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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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).
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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