To think that having to wean your children off 'brands' is wierd?

[Umleila]

My daughter heard one of her new university flatshare friends say that her parents had "started weaning me off 'brands' a few months ago" in preparation for university. My daughter thought this was hilarious as we do not give a monkeys which brand of baked beans we buy - it's all about cost for us. Then several of the other flat sharers said their parents had done the same! Turns out they thought we were positively common not to buy our child 'brands'. Are there really people out there who just buy branded food and sod the expense? The food industry must love them!

I strongly suspect that the people who stick to brands for the taste wouldn't be able to tell the difference in a blind tasting situation.

My DM is a brand lover. I'm a supermarket own-brand for most things. We recently went shopping together and I was doubling up on some things to put in the food-bank basket. DM went ballistic - "you can't give people that, they'll think you're getting them the cheap stuff".

I think it depends on the stuff doesn't it? Porridge oats, pasta, most biscuits, cereal, who cares. Ketchup, beans, branded. Flour, tinned tomatoes, cream cheese special trip to Waitrose for their own brand (waitrose essentials are awesome quality).

Bit off topic but at uni there was a lad who only drank Yorkshire tea. His mum would send 4 boxes at a time. We used to mess with him and switch his tea for sainsbury's own brand. Also did it with an aunt once who would only eat heinz ketchup

I do have preferred brands but cost comes above everything else. I can't stand lidl baked beans. They taste weird. No cheap marmite exists and HP sauce has no alternative.

Branded food isn't that much more expensive. If they can't afford a bottle of Heinz, there's bigger problems with their budgeting than a bottle of ketchup.

well it is actually a lot more expensive. Own brand ketchup is 55p heinz is £2+ that 6p per 100g Vs 33p per 100g. For that bottle of heinz I could buy 1 loaf of bread, beans and apples.

so I can understand why parents would want to get their kids used to cheap stuff. The kids will get what they know but on the other hand just one or two weeks of blowing the budget the kids will learn the best way and teach themselves leaving more money for boozy nights out

Haydee I can't believe it's "a thing" either. Then again, one of the supermarkets advertises that it "reduces the cost of your branded shop." Can it be that now we are out of the recession when everyone boasted about how clever they were for buying cheap stuff, talking about your "branded shop" is a new kind of snobbery?

There are a few branded things I prefer, Heinz baked beans and ketchup for example, but generally I get whatever's on offer/best value.

I can understand you might have to adjust to cheaper food as a student, but the "weaning" sounds bizarre. Surely you just eat your parents' expensive food (if that's what they have) until you go to uni and then you don't. It's nit that hard!

I did once read an article about having teenagers and how they and their friends cost their mum loads of money drinking tons of fresh fruit juice "and it has to be Tropicana". Wtf I thought! Surely just don't buy it! What are they going to do!? Or buy own-brand juice and if they want Tropicana they can use their own money!!!

Still mine aren't teenagers so what do I know, maybe it will all become clear.

I agree about heinz ketchup and beans. Anything else i dont massively care. I but warburtons bread because I thibnk it tastes better and waitrose basics range tea bags as they taste great. I buy supermarket cereal where i can get away with it. Mutiny occurs if inmess with weetabix or cheerios so i get those for a quiet life.

I thibk nowadays there are plenty of things that waitrose and tescos and sainsburys do well - you just have to mix and match and find which. Waitrose own brand generally are very good, though you obv run the risk of being called a MN MC snob blah blah blah

Coca cola has to be just that, bread has to have a brand- warburtons if I buy, hovis if DH buys, tea has to be pg or Tetley, cookies need to be Maryland.

Just about everything else could be bought as a supermarket own.

In our house we either get a posh ketchup from the local deli or sainsburys own for some reason we don't like Heinz.

Apart from that we tend to buy and would never buy branded, tinned tomatoes, tomato purée, pasta or mozzarella.... There must be more we wouldn't ever spend a lot on I just can't think of them.

I go by taste. Cheaper brands are often lower quality, sometimes they are just as good. I wouldn't buy something I didn't prefer the tatse of just to save a few pence.

