Brand shopping habits and you
 

Nowadays, you rarely see a product in a supermarket that doesn't have it's cheaper, no name (or any other such brand) equivalent sitting right next to it on the shelf. Be it Mac and cheese, mayonnaise, crackers or whatever else it is your looking for, you're likely to encounter quite a few varieties of pretty much anything.

So, GFF, what are your shopping habits?

Do you:

- Automatically equate the more expensive or advertised brand with being the best because of it's claim to being the real deal?

- Taste test brands, by purchasing a different one each time?

- Reach for the cheapest option, content in knowing that your bill will be smaller in the end and that it really doesn't make much of a difference anyway?


As for myself, I'll usually reach for the cheaper kind of everything, insofar as I was able to stomach it the last time I bought it. Beer is the only exception to this rule.

Maybe not too surprising, given my current vocation, I'm always looking for the best in food. I try different brands (protip: White Cheddar mac and cheese can't be done out of a box any better than President's Choice. Who knew.) and tend to settle on something once I find something really high end.

I tend to cook from scratch, so I do this more with fresh ingredients, but the point still stands. You experiment until you find something that does what you want it to do.

It's funny you should mention the White Cheddar PC mac & cheese, I just had some two hours.

It was quite satisfying indeed.

I'll generally take a look at the generic brand and see how the ingredients compare to the original. If they're pretty close, then I'll go for it. If there's a pretty big difference (say, water being the third ingredient in store brand and first in generic) I'll stick with the original.

If you're fairly savvy about when you buy stuff you can often get name brand for the same price as the generic, often cheaper.

I think the big question is if you buy generic, which level generic do you buy. Like, there's the one that's a close imitation, the store brand, and then the below-dollar-store-quality. You know, the one that's in a white box and about 1/4 the price of the rest.

Also, anyone that goes to a supermarket owned by Ralphs/Kroger should try their store-brand bagged cereal. It's even cheaper than malt-o-meal, and I like some of their imitations even better than the originals.

It really depends upon what I'm buying. If it's something fairly interchangeable, like pretzels, I'll buy the in-store brand without giving it much thought.

But if I'm looking for something of quality, I will buy the name brand product because I can be more certain that as many corners aren't being skipped. For example, tuna fish: I always buy Starkist because I've tasted the other brands and they don't measure up. Too oily, too salty, too gritty - it's always something like that.

It's the same difference with cereals. You'll never convince me that "Marshmallow Treasures" taste the same as Lucky Charms because they just don't. Something is off and it ruins my concept of what the cereal should be. BUT, pretty much anyone can make passable Cheerios, so the cheap brand is just as good.

Generally, the more specialized a food is, the more likely I'll buy name brand. Butter, milk, yogurt, popcorn, yeah, house brands will work. Cream cheese, bagels, fish sticks, no I demand names I trust.

Crash, if you can't tell the difference between milks, I'm envious. After being on the east coast, I almost can't drink the stuff. Hell, after I got back from Japan, I couldn't drink milk in NA for months. Just tasted bloody awful.

For basics, I buy no-name brands. Things that will get mixed in the pot with a bunch of other shit, I don't really care.

But if there's something which stands alone or has a unique flavor I'm trying to bring out, I go with middle-of-the-line. I very rarely purchase the most expensive brand in a certain food category.

I think Deni describes my point best.
There's two brands I will be adamant about sticking to: Kikkoman for soysauce, Best Foods for Mayonnaise. These two are the ONLY brands and only food products I'll harp on, only because I grew up on these being the only possible brads for these two condiments and I cannot compromise the taste of either.

Canned vegetables and dairy I tend to get whatever is cheapest (except eggs...I tend to splurge on the most expensive, organic, range-free hen eggs I can get my hands on since I do eat quite a bit of eggs raw/various degrees of "undercooked").

Other than that, I try to go for organic stuff when I can afford it.

Pepsi is pretty much the only real BRAND I stick to. Most other things I get are interchangable with their generic or local versions.

+1 for the soysauce comment, but hell, if I really want mayonnaise [none of that Miracle Whip] I just make my own. Sure, it's a bit of work on the arm, but it's good, and I just make a jar at a time and keep it in the fridge.

As for canned vegetables, I tend not to buy them. Aside from not eating a lot of veggies... it all depends on what I'm looking for, really: peas and corn can be frozen, and things like potatoes and carrots I buy fresh.

