Krogers has 2 or 3 levels of house brand. For some products, I’ll buy the absolute cheapest level of house brand, with the plain white background. For other products, I’ll buy the next level (sometimes there is no “cheap level” in some products).
I always buy the bran cereal store brand (either Krogers or WalMart). If you look at its nutritional label, it is the same, or better, than Total. It used to be much more cheaper, though, the cheapest of all the cereals. Sadly, it also got caught in the healthy fad, and now the price is almost twice what it used to be. Still cheaper than Total.
I regularly buy the Krogers equivalent of Coke Zero, so I’ll try their knock-off of Diet Mountain Dew next time.
There are few things I buy the brand name, usually when the store brand is not available (WalMart, for example, doesn’t carry some store-brand products). Also, while I may buy the deli meats from Krogers brand, I’ve learned NOT to buy the WalMart brand. The difference is intense, while the Krogers deli meat may last for a week or so in my very cold fridge, the WalMart deli starts smelling funny 2 or 3 days after opening.
I’m not very big into branding, unlike my relatives. Give me cheap!
BTW, I bake cookies and bread and prepare pot luck dinners with all these no-name ingredients that some of my coworkers would not even look at, yet they’ve all happily eat them. Nobody has said “I can detect you didn’t use top name butter for those cookies” or “the flour on that bread was not White Lily!”.
I prefer store-brand (Safeway) applesauce to name brand.
Many people have mentioned staples such as sugar, but one that I found did not work was brown sugar. The store was out of my name brand, so I went with the store brand. It tasted like artificially-flavored brown sugar-like substance. Never again.
Almost everything, really. They’re cheaper, they’re almost always just as good, and even in the rare cases where they’re not, the difference is almost always too small to justify the difference in price.
Kroger’s diet orange soda is some of the best I’ve had. Well, among ones that are caffeine-free.
I like diet caffeine-free Sam’s Cola from Wal-Mart. I haven’t tried some of the newer diet colas, but it’s pretty good, as nutrasweet-based diet colas go, and it’s cheap.
I always buy the store brand flour, sugar and butter. When I bake, no one can tell the difference. I like the Target store brand tall kitchen bags, they work just as well as name-brand bags.
I agree. There are very few things that I will insist on buying the brand-name version of, and in most cases it’s because I’ve tried both and prefer the taste/texture of the brand enough to justify the extra expense. Or sometimes if a sale or coupon makes it the cheaper option. But I always at least give the generic a chance.
I should probably post in the opposite thread. Nearly everything I buy is store brand, either my grocery store’s brand or at Walmart, their Great Value.
Cheese, milk, bacon, frozen veggies, bread, most bakery items, beef broth, sugar, salt, flour, rice, dry pasta, potato chips, canned things like ravioli and spaghetti rings with meatballs for the Little Frig.
Napkins, paper towels, plastic bags.
I don’t think most Dopers are fans of instant coffee, but I have never found anything better than Great Value 100% Arabica Premium Instant Coffee. Beats Folger’s or Maxwell House by miles and miles.
I’m happy to try anything with a store-brand label and let my experience or taste-buds decide.
Tinned toms, toilet roll, tissues, flour, sugar, butter. All of these are big savings and rarely do I notice a significant decline in performance. Certainly not enough to warrant the astronomical hike in price. Sparkling water? I get a 2 litre bottle at Tesco for 15p, brand names start at a £1.
Bacon or meat in general? I don’t actually know any brand names in the UK. We get all our meat from ourlocal butchers.. This is particularly important for sausages. I used to work in a butchers and I want to know that they are hand made in the right way. I’ve found no brand names that match up to my standards.
Aluminium foil. own label stuff is thinner but still perfectly usable and about a tenth of the price.
I suppose I am stingy in general but I’d much prefer to save money on the things that don’t matter and splash the cash when quality is important. i.e. Fillet stake, fish and whisky. I spend 15p on fizzy water so I can spend £100 on a single malt.
I’m happy with those priorities.
It depends on the store. Stop n Shop: TP, paper plates, deli items and bakery items. Their frozen foods are awful! BJ’s Wholesale: plastic garbage bags, frozen veggies, tissues, paper towels and some dog treats (must be USA made.)
If it’s food I shy away from generics. Exceptions would be the simplest things like salt or sugar. But for paper goods, soaps, etc., generics are just fine.
Peanut butter. Other than Smucker’s, most of the national brands fall under the category of what one reviewer called peanut flavored shortening when I was in high school. Good peanut butter will have exactly 2 ingredients: peanuts and salt. It should not have sugar or partially (or fully) hydrogenated vegetable oil.
correct, apologies if I unwittingly ventured into my own household “shopping list speak” for a second.
Others include SRF (self-raising flour), Q (cucumber), nanas (obvious), FWP (sparkling water…it stands for “fizzy water pop” and was so named by my little girl and is pronounced “fwip”)
