Grumpy1's thread about the increase in soft drink prices got me thinking about off-brands. Many of them are exactly the same as the name brand equivalent, so I often will purchase them to save a bit of money.

HOWEVER, for some items, they just don't stack up against each other.

One of the obvious ones for me is soda. We drink primarily Diet Dr. Pepper in the FEV household (among other beverages, of course). One time, ONCE, we tried the off brand. It ended up in the sink. Even Diet Rite I considered undrinkable without copious additions of liquor.

What are some other items where the cheapy brand just doesn't measure up to the real deal?

On a side note, I've even had a few items where the off brand was better. The Kroger brand egg nog was the only one they had that did not have high fructose corn syrup. Nice.

UPDATE: DOES NOT HAVE TO BE ABOUT FOOD

Well, it's not food related, but as an 'off' brand, and the consensus is WAY Off...ProMags!

Raisin Bran and bran flakes must be Kelloggs. I like the way it gets squishy. The other brands are just different.

And piggy-backing off your post in the RC Cola thread…

To be entirely accurate, even Dr. Pepper isn’t “the real deal” of my youth. Stupid HFCS……

I make a specific taco salad dish for mother whenever I visit her…it’s her favorite and was a weekly staple when we were growing up. I allowed her to get the ingredients before my arrival one time and she got the [GASP ] Kroger brand of Velveeta and Rotel tomato.

Cue the Tracy Morgan meme…NOPE. MM MMM. NO. NO. HELL NO!!!

I lovingly told her I’d stop by the store before showing up from now on…

quote:

Originally posted by nhracecraft:
Well, it's not food related, but as an 'off' brand, and the consensus is WAY Off...ProMags!

No requirement to be food related, and I 100% AGREE WITH YOU!

So I kinda deal with this stuff, professionally.

Supermarket chains have stopped thinking of their brands as “economy” brands - especially HEB/some of the private chains, and started trying to position them slightly above mid market.

Frankly, grocery store buyers have forced so many brands to go so cheap, that there’s no way to get below the national brands, in price.

(And I mean cheap. Not cost effective, not reasonable. Cheap, shoddy junk which should neither be sold nor eaten, made by broken people without any concept of what good food could be.)

It’s made a space for the chain brands to go up in quality and price, over the national brands.

We desperately need more competition in the grocery space, and in flour milling, but I’m not sure how to get there.

Costco's Kirkland Signature brand products. Just about every one that I have tried is better than the well-known brand equivalent. Cheaper, too.

Similar story with Publix Premium items.

The Clancy's brand of chips and snacks sold by Aldi's is as good or better than most Frito Lay's brand stuff imo.

The method I use to compare the supermarket brands with the name brands is to compare the box, packaging or bottle the cheaper stuff is in with the higher end stuff. If they are same, its a good bet they are all produced by the same company.

The 7-11 label Frappuccino drinks. Bleeeeehh!

quote:

Originally posted by lastmanstanding:
The Clancy's brand of chips and snacks sold by Aldi's is as good or better than most Frito Lay's brand stuff imo.

Most of the "off brand" copies of various food items sold by Aldi and Trader Joes are better than the name brand versions.

quote:

Originally posted by Oz_Shadow:
Raisin Bran and bran flakes must be Kelloggs. I like the way it gets squishy. The other brands are just different.

I actually prefer the Malt-O-Meal bagged Raisin Bran to the name brand Kelloggs cereal.

My mother made Spiced Tea every year around The Holidays. It called for very specific brands when it came to the fruit juices involved.
I remember the first year my sister tried to make it; with all store brand (cheaper) ingredients.
It was damn near undrinkable.

In another personal experience; canned ravioli can be either Chef BoyArdee or even Great Value (Walmart).
But NOT the store brand from Brookshire’s. It was such a traumatic experience I can’t even remember the name of it now.

Great Value salsa is better than Pace IMO.

Off brand comment here.

Remember Brach's candies? You'd see the display, grab a sack, and pick what you wanted, toss in the sack, cashier would weigh it, you'd pay and be gone.

The red/white mints, the butterscotch, cinnamon discs, soft chewies, etc etc etc, were darn good. I always kept a couple candy dishes in the house for guests.

Something happened, Brachs went out of business. Mrs Brach was murdered (IIRC), no heirs, company was sold, gone and done, no more Brachs. I think somebody else bought the Brachs name.

I twice visited and toured the Brachs plant on Cicero Ave in Chicago, saw how they did what they did, came out very impressed.

Nowadays, I can't find the equivalent. You can buy the Scotch discs, I got some, they're made in Argentina IIRC. Other cheap-assed companies are making the same name varieties, but it's just not the same. Part of that I blame on wallychinamart because all they care about is always cutting prices so they can sell stuff a little cheaper than the competition. Quality has gone out of the window because of this cost cutting and underselling prices.
.

quote:

Originally posted by apprentice:
Great Value salsa is better than Pace IMO.

Cheese.

I like the HEB brand of diet cola better than (gasp) Coke. It’s not an exact copy, but it’s good. I also like their ice cream. Not a copy of Blue Bell but good. Slightly different flavors mostly. Rocky Road being an exception. Wife likes HEB RR better than the BB. However, the HEB brand of vanilla just ain’t as good as BB homemade vanilla.

quote:

I twice visited and toured the Brachs plant on Cicero Ave in Chicago, saw how they did what they did, came out very impressed.

^^^^^^^^^
Yep. Did you visit the Tootsie Roll plant on Cicero Ave? Close to where I grew up. There was always a guy selling flowers on the corner and you could smell the chocolate from the plant.

Haven't seen RC Cola in ages.

Most if not all the store brand sodas come out of the Pepsi plant (I would assume Coke does the same), just different recipes so you're much less likely to stop buying the name brands.