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Great Value Bread. Ew. It tastes fine, but when I switched to Sunbeam, I noticed it doesn't get old even on the counter rather than in the fridge.
And the milk. COVID caused me to have to get delivery from other places. The 365 milk at Whole Foods is not even more expensive, but it tastes better, and has a much longer expiration date.
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Longer expiration date just shows that the milk is even more processed and dead. There is literally not much that could spoil it.
Personally I don't care for that kind of milk. It's like costly white water with added vitamins... Not much better than UHT milk.
Any generic bread, white, toast and under $1 taste like a cardboard. Well, most of mass produced, American bread doesn't have any value or taste anyway. Especially if it has a long shelf life...
Longer expiration date just shows that the milk is even more processed and dead. There is literally not much that could spoil it.
Personally I don't care for that kind of milk. It's like costly white water with added vitamins... Not much better than UHT milk.
Any generic bread, white, toast and under $1 taste like a cardboard. Well, most of mass produced, American bread doesn't have any value or taste anyway. Especially if it has a long shelf life...
365 is a house brand. I don't know what you mean by 'that kind of milk'. It isn't organic.
'Longer expiration date' doesn't mean the milk was created to last longer. It could be that certain brands or certain stores, the time from packaging it and it getting to the consumer is different.
Braums used to advertise the freshest milk and it had to do with getting it from packaging to consumer fast.
Where I live, even the generic Kroger and Springdale milk have later expiration dates than walmart.
When I can't get 365, a good brand here is Dairy Pure, which convenience stores seem to sell as a loss leader. WM wants almost $5 a gallon for it.
Great Value Bread. Ew. It tastes fine, but when I switched to Sunbeam, I noticed it doesn't get old even on the counter rather than in the fridge.
I'd worry if I bought bread that never went stale. Did you check the label for the presence of embalming fluid as an ingredient?
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And the milk. COVID caused me to have to get delivery from other places. The 365 milk at Whole Foods is not even more expensive, but it tastes better, and has a much longer expiration date.
Whole Foods generic is far superior on everything. Produce, etc. And only pennies difference. If you stick to the basics, it isn't any more costly to shop there.
Just a heads up to anyone feeling like they have to shop at walmart for the best prices, and maybe others have worthless generic brands to share.
(emphasis added)
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Originally Posted by oregonwoodsmoke
It's been a long time since I've seen generic processed foods. The old solid white can with the contents in block black lettering, no brand name. Most meat in the meat case is generic and I'm fine with that, except I only buy a specific brand of pork and that is a branded product.
My inner grammarian screams whenever people talk about "generic brands."
The word "generic" actually means "unbranded." Its current use comes to us from both the world of medicine and the world of groceries.
In medicine, a generic prescription medication is sold by its chemical compound name instead of its brand name (e.g., fluticasone proprionate nasal spray vs. Flonase, or metformin vs. Glucophage). Since the chemical formulae used in producing both are exactly the same, the only possible difference would be in quality control at the lab that made them, and generic drug makers by and large adhere to the same quality control standards as the branded drug makers (the FDA would probably sit on them if they didn't). Thus you have the state laws that mandate that your physician prescribe the generic version of a drug unless they believe there is a medical reason for requiring the branded product.
In groceries, true generic products were a response to the Great Inflation of the 1970s. Most supermarket chains began carrying products in plain white packaging (or cans with plain white labels) and just the name of what was inside printed on it: "peas," "corn," "milk," "corn flakes," and so on.
The prices of these products were very low, and so was their quality. Canned peas, for instance, might contain broken peas or just shells; same for corn; corn flakes might have an off-taste, and so on. You paid your money and you took your chances, knowing that you were doing this mainly to save money. These products had no quality guarantees attached to them; you couldn't return the cans of peas you didn't use for a refund or replacement.
