Generic Vs. Name Brand... Silly Question

Hi E.,
I can tell you there is really NO difference between national name and store brands. I highly recommend Kroger's brand of frozen veggies, the smaller bags are almost always on sale for $1.00 a bag-cheaper and healthier than canned and you get more than one meal out of them. I also like Albertson's brand of canned veggies, my husband prefers canned green beans over the frozen (I think he's goofy!) I usually add minced onion and bacon to green beans and Mrs. Dash or Lawry's Seasoned Salt to frozen veggies with a touch of olive oil to get the seasoning to "stick".

We buy a lot of generic items, and for the most part you cannot tell the difference. Especially the canned goods. Generic Mac N Cheese isn't the same as Kraft, but I add a little more butter an milk to cream it up. You just have to do trial and error but we can't tell and my kids can't tell. It does save a lot of money.

I mostly buy Generic branded canned goods. the only exception is that I only buy Libby brand Sweet Peas. That is the only exception I have ever found in the taste differnces. However, I do add seasoning to all my veggies if I am using them singly as a side dish rather than as part of a vegetable casserole type side dish. I would buy some generic and doctor them up with some spices and then buy a name brand and leave them plain. Serve both to your husband (whom you will not tell) and ask him which he thinks tastes better. If he still likes the name brand, he certainly has a more dicerning palate than I.

Hope this helps.

It's not a silly question at all...I was SO against generic until I got to college and started buying my own groceries :) The interesting thing is that most generic foods are manifactured by the same companies that make the name brands...there is no difference in quality whatsoever, just the label itself. Companies make 'generic' labeled foods as well as their own because they still make money...they don't have the advertising and marketing expense like the 'name brand' items do which is why they are sold at a cheaper price. Of course, this is not 100% of the time...there are some items where the name brand is better than the generic. It took us some time to figure out what our preferences were, and remember, most are just a "mental thing". I use generic for most recipes and my husband never knows the difference (I also substitute ground turkey whenever I can and he doesn't taste the difference with that either!) Buying generic when you can WILL cut your grocery bill and I guarantee your family won't know the difference! :)

We use Generic alot.
Some times things do have a diffrent flavor to them! Some times they dont. It really depends on your taste. When the regular brand is 3 dollars and the generic is 1.5 to me it doesnt matter.
I do have a picky husband I usually just dont mention it and he doesnt know.

Hi E. -

Just wanted to pass on what I learned from my Marketing professor back in college..... Generic brands are exactly the same as the regular Brand name foods. The companies that make them simply put the generic label/Store brand label on their product instead of their normal label (i.e. Del Monte, Green Giant, etc.)

Just think about it this way.... Kroger and Walmart are in the grocery selling business, not the harvesting and canning business.... get it??

The only difference that your hubby may be finding in taste is whether the generic/store brand catsup, beans, spaghetti sauce etc. was packaged by DelMonte or Heinz or Ragu, etc.... So, you just have to try the different generics/store brands to see which you prefer....

Good luck!

Hi, E.!
Good for you for trying to curb your spending!

I have been using generic, or store-brands for years, and I feel sure (but cannot document) that I have saved hundreds, if not thousands of dollars in all.

What I have found is that, for most items, the "generics" are indistinguishable from the "name brands". Especially for items that are mixed with other items (like green beans and mushroom soup for a green bean casserole, for example), my family and I have never missed the more expensive name brand items.

I admit, though, that there are certain things that just aren't the same! I think it has more to do with what flavor you get used to than anything, though. For example: for me, real Cheerios are just better than the generics I've tried. Same with chocolate syrup and my favorite mayo. Then again, we found that we prefer the generic brand of salsa to the name-brand! So it really depends!

I suggest you make a game of it! Each time you shop, pick up one or two generic items to try. Be sure to get the name-brand version, too, for comparison. Then when you serve it, put them in separate dishes, tell your family (your husband, in particular) that one is name brand, and one is the generic, and see if they can guess which is which! ;-) (Afterward, if he liked the generic, tell him the price difference, too, especially if it's a big difference!)

Like my family, you'll probably find some things that you're willing to pay the extra money for, and some things that you can use generics for without any noticeable difference, like casseroles, stews, chocolate chip cookies, etc. Even if you only use generics for some of your staples (flour, salt, sugar, spices, butter, milk, bread, etc.), I'm guessing it will make a noticeable difference in your grocery bill.

Best wishes, happy shopping, and happy saving!

It depends on the generic "brand" and what the product is. I seriously doubt that green beans have a different flavor, no matter what brand! I buy generic fozen veggies all the time and they taste the same. I also buy generic yogurt (Tom Thumb's Lucerne brand is my favorite!). I really like some of Target's "Archer Farms" prducts...some of them are even better than National brands. Some things I don't like in generic form are flavored rices, like Rice-a-roni. I've tried generic versions and don't care for them. So, now I look for Rice-a-roni to go on sale.

You just have to try some and see what you think. What's the worst that can happen? You try it and don't like it and never buy it again!