The Eat Well for Less programme proved how much people are swayed by brands and packaging and when subjected to genuine blind tasting, people often couldn't tell 'their' brand, preferred the cheaper one or when informed of the cost difference, were happy to take the cheaper one.

The cost difference between branded and own brand may be small for individual items but it can add up to an enormous amount over time and can be an easy way to save a lot of money.

I don't like Heinz Baked beans and think most Heinz products are a bit crap really. Baxters soup is much better than Heinz for example. Really don't get the Heinz love TBH.

About the only branded food item to cross my kitchen threshhold is Nutella but only because I've not found an unbranded alternative that DD will eat. Apparently it's a secret recipe.

Anything else - honestly couldn't tell the difference. I actually prefer non-branded baked beans. I find Heinz too salty. Even the low salt ones.

Morrisons yeast extract just like marmite!!!

You went without cereal ??? Must be a pretty special cereal.

America brand cereal is $4-5 a box sometimes. Apples are less than a dollar a pound.

I like cereal, but I can't justify $5 a box. I only get it when it's on sale or having a buy one get one free in my preferred brand. I get what I like or go without, but cheap knock offs won't get eaten anyway so it's a waste of money.

Really, I only go for brand in junk food including cereal because if I'm going to eat fattening crap that's bad for me, I'm going to make it worth it.

Healthy things like milk and ingredients don't need brands because you're mixing them in and adding spices and herbs to make the taste, not relying on the ingredient itself.

Fooshuffle - thanks for the tip about Morrison's fake Marmite! Love Marmite but over £2 a jar! Mad - its only a byproduct of another food manufacturing process.

Are there really people out there who just buy branded food and sod the expense?

Of course, Coca Cola, Nutella, Bonne-Maman jams (all the healthy stuff). I have tried various things, some I have replaced, but for others you do need the real thing!

I have tried pretty much all the tea bags I could find (everyday basic black tea), and can't taste the difference, so only buying the cheapest Aldi one. I am sure some people will scream in horror about that.

I don't like Tesco value baked beans, but own brand are fine. I don't like Tesco value chicken burgers, so we don't buy them. I get Tesco value everything-else, and most meat from the butcher.
I cooked some of this for dinner for a friend who is used to Tesco finest or brands, and the only thing they could tell the difference of was the Coca Cola.

It's lower middle class snobbery. The same way some people think wearing a shirt with a massive logo makes other people think they have money and therefore class. It doesn't work like that.

I've not heard of anyone making a point of doing it to their child though. Students usually figure it out in their own when they come up short for the rent!

I nearly always buy own brand or discounted expensive stuff! The only item where I could tell a difference would be coke, and I buy that very infrequently.

I think it makes utter sense. Completely. The whole marketing concept relies on people preferring certain branded goods.

So everyone on here is all "I don't get taken in by brands! Except these brands which I always buy. I'm so unlike those other people who buy brands. They must have money to burn. Why are they so attracted to brand names?"

In other words, being loyal to your own choice of brands = savvy shopping and a discerning palate. Other people being loyal to their choice of brands = wasteful spendthrift.

But I think there is a difference between preferring a few brands because you actually prefer the product (probably most people) and only ever getting brands because you wouldn't want second-best/don't want to be seen as cheap.

Are there really people out there who just buy branded food and sod the expense

I do this and I'm sure that's pretty normal. I would rather not eat the food than have another brand of somethings I like. I buy certain food products from my home country like beans, it costs a lot but I would only eat that brand.

I absolutely detest Heinz baked beans - bought a multipack of 6 on special offer as a 'treat' and they were so bland and watery we struggled to finish all the cans.

Love Branston baked beans (usually on special offer somewhere) and Sainsburys own brand - much more flavour!

My general observation from my student days was that the simpler the product, the less difference branding made.
Recipes vary between brands, so that will have a difference with sugar and salt content which will affect taste and health.
Some things are worth paying for, some things aren't.

I went to Uni in a place that only had a Safeway at the time in the centre. We knew a lad that used to drive miles to go to Sainsbury's because the food 'tastes better'. Then one of his housemates pointed out that he ony bought branded goods, so they were mystified how Kellog's Cornflakes from Sainsbury's could taste any different to those in Safeway. He never did grasp the logic of what they were saying.