"Private label" or "store brand" products do not fit this description. They are made according to quality standards, often by the same companies that manufacture national brands (e.g., Heinz for soups and Del Monte or Libby's for canned vegetables), and the stores that sell them stand behind their products with a quality guarantee: if you're not satisfied with what you bought, you can take what you didn't use* back for a refund or replacement (in the case of two of the no-frills discount grocery stores, Aldi and Lidl, you can take it back for a refund and a replacement. *Generally speaking, however, once you open the package, you're done with it and you can't take that back, so these guarantees really apply only if you bought more than one of whatever it is you bought.)
Nonetheless, many, maybe even most, private label product lines display greater quality variation than their nationally advertised counterparts do. I have yet to find a private-label buttery round cracker, for instance, that tastes as good as a Ritz or Town House. OTOH, I actually prefer the slightly sweeter taste of most private-label cream cheeses to that of Philadelphia Brand. (And so far, I've found only one private-label cream cheese I won't buy again: Lidl's, which I found had a slightly metallic taste.)
But even with the inconsistency, lots of shoppers agree with the below:
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Some of the house brand stuff is really good, some of it isn't. Some of it is good enough to feed to the kids to save a little money (Winco potato chips and sandwich cookies) but aren't quite as good as the national brands. The kids don't care.
The organic milk is ultra pasteurized. That is why it lasts longer and tasted "creamier".
As for Walmart, I've never tried their bread but they make the best ice cream drumsticks, very crisp cones and the ice cream is just as good as any other ice cream novelty and the price is lower.
Most of Costco house brand stuff is good. So far, everything I've gotten from Smart Foodservice Warehouse, their house brand is excellent, better than national brands.
Where does Smart Foodservice Warehouse operate? Never heard of them. I have used Kirkland Signature (Costco's house brand) products and agree with your assessment of them — but I'm just one person, and buying in Costco quantities really makes no sense for me.
I used to be a fan of the A&P-family (A&P, Super Fresh, King Kullen, Farmer Jack and a few other chains) store brand, America's Choice, whose products I also thought were uniformly good quality or better. I'm guessing that brand had value as an asset, for Save-a-Lot now uses it on some of its private-label products; I imagine they bought it off the corpse of A&P. My suspicion is that Save-a-Lot didn't carry the same quality standards over, however.
Where I live, the best private-label line IMO is Essential Everyday, the private-label line owned by United Natural Foods, Inc. (UNFI), a Providence, R.I.-based wholesaler. Apparently UNFI also thinks highly of it; note that there's a website promoting it! And I've seen coupons good on EE products in the Sunday newspaper inserts.
UNFI acquired the brand along with its former owner, Minneapolis-based Supervalu, Inc., in 2018. Back when the Acme chain in the Philadelphia area was part of Supervalu, Essential Everyday was its store brand; you also found it in Fresh Grocer supermarkets before that chain joined the Wakefern Food Corp. cooperative and therefore had to use Wakefern's private label (ShopRite). My local supermarket is a Fresh Grocer. I see that I can now buy EE at Cousins' supermarkets here; those stores are located mainly in lower-income neighborhoods, especially those with large Hispanic populations.
So far, I haven't had any Issues with Great Value products I've bought at Walmart, and Aldi's private brands have generally been of good quality too. (Though there is that cracker thingy.) The ShopRite brand is hit-or-miss, though their premium products have been uniformly good, and the company is now rolling out two "premium brands" (Bowl & Basket foods and Paperbird paper products) across all its chains; Wakefern is backing the rollout with advertising on the Web, TV and public transportation here.
365 by Whole Foods I haven't had issues with, either.
I never buy regular white bread. It has no fiber and is high in overall carbs and sugar (I need to watch those figures for health reasons). And as the carbs in white bread are refined, they spike your blood sugar faster than whole grains.
Thus if I buy white bread (which I do on occasion), I buy only the higher-fiber varieties made with whole grain flour. Lidl sells a very-high-fiber white bread with 5g dietary fiber, same as Dave's Killer Bread multigrain, the highest-fiber bread I've ever bought...
