lines right off the exact same line as the major brand...same stuff.
Trader Joe's private label chocolate sandwich creme cookies FAR exceed Oreos in price and taste.
Product to product, it can be hit and miss. But many times, the private label is identical to the household brand name.
I don't shop WalMart because I have a ton of better options where I live. But, in defense of the Great Value brand - I was part of a project (as a subcontractor) to create a series of Great Value products. The rationale for the brand is to 'copy' whatever the leading SKU is/are in the category. And they go through a lot of recipe testing, including multiple consumer tasting panels in numerous cities, until they believe they've created a product that the average consumer cannot identify as either Great Value or the 'leading brand' name. It's quite thorough and I have to say, working on the project left me very impressed with how diligent the product teams at WalMart are in terms of executing on the Great Value brand 'promise'.
I do buy some things name brand and other things store brand. My mom is name brand shopper when it comes to food, spices ect... She insists McCormick spices and extracts are superior to off brands. I buy spices from a brand called Badia. It's a brand name but cheaper than McCormick and I have been using badia for a few years now. I do have some McCormick spices but they are pricy. Sugar, flour, butter I'll buy the store brand because it seems the same to me but my mom will tell you different, she insists on using heckers flour and domino sugar for baking.I have even bought soda at the dollar tree and it's fine for me.certain items like milk, chicken breast I'll buy the organic brand called natures promise because I prefer it but most of the time I buy off brands. I love aldi's savoritz crackers better than ritz. I even buy aldi's brand of honey bunches of oats with almond cereal.
Location: somewhere between Lk. Michigan & Lk. Huron
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Ok. now I am going to be a little different, I have to admit that if $$$$'s were no object I would stick with national name brand everything, but as it is I have to be money conscious here, & it makes smart sense to be so. I have no problem buying store brand can veggies. I do have a problem buying store brand ketchup product no matter what store I purchase it from. for some reason store brand ketchup product tastes so bland & leaves a nasty taste in my mouth, eck. I can deal with just about anything to being store brand, just not ketchup product. We have a variety of groceries store to shop at in our town of 35,000 people. I generally like to shop at a different store from week to week, for variety sake's -- Kroger's, Meijer, & Walmart. Sometimes I'll shop at Polly's, we don't have a Trader's Joe. There are a number of other groceries store's around, I'm just not as fond of the others.
Good question. Well, at least where I am, store brands are not always as good as name brands. I will only buy Heinz ketchup for instance, never the store brand. (I'm not a huge ketchup fan so a large bottle will last a long time in my house, so I don't mind paying extra. The store brand is too thin and watery). But, for many standard things store brand is just as good...I just don't agree that it's ALWAYS as good and the same exact item with different packaging.
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