To ask which cooking ingredients you would never use own brand for?

[Babadookie]

I buy own brand for about 80-85% of our weekly shop, but I switched from supermarket tinned tomatoes to a more expensive brand last year and I swear I'll never go back. I find that the difference in the end result is night and day, and the dearer ones go so much further with flavour. I'm a cheapskate with everything else though 😁

What product would you never cut corners with?

Weetabix
Fish fingers
Bread - Hovis
mayo
Waffles
Baked beans - switched from Heinz to HP so slightly cheaper..

Morrisons own ketchup is okay and DC doesn't mind coco pops type own branded cereals on the weekend.

Agree with ketchup. Also tinned tomatoes although I don't get the dead expensive ones - that Kik brand are great.

Re mayonnaise that's another one that m&s own brand is good for, along with their butter, bread, eggs, hummus and peanut butter. Weirdly those things are all cheaper rn than other own brand products too, even than Asda and Aldi.

@Ihlaria

I agree. Their own brand cream cheese is cheaper than Philadelphia even when it's on offer

Tea
Coffee
Ketchup
Brown sauce
Beans
Stock
Gravy
Cola

@ToffeeNotCoffee forgot about the cream cheese - it's really nice too. Not quite deli quality - you have to go to Waitrose for that - but better than Philadelphia I think, less cloying.

Marmite XO
Marmite rice cakes
There's a theme here

I'll try most other stuff once! Spotted some butter in Tesco when I was shopping with my dad, it said grass fed, looked nice and weirdly was cheaper than the own brand
Dad "I'll have 4 packs then as it's cheap"
Anyway it was bloody delicious (see pic)

Also tried Lidl mayo on a whim and that was also good

I buy pretty much everything own brand from tesco if its available, don't have an asda where I live but Iast time I was down south I popped in to one and was so excited by all the own brand gluten free stuff they had and stocked up on several of their frozen pizzas. They were awful, so bad, I pretty much eat anything but couldn't stomach them.

Oxo stock cubes
Bisto gravy
Hellmans mayonnaise
Lea perrins Worcester sauce
Colemans mustard
Kelloggs cornflakes
Most other stuff I'll at least give own brand a try.
Aldi do some great stuff eg the pasta.

Once you buy Mutti tinned tomatoes you'll never go back!
Expensive but worth it. I'll often mix a dish with one tin of mutti and a tin of Napolina (I'm not made of money)
Own brands are watery and bland in comparison.

Baked beans, I've recently revisited ALDIs version and have been pleasantly surprised, used to be very watery again but seemed to have changed.

For those saying hellmans only, a tip I read on here over a year or so ago about finds from world food aisles....
Polish mayonnaise, I think its Wineiry, is hands down 100 times better than hellmans and at least half the price.

Oh and sabra hummus

KetchuP....HEINZ no matter what...
mayo... has to be Heinz or Hellman’s
baked beans... has to be Heinz.

we have actually swapped loads of big brands for own brands on a lot of stuff but those are the 3 that are defo no chance.

I used to buy only weetabix, wouldn’t even think of buying an own brand. Really fancied it a couple of months back, co- op only had thier own brand in and I swear to anyone it actually tastes better than weetabix and is also £2 cheaper.

Heinz beans and ketchup, Coke Zero, Pringles.

Also only daddies sauce or HP as far as brown sauce is concerned. I prefer daddies though 😂

And an obvious one Coca Cola .... no chance To change that for any other brand

Quavers
hoola hoops
pringles
french fries

Lurpak... although it PAINS me to say it!
Heinz ketchup
Bisto powder
Coke Zero
Heinz baked beans

Have found the Tesco Malties are a great alternative to Shreddies, and only 89p a box as they price match to Lidl/Aldi

I tend to but own brand time of plum tomatoes instead of chopped. An ex chef friend of mine says that the quality of whole tomatoes is way better than the chopped ones.

Oh I thought graham's dairy were all over maybe its only my local area.

Pasta - it’s such a key ingredient for us I won’t skimp and per portion it’s not much of a mark up
Tinned tomatoes - Curio for me
Tea bags - Yorkshire for decaf, normal tea I buy leaf
Monmouth coffee
Butter - only Insigny if buying brand, but if I’m at Aldi, their French butter with sea crystals is my favourite. Lurpak is for people who don’t really like butter in my opinion!!
Eggs - Burford Browns, I prefer to go without if I can’t get them
Mayo - Amora (cheap when bought in bulk in France), Delouis if I have to buy here. Hellmans cannot even be called mayo - it’s white!!

Morrisons own brand mayonnaise is the king of mayonnaise and their own brand bio washing liquid is the best I've used too. Nearly makes it worth trying to battle through their stores which never seem to have enough space to comfortably shop.

Ketchup- too vinegary
Coffee- actual pig swill. I know I'm fussy about coffee but own brand is grim

Princes who make Napolina make most of the supermarket own brand stuff you know.

I'd love to have a list of which brands/companies make which value ranges - they'd probably kill me if I ever got hold of one, though! I'm sure they'd say that they make the cheaper ones to a lower standard, but it stands to reason that there's a huge section of the market who will/can only buy the own-brand versions and they would rather get their money in than not get it - and if the own-brand one isn't nice, they will often just switch to another OB one from elsewhere.

Lots of things are sold at the highest prices that each level of the market will bear: if something costs me, say, 25p to make and I can get you to pay £1 for it, of course I'll do that; but if you won't pay a penny more than 50p, that's still worth my while having too.

On the flip-side, Aldi's own-brand sea shell chocolates are much nicer than Guylian - so I'd definitely choose the former, even if they were the same price. Oddly enough, Lidl's OB taste much more like Guylian (too sickly), so not for me, thanks!

Mutti tomatoes
Lurpak butter
Twinings tea

I've worked in food factories. They all make products for multiple labels.

But, yes, it's different ingredients, different recipes and they clean the lines down in between to ensure that the product is different. Even the pizzas are different. You stand on the line with your tray of topping ingredients and it's different ingredients for different brands. Further back the line, the sauce is a different recipe, and the dough. And you get told to put different quantities of topping on. Swear to God! They check them too.

Bisto gravy
kallo chicken stock cubes

Curry paste is always Pataks, own brands have artificial muck in them whereas Pataks is just the spices in oil. My DP is very sensitive (not in a good way) to artificial preservatives etc and I spend a lot of time reading labels.