Hubby and I walked into Albertsons today..they had two shopping carts filled and covered in plastic wrap. LOL
The signs on the front said..compare our brand to the national brand. In this case you saved about $33 if you bought all the "usual" stuff in Albertsons personal label. They had cleaning supplies, paper products and boxed and canned goods in there. It was $100, and $133, plus change on both.
I've found that I actually prefer their Toilet Paper over what I was buying before.

I have to have certain name brands for certain products. Heinz ketchup, (the cheap stuff tastes too sweet for me) A1 steak sauce and Lea and Perrin worcestershire sauce.

I am always willing to try store brands and have had good results from some. The Aldi's brand of canned apricots is fine with me as are their baked beans. However, I tried the Lowe's brand of canned mixed vegetable yesterday and found it was mostly carrots and potatoes. I could count the number of green beans on one hand and the corn was almost nonexistent. The small cut green beans were o.k. but I have found other brands that were not quite so mushy. I was making my dog's food with the green beans and mixed vegetables - he did not express an opinion, but ate it up anyway. ;o)

The last few months with food prices going up, I've noticed a wider variety of generic choices at our local Dillons stores. Kroger Value brand has good prices for the budget-minded.

I recently bought Kroger Value graham crackers, instead of making graham crackers at home, and was pleasantly surprised how they tasted like graham crackers used to taste.

On my tight budget I've always used store brand over most National-brands.

-Grainlady

When buying Store (House) Brands...I think you are buying a "Pig in a Poke"! You need to first give the Store Brand a try. Much of the time they are from the same manufacturer that processes and packages the "Name Brands".

Then again, I have bought Store Brand and found that what was inside of the can/package to be inferior in comparison.

DH is the frugal shopper in my family...so he always goes for the cheaper House Brand. A good bit of the time I am pleasantly suprised. You need to try, just once, to see if you are satisfied with the store label.

Many years ago while reading labels as I shopped I discovered a 'processed at plant #...' on the store brand cottage cheese. The same plant # was on the label of my favorite brand - Friendship. Obviously the store brand one out and I have tried store brands for many things ever since. I always buy store brand 'toasted oats' and raisin bran cereals. Both are less than half the price of Cheerios or Post or Kelloggs. I have tried some products that don't make the cut, ketchup being one, but I keep trying. Be careful out there though. The store brand is not always cheaper and the largest boxes are definitely not reliably cheaper.

I agree that store brand is generally just as good for things that don't involve recipes. But I've never tasted any store brand that could touch Lea and Perrin. I has been known to drink teaspoons full lol.

Depends entirely on the product. Generic canned fruits here are just awful as are most veggies but the canned generic hominy is as good as Goya.

I always buy King Arthur flours. I buy generic white sugar but not brown sugar. For eggs, butter, dairy...I purchase organic & there are no generic equivalents available.

I agree about the Lea and Perrin. I don't usually buy cold cereals except for about once every five years the little kid in me just HAS to have a box of Tony The Tiger! :)

I buy Nabisco grahams & crackers; but we use so few that I end up tossing most of them.

My budget splurges are always on good flour, butter, eggs, cheese, produce, fresh fish, meat, & (of course) good chocolate. I'll compromise on paper towels.

/tricia

I find the store brands - the ones with the name of the store on the label - at the stores I frequent to be very high quality. I haven't tried everything.

There are some bargain brands that I avoid. I've found canned veggies to skimp on the volume of the contents. I only buy a few canned veggies like corn and tomatoes but I find that the quality and quantity does slip in the bargain brands but not the store name brands.

Paper goods are usually decent. Cereals are fine. Raisin bran is raisin bran. We tend to be fussy about mayonnaise, only Best Foods will do. I buy C&H sugar, brown and white unless the other brands actually reads 'cane sugar.' Most of my sugar consumption is for baking or these days, canning, and I find that beet sugar acts differently enough that I feel the results might be unpredictable.

I'll have to try the store labeled tuna soon.

I often buy the higher grade of a store brand product. Like sliced sandwich cheese. I don't even want the vegtable oil turned into a yellow rubber sheet. The store brand dairy based "cheese" is more expensive then the name brand oil based product but a better deal in my book. Same with tunafish I'll buy albacore over shredded light tuna most often in the store brand.

