What products do you prefer the cheap version of?

[Fink]

I went to Fortnum and Mason this week (part of our exercise cycling around London) and treated myself to their hot chocolate powder. To my disappointment, at £20 a packet it's nowhere near as nice as my usual brand (Options), which is around £6 for an equivalent amount (and not because it tastes more like actual hot chocolate rather than powder, because I occasionally make real hot chocolate at home and it's nothing like that). My Dad prefers Sainsbury's own brand, which is even cheaper.

Is there anything you get where you think the cheaper brand is actually nicer?

I prefer several Tesco brand products. I think Tesco lemonade is way nicer than any proper branded one. I prefer Tesco salted popcorn to butterkist (only eat salted), my husband also prefers Tesco popcorn to the branded one (he has sweet).
I find Tesco baby wipes have been brilliant (started using them now ds is much older), they are much better than pampers. Also Tesco anti bac wipes are way better than flash or dettol ones.
That's all I can think of for now, there's probably more though.

Sorry if you only meant food or drink

No, not just food and drink, any products. I'm just interested because in general if I buy a brand down in a product, it's very much on the understanding that I'm probably compromising quality for price, but the hot chocolate thing got me wondering whether there are enough exceptions to that to make it unworkable as a general rule.

I think the very nicest ready salted crisps are the very cheap ones, much nicer than kettle chips or similar!
I also love really cheap vanilla ice cream - the kind with no dairy content at all - that you used to be able to get for about 45 p for a massive plastic tub.
Heinz tinned tomato soup is much nicer than chilled fresh tomato soup.
Normal Johnson's baby wipes are much better than many cleaning products or wipes. They seem to be particularly good for spills on upholstery and fabrics

Currently in a bath with some much wanted molton brown bath oil which I received for my birthday yesterday.... £40... and I am not a fan 😬 will be going cheaper next time!

Lidls microwave popcorn is much better than other brands.Only 50p per bag too.

Aldi bakes beans and there own sausages - sausages never make it to the sandwich...

Tesco own Cream of Tomato Soup. So much nicer than Heinz

Nappies - Lidl and Tesco worked much better for us than Pampers.

Still a brand but Branston beans are far far superior to heinz. Thicker sauce, less sweet, much richer.

Home and bargains own brand loo roll (think its called nicky or something like that) is miles better than andrex

Cheap kitchen roll. Smaller rolls that fit nicely in my drawer!

Tesco Malt Wheats. Way nicer than Shreddies and less than half the price.

DS(now 30) always maintained that the cheapest basic crisps were superior to the posh ones.

Asda own brand cereal is nicer than Kellogg's and their wheat biscuits are better than weetabix.

Lidl crisps are nicer than the big brands.

Asda £1 pizzas are amazing.

Lidl ground coffee, the strong one in the green packet. I am a coffee snob generally, and this coffee is beer than many other expensive types I’ve tried.

I'll second that Tesco nappies were much better than Pampers for our dd. I also prefer Tesco weetabix and chocolate hob nobs.

Aldi Ketchup

Tesco dark chocolate digestives are far nicer than McVities which just taste like sugar and are gritty. Unfortunately they appear to have stopped making them so I'm going without and eating flapjack instead.

Home and bargains own brand loo roll (think its called nicky

Just to say, Nicki isn't a Home Bargains brand, they sell it in B&M and Farm Foods too. I agreed it's just as good though

I prefer Asda chocolate digestive and ginger nuts to McVities and a fraction of the price

I second Lidl's ground coffee - the Colombian is my favourite.

Also, Lidl's own brand Greek youghourt - natural & coconut.

Literally cannot eat fresh tomato soup, Heinz or equivalent tinned all the way. It's just very acidic and bitty otherwise.

Sausages. I usually get the supermarket 'butchers premium' type sausages, and the other week they were sold out so I got Richmond sausages instead. We all decided that we liked them far more than the fancy ones.

Tesco's and Sainsburys cod fish fingers are superior to Birdseye cod fish fingers.
Sainsburys chocolate blocks 200g (both milk and white) far superior to any other luxury brand.
All supermarket basic savory rice are superior to the ( still perfectly nice) batchelors and are usually about 40p.

Aldi washing up liquid.

Lidl’s dishwasher tablets as opposed to all the swanky multi coloured liquitabs from Fairy etc.

Tesco own brand bio laundry detergent