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Great Value or Not to Great Value

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Originally posted by: Capt Caveman
Don't shop at Walmart so never tried Great Value but I do try and buy store brand when possible.
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same here. i rarely step foot in walfart ever, and if i did im usually leery of their GV brand. ill usually get the store brand at frys or safeway tho, had pretty decent luck with those. frys here usually has shamrock milk on sale for 2.77 or 2.97 so i buy that most of the time.
 
I normally buy Crowley Fat Free milk because it's one of the few brands that doesn't taste like funky water. Price Chopper's brand is actually my favorite for Fat Free.

I bought some Great Value hot chicken wings the other day. They're pretty good and microwaveable.
 
I bought some GV saltines last week. They were pretty good and like 1/3rd the price of the name brand saltines.
 
My decision to buy generic vs. brand name really depends on the type of food. Some foods do taste better with brand names.

I always buy generic milk, however.
 
Great Value is pretty good if it's simple stuff like breads and soups. If you're looking for a multi-ingredient meal, go name-brand. You can probably taste a difference.

I do wonder how people decide between buying name brands and generic if the ingredients are exactly the same though. How do you actually decide?
 
Milk is going to be a YMMV. For most other products, I'll buy the store brand. You see, many of the store brands are made by major manufacturers...they're just in different packaging. When you think of large-capacity food manufacturing facilities....if they sell off shop-floor time in their factories, they're able to cash in on pre-paid fixed costs. This helps drive down the cost of production and reap bigger profits.

Certain products, like Milk are going to be subject to whatever local conditions they have to deal with. They probably find the cheapest dairy they can to produce, pasturize, and bottle the milk... The process may be different or have less quailty control. I know high-end milk is usually stored colder and is in yellow containers to block UV light from the milk. You probably won't get that from store brands.
 
we buy GV in a lot of stuff. most of it is as good as the names stuff.

with milk it really does not matter. its all sent to a central plant then bottled and shipped.
 
Groceries is not the area where I would cut corners. Food is kinda important, you know- you need it to live.

Personally, the inflation hasn't really affected me at all yet. But if I did, I would cut out the crap I don't need before I cut back on groceries. I'd eat out less, I'd accept my computer for what it is instead of upgrading it quarterly, I'd sell my car and just take the metro to work, I'd buy fewer books and make use of public libraries instead.

There are lots of ways to save a lot of money, I'm not going to cut corners and eat crap just to save $2/month on eggs or milk.

Although, I would consider it a good idea to just remove the general crap foods from your diet if it'll save you money.
 
Originally posted by: waggy
with milk it really does not matter. its all sent to a central plant then bottled and shipped.
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Cow's milk, perhaps. I drink soy milk, there is absolutely a huge difference between brands.
 
About 99% of my groceries are store brand items. The only things that I buy name brand of are ketchup and salad dressing.
 
I usually by the generic brand of stuff at wal mart. never noticed any different. Milk, usually doesnt get much more generic than what they offer, and i always enjoy it.
 
Originally posted by: minendo
Originally posted by: Akiba
Great Value = ass
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You really are a moron. As was mentioned previously almost all of the grocery store branded stuff is produced by the same manufactures as the non-grocery stored branded items.
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Not necessarily. Often times it is made by the same people at the same plant, but the quality standards are lower. For example if you were buying canned corn. The store brand will have more water in the can which of course results in less corn. The corn will also be of lower quality and is usually the "rejects" from the major brand. Another thing to look for is on the major brands label you will more often than not find some wording that says something along the lines of "Insert Name Brand here does not manufacture or distribute this product under and store brand or generic names."

Milk is another good example. For better or worse, depending on your perspective, the milk for the store brands is made up of milk that has less overall cream content in it. Like I said, that can be good or bad depending on if you are watching your fat intake.

I've seen Braum's mentioned....good Oklahoma company. You might be interested to know that their cows are not fed or injected with any kinds of hormones. Yet another reason their milk, and beef, are sooooooo good.
 
Originally posted by: minendo
You really are a moron. As was mentioned previously almost all of the grocery store branded stuff is produced by the same manufactures as the non-grocery stored branded items.
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This is true. But keep in mind that even though the same product rolls off the same assembly line (with 100 different labels) they are made to different specifications for each client. So don't assume that you're buying the same quality product, because likely you are not.

 
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