To think there's nothing wrong with own brand stuff?

[AverageGayLad]

Was in the supermarket earlier and a woman asked her friend to get her some butter - but "a brand, none of that cheap shite".

What is wrong with own brand? :( Sometimes/Mostly that's all I can afford! Isn't it all the same food anyway?

We get lots of own brand stuff - some the regular own brand and some the basic own brand. There are a couple of items that I will only by a particular brand for but the rest is generally own brand.

Not quite true *t4nut"

Yes from the branded ones, there are only 2 main manufacturers -

Proctor and Gamble; who make Ariel, Bold, Daz, Fairy and Lenor
Unilever; who make Persil, Surf and Comfort

However, most of the own branded are produced by a company called McBride. I belive Aldi's Almat is danish and Lidl's Formil is German.

Sorry t4nut

My partner hates own brand stuff, but I'm in charge of the shopping so own brand he gets I remember buying own brand magnums and he didn't even know the difference as I took them out of the box before putting them in the freezer. He merely commented they must be cutting down on their packaging!

I buy mainly home brands, though I do always check out what offers are on as occasionally they can make the branded product the best option that week.

One of the products I don't like as a home brand is marmalade. I have to buy Mackay's. I find home brand marmalade to be tasteless sweet gloop.

I always buy the home or generic brand for medicines too, though I get free prescriptions so a fair bit of what I need comes that way and I get what I am given (nearly always generic).

I do however agree with e1y1 re. Tea and coffee, I'm a Yorkshire Tea kind of gal and I only buy Carte Noir (unless it's not on offer, then I sulk and DP buys the coffee instead )

Meadowhay - I too have tried loads of cheap dry shampoos that were rubbish, but Wilkinson's own dry shampoo is as good if not better than Batiste. 400ml for about £1.50

I see quorn has been mentioned, we do have some quorn stuff but would definitely recommend trying Tesco and sainsbury own. Sainsburys own vegetarian mince is by far our favourite and we can tell the difference no matter what is made with it.

We aren't fussed on asda, and I refuse to buy Morrisons because they have a meat free range which isn't vegetarian (meat free but not gelatine etc free) which is mixed up in the freezer with vegetarian stuff. Very misleading!

Haha Fairy I too have a MASSIVE sulk when not on offer.

I have at times paid the full whack and try to console tell myself that life is too short for not enjoying a cup of coffee.

If needed, will drink either red or blue Kenco, on the other hand would not touch Nescafe with something borrowed.

If you're interested, Tesco and Co-op have it on at £2 a jar at moment :)

A lot of people think that because stuff is made by the same factory that they're the same. They're absolutely not. The ingredients aren't the same at all.

Our policy (for as long as it it necessary to count every penny), are is that we'll try it and keep it if we like it. Aldi/own brand/value. Lots of things we do so that's great, less money in the supermarket and more for other things. If not, we decide if buying the brand is worth the extra. Vimto always is, nothing compares. Aldi spread is horrid. DH is precious about brown sauce. I don't waste money on brands but I don't refuse to buy something we prefer of it is branded. I would if it was an affordability issue, very quickly.

Yanbu....i mostly buy own brand. However ive yet to find a replacement that tastes as good as shreddies...

(Posted this on another thread just now...whoops)

Top tip for those who like Starbucks coffee (definitely not me) but not the price. I went to Asda last year (usually shop at Morrisons) and had an Americano (no milk) in their cafe. Me and DH were discussing that it had the same weak and watery taste as Starbucks. My suspicions were raised by the name 'Seattle's best coffee' and a quick Google shows that Asda cafe coffee is indeed made by Starbucks. Shows what a rip off they are (am a complete hypocrite as I am happy to splash out on Costa).

I buy branded and own branded goods. Prefer some own brands to well known brands, however I hate the smell and taste of own brand spreadable compared to Lurpak. I am old enough to remember my mother buying butter cut from a big block at our local shop. It was just Butter, it was wrapped in greasproof paper and it was delicious. When that shop closed down we had to travel to the new supermarket, everything was prepacked and branded. Thereby followed an in depth discussion on which butter would be comparable to the block butter from the local shop. After several taste testings Lurpac was declared the winner with Kerrygold a close runner up.

I buy mostly unbranded other than douwe egberts coffee a lot is smartprice/value bottom range I dont have any complaints. We were skint this week though and I got Aldi coffee as its what we could afford it is actually lovely.
I find that using fairy liquid is better than own brand as it lasts longer

londonrach. DP is a bit of a brand snob, although I am slowly educating him.

He happily accepts the Aldi version of shreddies instead of Kelloggs. I don't eat cereal, so I don't know how they compare, but they are much cheaper, as you would expect.

I don't think things have to taste 'the same' to be acceptable or nice. Some brands aren't great tbh - I think most Heinz products are quite poor quality - crap in tins really. But just, do you like them? If you do, crack on, if you don't, don't buy it again.

Aldi equivalent are less than a pound a box (69 or 89 p) compared with about £2.50 for Kelloggs Shreddies, so if you like them and it's a regular purchase, there is a decent saving to be made over time.

One way to look at it is would you rather have the Shreddies, or would you rather have Aldi Shreddies and £1.50+ to spend on something else?

Thinkingblonde interested that you concluded Lurpak was first and Kerrygold second- to me they are totally different butters- Lurpak is pale and insipid tasting and, even when salted, not salty at all. Kerrygold is deep golden, rich and satisfyingly salty. Just shows you how subjective taste can be...

Tesco own label is a brand.

Peopel are idiots

I think it depends on what you were raised on, mostly. So if you were raised eating specific brand foods, you'll be used to the taste, so anything else will taste odd or strange - not necessarily bad, just not what you're used to. Whereas if you grew up in a household where your parents just bought whatever was on offer/cheapest, regardless of brand, you'll be used to the different tastes of different brands.

I was raised on brands but then moved out as a student and couldn't afford them because I spent all my money on booze and switched to own-brand for 90% of things. Now I'll mostly choose own-brand to save money - the only branded stuff I insist on these days is Lurpak butter and Diet Coke. I'm not massively fussed about anything else.

the worst are those who can't type properly!

Jessie Lurpak and Kerrygold are different types of butter. I can't remember the details, but I think one of them is called sweet cream butter and there is another type.

I know this ironically, given the subject of the thread, from a book called the supermarket own brand guide, which tested supermarket products against the equivalent brand, to see which the authors liked best. The butter section was categorised into the two different types of butter - the Lurpak type and the Kerrygold/Countrylife type.

www.supermarketownbrandguide.co.uk/

Some people are just under the false impression that more expensive necessarily means better quality. But what they don't understand is that often what they are paying for is the packaging/advertising costs/brand label.

I'm usually quite happy with own brand. I use all own brand non-bio, own brand toilet rolls, own brand nappies, own brand wipes, own brand sauces etc.. we save a fortune doing this!

I'm not a brand snob. Try to be open minded and all that but I can't budge from Lurpak.

Nothing else but Lurpak will suffice. I find everything else pretty rank tbh. In fact my heart sinks when it's not available lol.

BarbaraofSeville- thanks but I know! It was a previous poster who thought they were similar. They are chalk and cheese to me.

There's a only a things I can think of right now that I buy branded and that's shampoo/conditioner, stock cubes, gravy and laundry detergent. Everything else is shops own. I do my shopping online and even went through the whole value range to see if I could make further savings. I switched to value cistern blocks and baby soap (use it on our faces).