...until I bought the L'Oven Fresh net-zero-carb bread Aldi now sells. (For those of you not familiar with Atkins or other ketogenic diets, "net carbs" are what people on those diets pay attention to; you get net carbs by subtracting the amount of dietary fiber from the total amount of carbohydrates. The L'Oven Fresh bread has 9g total carbs (0g sugars) and 9g dietary fiber, so voila! Zero net carbs, and you finally have totally keto-friendly bread. (I don't follow a keto diet, though it would probably benefit me as a Type 2 diabetic.)
........Where does Smart Foodservice Warehouse operate? Never heard of them.......
That's Smart and Final Iris Company. They were calling themselves something else just a couple of years ago. Now they call themselves Smart Foodservice Warehouse. I've used them in Oregon, Washington, and Idaho.
A quick google shows that they operate in California, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, Oregon, and Washington.
I am guessing that any restaurant supply company would be similar. Although Smart Foodservice allows the public to shop without proof that they own a business and some restaurant supply houses, you can't shop there if you don't own a restaurant.
Their house brand is First Street. I don't know if that is sold in other areas.
There is a brand called Food Club, which I think is the house brand for the small independent grocers, but I am not going to google to verify. They make the very best refried beans. Much better than the national brands and they are half the price. All their canned beans are good. I haven't tried a lot of different products, but what I've used have all been good. They sell a really good french cut frozen green bean.
(thanks for the explanation; so I won't run into this company or this brand unless I pull up stakes and move to the Left Coast)
There is a brand called Food Club, which I think is the house brand for the small independent grocers, but I am not going to google to verify. They make the very best refried beans. Much better than the national brands and they are half the price. All their canned beans are good. I haven't tried a lot of different products, but what I've used have all been good. They sell a really good french cut frozen green bean.
Food Club is the longtime flagship private-label line distributed by Topco Associates, Inc., which is based outside Chicago. The now-defunct Milgram chain in my hometown of Kansas City carried it as its store brand.
From its website, I see that Topco is also organized as a cooperative owned by the supermarket chains and wholesalers it supplies. And I see that one of those member wholesalers is Wakefern Food Corporation, the grocer-owned cooperative that supplies ShopRite and Fresh Grocer supermarkets in the Mid-Atlantic states. (Wakefern, as I noted above, produces its own private-label food lines, but its health-and-beauty-aids product lines come from Topco, which makes them under the TopCare brand.)
It's been a long time since I've seen generic processed foods. The old solid white can with the contents in block black lettering, no brand name.
True "generics" were sidelined by "store brands."
Now, are store brands the same as "generics" just with the store's house label on it? Depends on who you ask. I guess.
I've seen articles that say the lowest quality was "generic white label, black block print" products, and that "store/house brands" were a step up....but NOT the same as true "brand names." Yet some say store brands ARE the same as brand names just with the store name instead. The old they come off the same processing line and Heinz ketchup goes to the left, and Krogers or Wegmans or Ralphs goes to the right. Then you have Costco where its store brand is known for quality. So IS Costco's Kirkland brand the same as a "brand name?" I can definitely believe that. But even then it might depend on the product.
Is any store brand the same as Reynold's Wrap, Kerry Gold butter, Rao's Marinara Sauce or Le Sueur Sweet Peas?
I'm not really a true "generics" shopper. But I will buy some store brands, IF I don't think there's a quality difference: canned beans, canned/frozen vegetables, spring water, roasted/raw nuts. That's all I can think of off the top of my head.
Before the pandemic I shopped a lot at Trader Joe's. And most things there are store brands. I also tend to buy ethnic foods (kimchi, dolmades, turmeric, any number of things) and they're not usually store brands. And I usually buy my spices at ethnic stores or online for waaaaay less money anyway.
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To the OP's post about "worthless" generics:
Dollar Tree tape. Dollar Tree aluminum foil. DT and store brand plastic wrap. Walmart Great Value cocktail sauce.
And then there are items which I don't know if they're worthless but I'd never buy because I don't trust the quality of ingredients....like Walmart great Value cheddar cheese. Let's see that or Cabot's.....or even Kraft. It's no contest.
we are so blessed in this great country to have such wide choices. I too have experimented with generic brands and have been surprised at the quality.
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