Outstanding Store Brands
Published: September 6, 2009
It used to be when you walked down a store aisle, you’d see boring black and white packages containing generic brands that looked and usually tasted pretty bland. But these days, Consumer Reports says all that’s changed. Store brands are lot better in terms of the quality and in terms of the packaging.
Consumer Reports has long surveyed our subscribers about their preferences when it comes to food. Seventy percent of those surveyed said the quality of store brands is really quite high.
Consumer Reports’ trained tasters compared leading brand names to store brands, trying 29 different foods. They did blind taste tests on everything from salsa to frozen strawberries.
Betty Crocker’s au gratin potatoes went head to head with Great Value’s by Walmart. Great Value was the winner at half the price!
Old El Paso Thick n’ Chunky Salsa battled it out with Costco’s Kirkland Signature Organic. Kirkland’s medium salsa is just plain tastier and is almost half the price!
And DiGiorno’s frozen pepperoni pizza was pitted against the Archer Farms pie from Target. It was a tie. But the Archer Farms was about a dollar cheaper.
Overall, tasters found the store brands as good as or better than big-name brands 23 out of 29 times. So switching to store brands can be a tasty way to trim your grocery bill.
And many supermarkets are making a tryout worth your while by offering a money-back guarantee on their brands! And some regional stores go even further. Hannaford doubles your money back. Harris Teeter gives a refund and a replacement item if you have a store bonus card.
Consumer Reports has no commercial relationship with any advertiser or sponsor appearing on this Web site.
Copyright © 2005-2009 Consumers Union of U.S., Inc.
Complete Ratings and recommendations on all kinds of products, including appliances, cars & trucks, and electronic gear, are available on Consumer Reports’ Web site. Subscribe to ConsumerReports.org.
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Reader Reactions
I sure wouldn’t want the people writing this article to cook for me as all the “Store Brands” taste like crap to me! Check out where some of the “Food” comes from Example: (pineapples) read the can!
Just dont go to save a lot ,where there is not a lot of corn in there creamed corn,I opened a can up and my wife counted about 27 cernals of corn the rest was cream I had to open a can of regular can up to ad to the save a lot brand .Cheap stuff is just that there .CHEAP
Ingles brand Laura Lynn Lactose-Free milk is far superior in taste to Lactaid. If you are lactose intolerant I suggest giving it a try. It’s cheaper too.
And no, I do not work for Ingles. I just shop there for part of my groceries.
“Now let us look at Wal-Mart again; you buy a product there, 6% goes to the employees, 10-18% is profit to the company, 25% goes to other costs and 50% goes to re-stock or the cost of goods sold. Of the 50% about 20-25% goes to China, a guess, but you get the point. Now then, how long will it take at 433 Billion dollars at year for China to have all of our money, leaving no money flow for us to circulate? At a 17 Trillion dollar economy less than 40-years minus the 1/6 they buy from us. Some say that if we keep putting money into our economy, it would take forever, but if we do not then eventually all the money flow will go. If China buys our debt then eventually they own us, no need to worry about a war, they are buying America, due in part to our own mismanaged trade, so whose fault is that? Not necessarily China, as they are doing what’s in the best interests, and we should make sure that trade is not only free, but fair too.“
http://www.worldthinktank.net/pdfs/TheFlowofTrade.pdf
People in America need to realize jus what got America in this shape…”cheap” yes so-call cheap items from a foreign land.
quote*Wal-Mart firmly believes in local procurement. We recognize that by purchasing quality products, we can generate more job opportunities, support local manufacturing and boost economic development. Over 95% of the merchandise in our stores in China is sourced locally. We have established partnerships with nearly 20,000 suppliers in China. *end quote!
Now! if there be 182 country’s making items for the world to buy and they have only 5% of the pie in China…duh! This company makes the nice people of China support their currency(yuan) by keeping it in their country working for the people there…. but with the “yuan” going up in value and the US dollar going down…all the foreign items that the American consumer buys thinking it is cheap has went up in price.
People…its all about the currency and to keep a currency strong you got to keep it floating around the country you live in so it can work for you. For the past 12 years all them US dollars are being shipped overseas to a foreign bank and with the American worker not making anything for the foreigner to buy the “we the people” have to turn to the “second” largest employer in America(Uncle Sam) to sell “we the people” debt in order to get all them dollars back!
50 years ago a foreigner would had given their left nut for a US dollar or a Hershey’s chocolate bar and today the same foreigner has got Uncle Sam and the American consumer by both all the while Hershey is moving the chocolate factory to Mexico. Wake up! America and think “MADE IN AMERICA.”
quote*“Considering that there are over 30,000 ships at sea this morning,“ writes James Carlton, director of the Williams College-Mystic Seaport Maritime Studies Program, in an e-mail, “the total number of organisms and species in this global ‘bioflow’ on the morning your readers read your piece could be staggering - billions of individuals, and thousands of species.“
Indeed, scientists have long considered ballast water the primary way invasive aquatic organisms are introduced. From the zebra mussel’s arrival in the Great Lakes, to an American jellyfish severely disrupting Black Sea fisheries, the potential costs of accidental introduction of a species to new homes can be tremendous. Aquatic invasives cost the US $9 billion yearly, according to estimates by David Pimentel, professor emeritus of ecology and evolutionary biology at Cornell University in Ithaca, N.Y. Zebra and quagga mussels (a cousin to the zebra) alone cost the $1 billion annually.*end quote!
tat is $9 billion a year in hidden taxes to all Americans…
cheap ain’t chic and it cost America….........jobs!
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