Lots of stuffs I buy store brand and a few things brand loyal. Some brands I avoid because they are yucky like Budweiser. I did try a six of the Michelob Porter and found that acceptable but then I like the Porter style of beer. I can't get Renee's clearly superior coffee anymore so I buy store brand. My first bag of Starbuck's Breakfast Blend was so good but it has never had the same flavor profile again so I don't even consider buying it anymore. There is no substitute for Cheez-it crackers! About twice a year I'm hit with an intense craving for clam chowder so I keep a premium name brand in my pantry for near instant gratification.

I was recently disappointed with the Pink Lady apples I bought. I think of apples with stickers as a branded product. Last year they were crispy and tart like an Ida Red but these I recently bought are mealy and sweet like a Red Delicious. Probably never buy them again. Give me Ida's or give me death!

Animal food I'm particular with. Most often Purina products. Animals like cats and rabbits are sensitive to dietary changes and do best on the same thing everyday. I bought a feed store brand of bunny food one time and the herd revolted and went on a hunger strike. Tried mixing it with Purina and they ate the Purina pellets and left the store brand in the feeder. When I was building the herd and pushing my does for production I would buy Heinhold which is gold standard rabbit food. The dealer is an hour away so Purina became the regular feed. Some demand for rabbit meat again so it looks like I'll be raising more of them.

: )
lyra

For the most part I've always used "store brand", esp staples, or products from the Mennonite market-- paper products, pastas,cane sugar,cereals, dried beans-grains-rice, cleaning supplies, frozen veggies,oils & vinegar, dairy,petfood-- not tea or ice cream tho-- and there are a few other exceptions: Oreos--good chocolate, Hoffman or Zweiger hots, Nance's mustards--and if a Brand name happens to be cheaper that week , that's what I buy.

We've had excellent luck with the store brand from wegmans -- regularly buy their sharp cheddar, munster, ricotta, cereal condiments, sandwich bread when I don't make my own, sometimes their pasta, etc. Oooh, not to mention their "ultra premium" chocolate ice cream is actually better than haagen daz or ben and jerry's -- its the best chocolate ice cream I've had. I agree there are certain brands I stick with -- I love the Classico four cheese sauce... And despite the fact that store brand rice krispies and corn flakes and shredded wheat taste just fine, no store brand Cheerios has ever tasted as good as the real thing to me...

Emily

I think it all comes down to reading ingredient labels and doing your own taste-tests.

I buy many items that are generic or store brands (amounts to the same thing, if you ask me!). Some are just as good if not better than name-brands, some are not as good. I've not found a store or generic brand mayonnaise that I like, for example.

Store brand corn flakes are fine, store brand cheerios taste strangely chalky. It's hit or miss.

But it's always worth a try, anyway. Before I started making my own breakfast sausage, I preferred the store made to the brand names, and not just because of price.

I can't see that there's a noticeable difference between my store brand pastas and the more expensive ones, for example, but when I'm sick, my comfort food is Campbell's chicken noodle soup (with saltines), and I swear I can tell the difference between it and store brand.

The crackers too! Saltines by Nabisco or Krispy are just better than Western Family (the generic brand most frequently seen around here), but I couldn't tell you why.

Perhaps I'm just more inclined to be cantankerously picky when I'm sick?

I agree with you on the saltines rachelellen -- I had totally forgotten, since its been a while since I bought them, but the name brand saltines just seem lighter and crispier -- I've had some store brand saltines that were way too dense...

Emily

Many years ago, when I was in college, I worked in a food processing plant. They processed both fruits and vegetables, canned and forzen. I can't say how it is done now, but back then the lable machines would be stopped at lunch or breaks, and changed for different brands.
Bunnyman, it sounds like your apples were out of season. Is the Pink Lady apple an early season variety? Most apples do lose their crispness, and get a bit mealy when they are old. These may have been old or shipped from who knows where, under less than ideal conditions.Just a thought.

My mind was certainly opened up when I took a pretzel factory tour some years ago. We tracked the pretzels from dough to package, and as the finished pretzels were jetted into their packaging, I observed packages that ranged from the brand I grew up with in another area, to several named regional brands, to a super grocery store generic. I have no idea if this is "normal."