Milk, on the other hand... I tend to buy the more expensive brands, and it hurts. I drink homo milk [har har.] and that's already more expensive than 2%, 1%, or skim. But then I prefer one of the more expensive brands of milk, simply because I find it tastes better.

1: I've never been to Japan to have a basis for comparison.

2: I drink Vitamin D milk, which is pretty strong stuff no matter from whom it's purchased. It's the 2% and skim milks that seem to suffer more between brands.

3: In upstate NY, most milk comes from the same dairy farms, so even though the labels are different, most times it's the same thing. It's like in-store tomato paste: it may have a boring label but if you read the fine print, you'll see it was made by Hunt's anyhow, so why pay more?

Well, if the milk is half as good as the stuff you can land in Montreal, you're probably getting fairly high quality anyway. What brand do you drink?

Really? All milk tastes the same here. If anything, the store stuff is nicer than branded as it tends to be locally produced.

About the only thing I'm brand-anal about is Hellmans Mayonaise, which is awesome and Clover margerine, which is just more tasty than all the others.

We have two major brands. One is "Wendt's" and the other is "Upstate."

I prefer Upstate, as their quality is more consistent; their D milk seems smoother. But Wendt's isn't bad either.

I guess Meadowbrook has moved in recently but they're more expensive than milk realistically should be, so I haven't tried them.

On a related note, I always buy Land-O-Lakes butter because the salt level seems just right. The store brands always seems lacking, and Imperial is too salty. I never eat margarine because it's a shitty, bastard son.

EDIT: I usually buy Hellman's mayonnaise but I can handle the Kraft brand. I like their Gour-Mayo line, especially the chipotle mayonnaise. House brand mayonnaise has a weaker consistency, I find.

I'm really picky about my butter choice, too. So many just seem... off. And when I'm on the east coast, I stick to lactantia milk. Fantastic stuff.

This.

That's what I try to buy, but it seems hard to come by sometimes. If I can't find it, I usually get that Natrel 'PurFiltre' stuff.

Milk really varies from region from region. I like the taste of the milk in the Philadelphia region, found it alright in Pittsburgh, and the stuff out here in LA I've had has been atrocious. It pretty much got me to stop drinking milk entirely, so I just buy a big carton of soy milk from Costco to use while cooking. Surprisingly, the stuff works great and is creamier than the usual skim milk I prefer. Can't stand the taste of it, though. Blechhhhh.

I'm no artist when it comes to culinary matters. For people in circumstances such as I am I find it amazing to believe that they are willing to spend so much more money on a brand name, simply because it makes them feel better about themselves. When our family was going through dire financial straits we had to cut back and buy cheaper, non-branded or own-branded food and drink. To be honest with you, I don't see why we haven't been doing that all along. If it's not a special occasion or if it's just yourself to feed, why let your pride get in the way of the price?

Everything I know I learned from students. Almost everything anyway.

As a student, I tend to go with house brands on staple things (like butter and coffee creamer). But if I think about it, there are a lot of things that I guess I do go for brands on, but more because I've tried other options and didn't like them. Silk soymilk is one, simply because the other readily available brands I've tried just didn't taste good.

I'll try the house brand once in any given situation, as long as it doesn't have a bunch of random shit added to it as fillers (or any more than the branded version, anyway).

One thing that I've found you can never buy the generic of is Raisin Bran. With anything other than Kelloggs the raisins are so hard you could pull out a filling chewing them. Other than that I'm not too picky on my brands. On occassion I've even store brands of things be more expensive than the brand name.

Exploration is definitely the key. In my experience, house brands (sometimes 33% cheaper) as usually as good. Oatmeal, cereals, ketchup... they're about as good. However, no name salmon has a weird taste

I forgot one category I specifically steer clear from brand-name: Spices.

Aside from salt/pepper, I generally go to the Mexican aisle for my crushed/whole red pepper, oregano, rosemary, sesame seeds, etc. I realized that there's not much that can be added to dried plant particles, and therefore no sense in buying Bay Leaves in the bottle for $4.99 when I can get more of them for 59 cents per plastic baggy and keep re-filling the other plastic bottles I've had.

Not that I'm condoning the ridiculous prices that McCormick wants for their spices, but I've definitely found that some generic mexican-aisle stuff is really weak and doesn't flavor nearly as well as good stuff. Going cheap is fine, but you need to be sure that it's still fresh.

I agree, but paying all college expenses on my own has its limits. :tpg: I'll do fine dining and being prissy with my fancy spices (or cutlery, for that matter) when I have a degree and an actual job. =P

Brand names ftw!! :)