'Value' or 'No frills' type food in supermarkets - what's good?

[Lakota]

As everyone is tightening their belts at the moment I wondered if anyone could recommend any 'value' ranges or 'no frills' foods which are actually worth buying? I remember there being a Lidl/Aldi thread where where people said what was good and what was revolting, so I thought one for the 'big' supermarkets might be handy.

I will freely admit that I never used buy the value ranges - possibly to do with some sort of snobbery on my part but mainly as I thought they'd be lower quality. I remember buying some cheap chopped tinned tomatoes and they were just full of stalky bits and that put me off! But I have recently tried Tesco Value part-bake baguettes and Tesco Value rice (half the price of their usual range) and both were absolutely fine. I honestly couldn't taste any difference at all and it was far cheaper.

Any other recommendations?

tinned tomatoes
tinned kidney beans
toilet paper
kitchen roll
sainsburys basics bananas are fairtrade
corn snack crisps are additive free etc
ready salted crisps
tortilla chips
salted peanuts
cornflakes
rice snaps
chocolate, fine for melting
rolled oats
golden syrup
pasta
rice
lasagne sheets
frozen oven chips

so most things really

oh and you can usually get local potatoes cheaper than value ones here...not sure if thats the same everywhere though 9we are in kent)

I buy Heinz Beanz, Salad Cream (DS will not eat any other brand and can tell even when he hasn't seen the bottle!), tomato ketchup and kellogs cereal.

Will most certainly swap the cereal to home brand as on that link they say all the waitrose cereals are pretty much on par with kellogs!

DH will be pleased with me being so frugal!

I rate Tesco Value kitchen rolls and loo rolls. Their Value baked beans are v low in added sugar and salt - my seven month-old loves them mashed up.

I bought a massive Tesco Value packet of Bourbon biscuits (as recommended) yesterday for 39p and I can confirm that they are indeed very yummy.

Well I refuse to use Tesco, but Asda Smart Price things I buy include
kitchen roll
porridge oats
apple juice
orange juice
tinned toms
tinned sweetcorn
tinned baked beans
kidney beans
bourbons
choclate covered digestives
pasta
rice
lasgane sheets
tortilla chips
and I often buy similar fromt eh sainsburys bascis range as well

Sainsbury's own Ketchup is very nice and apparently seems to have much less sugar. Both Dh and Ds approve!

I did notice that the Tesco own version of weetabix has more sugar in than the real ones though.

Sainsburys Basics things that are good:

• Gin (perfectly fine mixed with tonic and only six quid)
• Tins of tomatoes and kidney beans
• All the fruit and veg, which will differ from the usual stuff only because it's small or large (1kg of onions for about 50p, for instance)
• tins of tuna are good for fishcakes or pasta sauce but a bit sloppy/mushy for anything else
• mozzarella in chunks and mozzarella pearls. The grated mozz is okay for pizzas but a bit meh
• apple juice and orange juice
• hand cream
• fishfingers - not fillets but perfectly fine
• fillets of pollack etc for fish pie or just flouring and frying
• salmon pieces - they might be wildly differing sizes but it's quite good quality and claims to be responsibly sourced
• lamb chops and pork hocks (can supply amazing recipe for the pork hock if you like Chinese food). The pork hocks in particular are fabulous value - about £1.50 for a huge piece of meat that will feed at least four.
• Salami - fine for pizzas

I made a value triffle using value custard (about 8p) value jelly (about 6p) Value sponge rolls (about 20p) and sprinkled with hundreds and thousands. The kids could not get enough . I tried it again with value tinned fruit salad in jelly and that also went down really well.

hello!

i am a design student and i am currently researching supermarket own brand food products..

i was wondering if anyone had any thoughts on how the packaging influences your decisions when trying to differentiate or justify moves to the own brand section or the lower priced 'value' items.

Lots of people (like the person who started this conversation) are now shopping for much cheaper products and trying out ranges such as 'value' and 'basics' food. Does the 'look' eg colours, images text etc on the product affect your final decision as well as the price?

thanks!

VALUE FOOD IS MOSTLY NOPT DESIGNED TO PUNISH THE POOR - RATHER THE PACKAGING IS DESIGNED TO SCARE THE RICH.

As you may or may not know, lucy, Tesco have recently swapped their "Tesco Value" packaging on fruit and veg (and meat) to "Market value". The price (and presumably the contents) are the same, but the classic white and blue striped packaging is now a soft beige, with slightly nicer writing, and the blue stripes are much smaller.

And I am vaguely embarrassed to admit it's worked on me. The whole product looks nicer.

I used both Tesco Value and Sainsbury Basics.

The saving is especially good when you look at toilet paper, kitchen roll, handsoaps, showergels, and WASHING POWDERS!!!! I used to buy those big sainsburys basic washing powder, rather than the branded ones.

I can do value for most things, but not:

tinned tomatoes - they just taste of nothing
eggs - free range
chicken - free range
prawns - absolutely not from Vietnam (Sunday Times article re: carcinogens)

I personally think value tinned tomatoes are identical to the normal kind and I'm normally very fussy. Agree about buying free range where you can.

I just bought the Sainsburys basic english muffins - got 6 instead of the usual 4 and they were cheap and very good quality - will now try some of their other stuff

Thanks very much for your help re. the essay research, especially smugcolditz whose summary of the whole packaging and supermarket industry is fabulous! i will also be checking out the tesco 'market value' move as i wasnt aware of that as i dont have one locally, thanks for the tip off!

By the way my best recommendation for own brand purchases are;

Sainsburys do packs of jaffa cakes for about 20p and they taste amazing!