Brand names or supermarkets own?

Keesha said:
There are two supermarket brand names I trust explicitly. Presidents Choice and Kirkland. What these companies do is make brand name items with as close to the same ingredients as possible for far less so I always go for them. They are excellent quality products.
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I too always check out the ingredients, I do the same with over the counter meds which saves me even more money. With the meds, I'll often also ask the pharmacist if there's any real difference just in case I missed something on something. I was standing looking at two meds with just a $3 difference in price, but then something said look at some others in a different section of the shelving and there was like a $8 difference, I read all the ingredients trying to find some difference, none in the main, none in the inactive and so I just felt I had to reassure myself and asked the pharmacist and she confirmed no difference. Just insane how these companies try to throw a lot of packaging, words, and tv commercials at us to convince us to up-pay for their brainwashing us to think we're getting something better by paying more.

The main drug I was comparing to was Mucinex which I have used in the past, no more remarkable than the store brand, but finding an even lesser price store brand for 1/5th of the price that was a real win for me. I haven't had to use it yet, as I was able to stave off what I thought was going to be another bad experience with nasal and chest congestion that kept me sick for nearly two weeks back in early August I believe it was. But I have it just in case plus I still have some of the higher priced store version I used before.
 
With food products, we may have a real preference for the national or international brands because of taste or texture or something. Otherwise we generally get the store or generic brands so long as the quality is acceptable.

Others have mentioned reading labels carefully, which I always do, and not just to verify that the cheap brands are the same as the expensive ones. Even within the same brand, you need to be careful. For example, there was a cleaner or degreaser, "409" or similar, that was available in a regular household version and in a professional custodial version at a 20% higher price. Right beside each other on the shelf. But the ingredient declarations, which included the percentage of each active ingredient, were identical.

And once while we were shopping my wife was trying to decide which "ant traps" to buy. There were four varieties from the same manufacturer - something like regular, heavy duty, indoor, outdoor. Again, the ingredients and their percentages in the formula were listed on the packages, and again they were identical, but all at different prices.

Caveat Emptor.
 

raybar said:
With food products, we may have a real preference for the national or international brands because of taste or texture or something. Otherwise we generally get the store or generic brands so long as the quality is acceptable.

Others have mentioned reading labels carefully, which I always do, and not just to verify that the cheap brands are the same as the expensive ones. Even within the same brand, you need to be careful. For example, there was a cleaner or degreaser, "409" or similar, that was available in a regular household version and in a professional custodial version at a 20% higher price. Right beside each other on the shelf. But the ingredient declarations, which included the percentage of each active ingredient, were identical.

And once while we were shopping my wife was trying to decide which "ant traps" to buy. There were four varieties from the same manufacturer - something like regular, heavy duty, indoor, outdoor. Again, the ingredients and their percentages in the formula were listed on the packages, and again they were identical, but all at different prices.

Caveat Emptor.
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As I said, when choosing I also compared the higher priced store brand to the less expensive priced store brand, same brand, same ingredients, different prices. We're, saying exactly the same thing, but, sorry if I wasn't clear sometimes, I confuse my own self. I probably need to ease up on the drugs. Same point, but, you did explain it better.

I've been doing exactly as you comparing ingredients, levels, specs, the whole sha-bang within a brand and finding they are trying to pull one over on us. Sad thing is it isn't anything new. I did take an advertising course in school, some things I don't remember, but, I do recall how they convince us there a problem where there isn't and then they go on to sell us the cure for that non-existent issue that we now believe exist and so on and on. It the machine that keeps making entrepreneurs rich. Just convince us we need it, it will make us more fabulous or whatever one thing will connect in our minds and more than enough of will buy it. Not always a bad thing, it keeps the economy moving, just as long as we recognize it for what it is.
 
Walmart brands like Great Value (food) and Equate (health products) save us.

Our home is full of these brands and we find they are of equal quality to brand names.

More on Walmart brands..[h=3]List of Walmart brands - Wikipedia[/h]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Walmart_brands



Walmart, Inc., like many large retail and grocery chains, offers store brands which are lower-priced alternatives to name brand products. Many products offered under Walmart brands are private labelproducts, but .... Great Value brand products as well as Walmart merchandise are also present in Seiyu grocery stores ...‎Major brands · ‎Great Value · ‎Equate · ‎Additional brands
 
I'm a mixer. Some store, some brand name.
I find that the quality is the same on a lot of things.
I can't think of any examples right now. Store brand canned goods like tomatoes or beans to be used in recipes.
I do like Goya chickpeas!
 
hearlady said:
I'm a mixer. Some store, some brand name.
I find that the quality is the same on a lot of things.
I can't think of any examples right now. Store brand canned goods like tomatoes or beans to be used in recipes.
I do like Goya chickpeas!
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Speaking of Goya, there are some of their products I don't use a substitute for.
 
A friend of my husbands worked for Breyers ice cream,this was the 70s,Breyers was packaged down to a certain spot in the vat,keg,barrel,whatever it was called,the rest was packaged as the A&P store brand,I believe it was Clairmont or something like that.
I would imagine its totally automated today though.
 
With me it varies. Sometimes I prefer the brand name, sometimes the store brand is just as good and the price is lower. There are a few products which I prefer the store brand over the brand name.
 
I buy mostly store brands (Great Value being one of the main ones). I buy very few canned items -- stewed tomatoes being one I do buy -- because I mostly cook from fresh. As to cleaning products and laundry stuff, I have a couple name brands I favor because I have found they work better for me. One exception is laundry detergent -- I haven't found that the name brands work any better for me. Of course, I'm not usually dealing with heavily soiled items, since I seldom roll in the mud or change a tire. Back in antiquity when I was dealing with grungy Army fatigues I did have a couple of name brands I insisted on using, but those days are mercifully behind me.
 
When there are recalls on some food items you will notice the label names listed for the same item. Different companies have buyers that purchase from the same vendor then simply apply their own label to the container. As far as which item to choose from I simply go with quality. I think ketchup and salad dressings are good examples of a marked difference. Store brand ketchups usually are watered down and salad dressings tasteless but I buy Kroger French because it is good and I don't care for french dressing. Canned veggies are also poor quality for store brands.
 

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