We love us some Aldi. But it’s more like “This Aldi product costs 33% less than the name brand…now do we like the name brand that much better?” Usually not; we’re happy enough with the Aldi variety. At Hallowe’en kids don’t care that we pass our Four Musketeer bars.
Trader Joe’s, being related to Aldi, has some pretty good stuff as well. Given a choice between Reese’s PB cups and Aldi’s…I pick Trader Joe’s Dark Chocolate PB cups. Mmboy!
I’ve mentioned it in here before, but Kroger does a pretty good knockoff of Coke Zero for those so inclined. Nobody has successfully cloned Diet Coke, however.
I’ve seen the Clancy’s Fritos and, indeed, all the knockoff chips described as inferior and I say that as an Aldi fan. I’m not really into chips and haven’t tried them so take it as you will.
I said, where else does one buy it. I know about Moser Roth. I don’t know about anyone else.
But @Jackmannii reminded me that Aldi has apparently recently changed the recipe for their house-brand spaghetti sauce, and it now tastes really great. A lot of salt in it, though.
Actually that reminds me… the Kroger Private Selection hot dogs are awfully good. Definitely better than most name-brand hot dogs, and up there with the premium grocery store brands. I’m not exactly sure where they’re positioning themselves relative to other hot dogs though. But they’re a store brand that’s better than most if not all the other hot dogs in the store.
Won’t mean much to non-Texans, but I generally find H-E-B store brand products to be at least as good as national brands. I’m particularly fond of their kettle chips.
Since I found Kroger Cola-Oh!, I’ll never buy a Coke product again. And I don’t even give a shit about the Zero Cal aspect of it. I just like it more. It being less-bad-for-me is a side benefit.
Here in Canada, during the time that Dave Nichol was president of Loblaws, many of the Loblaws house brands (most notably the President’s Choice line developed by Nichols) were significantly superior to national name brands, and some of the products, particularly the famous President’s Choice sauces inspired by international flavours, were unique products unavailable in any brand. Many President’s Choice products remain superior to name brands even today.
Good call. It was President’s Choice that spurred other supermarket chains to up their game, and offer plain ordinary house brands, and superior house brands. Often, those superior house brands were equal to, or better than, the name brands.
Interestingly, my sister lived in Australia for about ten years. She pointed out “Australia’s Choice” products at the supermarket, when I visited. Obviously inspired by, and likely licensed and approved by Loblaw’s, the logo was the same as Canada’s President’s Choice (a hand-painted “PC”), only this time, it was an “AC” in the same font. She swore by AC products, because “they’re the same as I can get back home at Loblaw’s.”
As for the OP’s question, I’ll offer that Sobey’s house brand of “Compliments” coffee is as good as, if not better, than anything Tim Hortons, Maxwell House, Folger’s, or Starbucks can offer.
My husband is the same way. It drives me crazy. I can no longer pay half the price (maybe even less) for Walmart’s Equate brand Prilosec. He said it doesn’t work as well. He’s really annoyed if I buy Great Value frozen vegetables. He says they don’t taste as good. I notice no difference at all. I personally think it’s all in his head. I always ask him, “Where do you think the store brands come from? Do you think there are special store brand factories?” He won’t budge on it.
ISTR seeing one of those shows on how things are made, and they showed different production runs for different products- some may have been made in the same factory, but they’re definitely not the same exact product.
On the other hand, as a kid we went on a field trip to the Imperial Sugar mill in Sugarland, TX (I grew up in the next town over), and they produced one product, which got packaged in a multitude of brands and packaging types. Anything from Kroger house brand, to Imperial branded sugar all came out of the same single production line. So it probably is very dependent on what the product is, and whether or not it’s actually cheaper to produce separate versions of it.
I stop at Dollar General specifically to buy their Clover Valley chips. I like the variability in the Salt&Vinegar chips. One bag will taste like they were packaged in a factory downwind from a Salt&Vinegar chip plant, with just a hint of flavor. The next bag is so heavily seasoned they’re difficult to consume without choking.
Aldi sells cracker-cut cheese in a tray. Regular has colby-jack, swiss, pepperjack and sharp cheddar, while the “fancier” version (costs a bit more on a per-ounce basis) has havarti, extra sharp white cheddar, gouda and asiago.
The only packages of cracker-cut cheese I’ve seen at the regular grocery is something like Cracker Barrel brand, which has only one variety of cheese in a package. If you like to have a little cheese and crackers with your cocktail as we do, it’s nice to have a choice of cheese types.
I’d say the quality of the Aldi cheeses are equal to name brand ones, but the variety in the package makes the Aldi cheese superior.
Speaking of snacks, Caputo’s makes tortillas inhouse, so they also make tortilla chips. The Caputo’s brand is far superior to Tostitos.
Not only food, but their cleaning products are great, too. This stuff in particular (I think it’s this asI stocked up a few months before Covid hit and haven’t had to refill my stockpile yet; the bottles I have look different but the product looks the same) is absolutely wonderful. Better than Lysol or Clorox spray any day. My wife doesn’t like the scent so I reserve it for particularly greasy messes like the stovetop.
I like Diet Pepsi and Coke Zero, pretty much in that order, but Diet Shasta Cola beats them both at half the price. Although the online price in that link shows WalMart charging over a buck a can which makes it somewhere in the neighborhood of twice the price of name brands at WalMart. Something’s off. My local Bi-Mart has them for $2.99 + deposit for a 12 pack. Less if they’re on sale, of course.
There used to be a local-to-the-PNW brand called Western Family and every single product I ever tried from them was superior to the national brand. They were bought by some Big Corporation some years ago and was subsequently shut down. That’s a shame, I haven’t found a house brand yet that’s comparable. Although judging by the replies to this thread perhaps I should give Kroger a shot.
One way to prove this (and I realize I’m preaching to the choir here) is note which brands are affected by recall notices. When some food ingredient like peanut butter from a certain batch is recalled, usually there’s one or two national brands affected as well as half a dozen house brands and even local generics and sometimes things you wouldn’t immediately associate with that product, like dog food. That can help to identify which national brands produce house brands in their factories – using the same ingredients.
Personally, I prefer Meijer brand cheese to Kraft, and it’s usually cheaper as well.
Pharmaceuticals are one thing that I stopped getting store brand on. I was having all sorts of eye problems, until I realized that I had switched to using Meijer contact solution as it was cheaper. Once I switched back to name brand, my eye problems stopped.
Depends, in some cases, there are. For some things, they just buy overstock and slap their label on it, others they have a regular supply from a vendor. I’ve noted that for some things, it’s not that the quality is consistently lower, it’s just inconsistent. Sometimes its good, sometimes it’s not so good.
And sometimes the other way around. Kroger runs its own dairy, and produces not only Kroger brand dairy products, but also sells them as other brands as well.