What things in grocery stores do you absolutely REFUSE to buy a generic variant of? I shop at my local Kroger, and Kroger-branded items are often pretty good, but there are just some things I will not buy their brand of.
Peanut butter
Garbage bags
Soda pop
Toilet Paper
Paper Towels
Bacon
Cereal
What are yours and where do you shop? Conversely, what generic items do you buy that you find better than the name branded things?
Tea. Even the really good stuff is still cheap enough not to worry about.
Some cereals. Nobody’s yet managed to make a good imitation of Life, for instance.
Mustard, I not only don’t buy generic, I buy only one specific brand: Bertman’s Stadium Mustard, available only in the Cleveland area. That stuff is God’s gift to hot dogs.
Anything Kirkland (Costco) goes well with me. But when it comes to ketchup it has got to be Heinz!
Hadn’t thought of tea. I agree on Life as well. I will sometimes buy Kroger’s horseradish mustard as it’s pretty good, but not always.
Ketchup is a really good example. I will not buy generic of that either.
Soft drinks, cake mix, toilet paper, Puff’s tissue, peanut butter, crackers, hmmm. I guess a lot of stuff.
Cola, root beer, and nacho chips.
Must be Pepsi (or, if I’m in a particular mood, Coke), Barq’s or A&W, and Doritos.
OTHER soft drinks, cheap brands are perfectly fine. In fact, I prefer cheap ginger ale to any of the big brands.
You can get it by mail order from the National Mustard Museum (also available in a three-pack). I learned about it years ago from a book on mail-order foods, and it became my favorite mustard for just about everything (I still use Dijon mustard to make salad dressing).
For canned goods, I usually buy name-brand tomatoes (Muir Glen) and beans (Progresso or S & W). I avoid generic dishwashing soap - the name-brand stuff really works better.
Heinz ketchup as well
Hellman’s mayo
Skippy or Jif PB
Philly cream cheese
I’m not sure I can explain why. I have no problem with generic cereal, shredded/sliced cheese, etc.
Heinz Ketchup
Hellmans Mayonnaise
Jif Peanut Butter
Kraft Macaroni and Cheese
Anything else and I’m willing to try or regularly buy the generic.
Oh dear - I forgot non-food items.
Tide laundry detergent
Scrubbing Bubbles
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Butter must be Lurpak.
Tea must be Yorkshire.
Mayonnaise must be Helmans.
None of those brands mean anything to most of you, do they?
Except apparently Helmans which has apparently been mentioned several times up thread. Oops.
And apparently I apparently overuse the word apparently. Apparently.
Goddamn it, I’m going to bed…
I’ve seen Lurpak butter but never tried it.
It depends a lot on what I’m planning on using the item for.
I generally get name-brand laundry detergent and dishwasher detergent, but if I know I’m going to be doing a lot of washing of things that aren’t going to be worn or whatever, like say painting drop cloths, workbench rags and the like, I’ve found that the house brand detergent does a fine job.
I don’t go with house brand motor oil, although that’s more a matter of liking particular brands and types in the brands, since they all meet the same API standards.
I don’t have a problem with house brand canned vegetables, frozen veggies or things like shredded cheese or other commodity type items like flour, salt, veg. oil, hamburger buns, etc…
I absolutely get name brand extra-virgin olive oil, and typically get it from the specialty food store, and the same goes for anything else where the finished product depends on the unprocessed qualities of the ingredient or a particular unique flavor of the ingredient(i.e. it’s not cooked or baked, or the taste of the ingredient is integral to the dish- like say… ham in Coca-Cola. (might taste weird if it was Ham in Big K Cola)
High quality: Coffee, beer, salad dressing, peanut butter, mustard.
Generic or store brand: Paper products.
I’m picky about my mayo, and always get Best Food. I like real Coke, but give the cats store brand cat food. They’re don’t seem to mind!
That’s deep, my friend.
For me it’s Cheerios. Joe’s Os and similar items just seem to lack a certain something that I can’t define.
I don’t think that sentiment is relegated to cereal. In my OP, I mentioned peanut butter. I happen to believe that there’s a wide range of quality difference between the smooth creaminess of Jif and “whatever grocery store brand”’ peanut butter.