I use a combination of both and can and frozen.
To save on the grocery bill check out www.thegrocerygame.com
You will be using coupons effectively on this site.
She tracks the lowest price on items and puts out a list every Sunday. She does all the work. it costs $8 for three months. You shop at places like Kroger, Albertsons etc.
I save about $100-200/trip to Albertson's. My pantry is full and now my bill is much lower because I was able to stock up on expensive non-food items (diapers, TP, detergent, deoderant shampoo...) Now my average grocery bill is maybe $75-100 a week for a family of four and pets.
check it out and look around see if it is something that will work for you.
**as far as spicing it up on the taste issue. experiment with flavors. We use lemon pepper ( very good on gr beans),
roesemary, curry. Look in some cookbooks and see what spoces they use.

Have fun.

E.,
I have also been there with my husband to the point of frustration. He is getting alot better but it takes time.
I have a neat chart that American Test Kitchen puts out every year rating the top brands in various categories. There are several generics on the list that rate best in class. One that was especially surprising was vanilla extract.. one of the best brands was CVS! I didn't even know that CVS sold vanilla extract. Anyways I would check their website for ratings of particular things as it might show your husband to not be so quick to judge.

HTH,
S.
http://www.americastestkitchen.com/login.asp?did=523&...

Hi again,

Check out,

http://www.angelfoodministries.com/

It is a grocery ministry and can cut your bill by 50%. Really! By the way it is all Name Brand. Choice Beef, and no seconds, or dented cans. It is all first rate.

There are no qualifications, or red tape.

Click on Host site, scroll down and put in your zip code. It will give you a list of the organizations that are participating.

Good Luck,

P.

Hey there! I saw your post and thought I would write you back. My husband and I shop at Walmart. We have noticed a significant amount reduced on our grocery shopping bill. We buy the Walmart brand in some items. Like butter, margerine, bread, cheese, yogurt, milk and some select others. I however don't buy generic green beans in the can because I noticed that you get a lot of stems. For some reason I guess they just can what they get. I do buy generic frozen veggies and they taste great. We have even started buying generic hand soap, pain reducers, and other non-grocery items. I hope this helps you out.

my mom used to buy generic cereal and put it in the brand-name box. i never knew the difference!
but seriously, some things are good generic, some things i wouldn't compromise. like... some cereals, oreos, macaroni. i guess generic is worth it if that's all i can think of.

I buy a lot of generic and there are some things that do taste different but most food is the exact same. When I find some thing that doesn't taste quite right I just either try a different store's generic or I buy those foods in the name brand. It does save a ton of money. You might also try buying in bulk, I get all my frozen veggies that way. I get the name brand at a discount price and just get the steam in a bag, ziplock baggies.

My husband thought he could tell the difference as well, he can't and the kids don't know and different anyway.

Such an important thing to look at. I still remember in 7th grade we had a science teacher who made us look at generic items compared to name-brand. What I learned from that project will forever help me shop!!! Most of the time the generic item is one of the name brands printed with a generic or store brand label, like Kroger. It is a way for the company to make even more money. So, often the generic of green beans is the del-monte, just with a different label on the can. So, the taste, if what you are used to is del-monte is the same. I will say that there are some generic brands that we have tried and do not like, because the brand they are off-labelled for is not the brand we like. Another example, I used to work for a company that manufactured the best hot sauce I had ever eaten. That company manufactured that hot sauce under 10 different labels - same hot sauce!! Generic medication is a little different though. To make a generic of a medication, the medication has to have been around for X number of years (don't remember) before there can be generics made. When they make a generic of a medication, they change one of the non-active ingredients slightly. So, with generic mediations you may notice some difference in how it is absorbed, which would affect how it works. There are some medications I will buy generic and some that I won't. It has been trial and error on that one. For example, generic Advil or Tylenol, I have not noticed a difference for me but for my kids, the name-brand seems to work better. Same is true with Benedryl. Femenine Hygiene products, particularly pads, I have found that the store brand is almost always the Always Brand with a different label. Hope that helps some!! We shop generics alot and it is a great way to say money, but we have learned over the years what we like and what we don't. But it saves us a lot of money!!

A little about me: I am a working mom, married with 2 boys - 6 and 19 months.

Hi I use a combination of generic and named brand, mostly generic though. It can be tricky, If you look closley some of the products come from the same distributor as a name brand. It is private labeled to a company and they just sell it under a different name some times more expensive sometimes cheaper depending on if they choose fancy packiging . Most generics though are just knock offs and just a few of the ingredients are different. I bet if you did a blind taste test he would not know the differece especially with the green beans. you will have to experiment and see which ones you prefer named brand to. I actually prefer some generic to the name brand. House hold items such as clorox I cant tell the difference. Steak sauce I dont like the generic so I buy name brand. so you see you will have to conduct your own little tast test. I will tell you I save up to $20 in one shopping trip buying generic. Have fun tasting!

Hi E....
I personally use generic everything. The way I do the corn and green beans is this way. I drain the juice/water that they are in. use a spoonful of butter/margerine and seasonings. That just depends on what flavor I want. Could be garlic .. seasoning salt.... mrs dash .ect. Now peas...cant stand them ...so I drain them and add a can of cream of soup....and one sliced up boiled egg. Carrots ...drain..add butter ect and a tbls. of brown sugar. My grandkids would not eat veggies until they lived with us for awhile and now they eat them everyday. frozen broccolie or cauliflower. add butter and salt and pepper. or maybe a slice of cheese and there again it is all good.
And when we started using generic brand ..my husband swears he could tell a differance. so I took all the lables off and used a permant marker to write what was in the can. He cant tell the differance now . Dont think he ever really could LOL. Hope this helps. Good shopping and savings.
L.