Rachelellen, I had to laugh when you specified crackers. :) I bought some house brand crackers last month and I think I know know why they were so cheap --- there was not ONE whole cracker in the entire package. (They tasted "eh...ok".)

Back when we had the store, I used to get trade mags that often covered the politics and econimics of private labelling. Trust me, stores aren't carrying house brands out of concern for your wallet. It's a very lucrative area for them.

Some products with different names are identical -- for example, Best Mayo on one side fo the county is Hellman's on the other. I don't know why.

And, yes, private label products are made by some of the same companies that make similar/same brand names; however, that doesn't always mean the product is the same. Hunts might sell it's excess manufacturing capacity to Kroger or WalMart to create a house brand of product, but they do not always (or often, even) use the sam formulations. There may be more/less spices, more/less liquid to solid ration, less quality ingredients. I find most house brand diced tomoates taste fine, but there is less "meat" and more liquid than my favortie brand name comparable product. On the other hand, I don't like a lot of carp in my canned beans, so I'm happy with the house brand I buy because it has NO HFCS (why do you need that in beans anyway?), salt or other "stuff" in them. (Yes, I could use dried, but I'm lazy sometimes.)

it's hit or miss. I'll buy a single unit of something and try it, but if it doesn't pass muster, I go back to my tried-and-true.

What I do NOT like is the stores trying to force me to buy house brand by decreasing the space allowed for brand names. Yes, they make a bigger profit on house brands (in spite of the lower consumer price, they do make more or they wouldn't be doing it), but I want a choice.

About 10 years ago or so, my daughters and I took a tour of a marshmallow factory near Henderson, Nevada. The guide told us it was one of two marshmallow factories in the US, and that *all* brands came from these two factories. We stood and watched them go from a Kraft label to the yellow label of a store, but the same little puffs of corn syrup came down the pike without changing a beat. Ever since, we've bought whatever marshmallows were cheapest that week.

I'm a store brand shopper if they're available. If not, I find the most reasonably priced (per unit) of whatever brand IS available. I do prefer either Kraft or Best Foods mayo, daughter prefers the name brand catsup, and I also like Yoplait yogurt better than the store's brand.

DonnaR/CA

Costco's in-house label is one I trust, but most of the mass market grocers--I don't even want to buy their produce!

My experience with produce is that it is very individual and particular to individual stores more than a whole chain. One Key Food in my area has terrible produce, another has mediocre and a third has produce that is fine. House Brand labels, however, I would assume are uniform throughout a chain. I am not surprised to hear that other posters have seen generics or house brands produced at name brand factories. I'll continue to give the house brands a shot. Some will become my go-to choice and others will be cut from the list.

I agree with ideefixe, that Kirkland (Costco's house name brand) products are excellent. At least, I have not found one I didn't care for yet. Their dry cat food is actually higher in real meat than most name-brand cat foods. Their dry dishwasher detergent is the only one I can buy other than Cascade that my husband will use without complaining. Their laundry soap is very good, and it isn't inordinately smelly (why DO so many laundry soaps have such obnoxiously strong scents?). I love their bags of nuts...I buy their pecans, almonds & walnuts and they are very good and are quite a bit less expensive than those you buy in the grocery store. Of course, they come in pretty large packages, but that's o.k. as my husband and I both love nuts and I use them in lots of things.

It depends on the store for me. Most of what I buy at Trader Joe's is their house brand. I also like Kirkland from Costco. I just tried a block of house brand 2% sharp cheddar from Safeway which I didn't like at all (too mild and waxy); that may deter me from trying other Safeway generics (at least their cheese). On the flip side, I prefer Harris Teeter's house brand shredded cheese to name brand shredded cheese (fresher tasting with more flavor). I have liked every generic that I've tried from Harris Teeter; particularly fond of their brown basmati rice and white cheddar cheese.

I try store brands once to see if they are as good as the name brand. I find some store brands are better than others. Most Kroger and Kirkland brands are excellent. I found I did not like most Winn Dixie store brands. I buy generic sugar, Publix whole kernal corn (for soups)Kroger tea bags, generic nuts, pastas and a few other generic items. Many things I feel I must have the famous name brand. I want only Heinz catsup, only Nabisco saltine crackers and vanilla wafers, only Reynolds aluminum foil. You just have to try each one out.

Beverly