I have Zero brand loyalty. Best ingredients for the lowest price gets the sale.
Keep in mind that most off-brand products are literally the same brand name product in a different container.
In Canada we have a few off brand labels like No Name and Compliments. Take ketchup for example. The off-brand ketchup is literally the same brand name Heinz or French’s it’s sitting beside, but for $1.50 cheaper. That’s because the off brand companies like Wal Mart and Loblaws pay for production cycle time at the main plants. So a run of Heinz ketchup will actually be a run of No Name ketchup. Heinz gets more money for the use of production time than they would selling that line of their own brand ketchup.
If you’re brand loyal to something, you’re just willing to pay more for a name, not the thing you want. Sour cream, mayo, toothpaste, even soap is all the exact same as the brand name stuff you’re buying.
Most of the time you can tell where it came from by the production stamp. All companies have their own number so the no name ketchup would have the same product number stamp as the brand name one because it came from the same facility.
The recipe is different for the store brand. I did this stuff in the dairy industry for a while. Its not production cycles in dairy, it’s vats. So store brand orders a few vats of product, with way lay less actual milk or doesnt specify as high a minimum quality milk products. More dyes and filler during finishing and no aging. All store brands are essentially flavored and colored mozzarella. They are lower quality.
I still buy them though. Mozzarella is good enough for most recipes.
For other products it’s similar. Lower tolerances on inputs and outputs to reduce cost. Still probably 80% as good as name brand.
I’ve worked in a few of these production lines and they’re literally just changing the packaging at the end of production. The packages could be different enough to change taste or texture but the product itself is identical.
Most store brands come from the same manufacturers as brand name products, they just change the packaging.
I have loyalty to higher prices if they treat their employees right. I’m willing to shell out an extra dollar if it means the employees aren’t getting paid shit an hour
Sure, but most of the time in this capitalist hellscape your options are shit and slightly different colored shit.
Slightly different colored is a pretty big statement — you can get the same service from a company that pays the workers $45 an hour or one that pays them $22… That’s a life vs working under the thumb of a company. It’s a very large difference between the good and the bad. Capitalism is everything trending towards shit inevitably, but that does not mean that every individual business is shit. It just means someday they will become shit.
My only loyalty is to brands that have higher quality than the competitors. And that only last as long as they are maintaining their quality or another brand is increasing their quality.
What about Uncle Sam cereal? It’s gone now, bought by a big cereal company and nearly immediately shut down, but there was nothing as fibrous and un-sugared on the American cereal market as that. Oh, sigh, Uncle Sam.
I mean, I wouldn’t care what brand it was if there were anything comparable. But given that it was the only one like it, I was extremely loyal.
“abandon their favorite brands” is a hell of a way to rephrase “can’t afford to continue eating what they have been previously”. Glad to see it reframed in a way that makes the companies seem like victims.
Thats like when we see headlines like “gen z are destroying the alcohol industry”
Hmmm, if only there was something those companies could do to retain customers. Something like lower prices without shrinking sizes?
Surely, more capitalism will fix this.
“We’re losing money. People aren’t buying our products anymore! What should we do?”
Shrink the size of the product and increase the cost. That will clearly be the solution!
Another option is to buy the alternative product and cancel it.
If only we got rid of the entire government and form an Ancapistan paradise here in America, then companies will lower their prices as the invisible hand just happens to do its thing. /j
Capitalism cannibalising itself one brand at a time.
I abandoned many brands many years ago. They provide me nothing of value so I don’t give them my money.
- Brands increase prices
- People stop buying brands
- Brands cry foul
- Oh no! Anyway…
The trick, William Potter, is to bleed the people just enough to satiate your parasitism without exsanguinating them, eh?
Gee, we’ve never seen that trick before.
You mean the brands that are owned by like 5 companies?
Fuck em.
Don’t the same brands also make the store (private label) brands?
And I’d rather spend less on the off brand products that literally come from the same production line as the on brand products.
Fuck brands. Buy less shit.
Fuck pointless consumption!
“WILL NO ONE THINK OF THE BRANDS!!!”
and somehow it’s all the Millennial’s fault - Damn (40 year old) kids!
In the 70s it felt like brands actually meant something. Since the 90s, they haven’t. Brands have milked their loyal followers for every last penny of profit while cheapening their products as much as they possibly can. Brands have become an anti-pattern for me, if a particular brand is “commanding a premium” that’s a sign to me to A) dig DEEP on pre-purchase quality information and if that’s hard to come by (which it usually is) B) walk away from the recognized brand name - assume it to be of inferior quality to go with its higher price.
I shopped in the same grocery store chain my grandparents and parents shopped in my whole life since the 1960s until about 8-10 years ago. At that point they started milking their brand loyalists and literally jacked our monthly food bill 2x, +100%, and that’s not industry wide inflation, that’s how much they inflated relative to the competition. We went from spending 90% of our food, soaps, pharmacy/drug store purchases there down to less than 5% in the first year after we quit them, and since then they now get less than 1% of our budget, only catching our purchases when they’re the only store open or other cases of extreme convenience purchasing. During the pandemic, we had instantcart deliver groceries from a competitor and a $120 delivered order, including $10 tip and delivery fees, were still far less expensive than the same products from the “leading” chain.
In a world where every product sucks due to years of cost cutting and shrinkflation, brands mean very little.
In foods especially, they have substituted corn syrup for sugar, steroid+antibiotic pumped milk and meat for “real” meat (typical market chicken is a travesty these past years), GMO crops sprayed with extreme weed killers and pesticides for simple sun and water grown food. They like to say our food bills are going down in real dollars, but they’re not, not if you buy organic GMO free - which is what most food used to be not so long ago.
steroid+antibiotic pumped milk and meat for “real” meat
There’s a very specific reason Canada doesn’t allow your dairy and meat products into Canada. I work for DFNS and our bare minimum requirements are vastly more strict than your federal requirements.
The “mouth feel” texture of chicken makes me sick these days - it’s like the animal was emaciated and bloated when slaughtered, which in many ways they were.
corn syrup
The only reason they do this is because in the US, corn subsidies make it cheaper. HFCS is essentially exactly the same as sugar to the body. It’s not any more or less unhealthy.
GMO
Another overblown fear. Humans have been modifying organisms for millennia. GMO is not inherently harmful. The main harm comes when companies try and make it so farmers have to purchase seed from them for every crap. That’s not harmful to eat. That’s harmful for our food supply.
extreme weed killers and pesticides
These all easily wash off, and you need to be washing your fruit and veg because they are dirty.
It’s trivial to research this for yourself. Stop listening to idiots on youtube trying to sell you supplements and lying to you about these things.
There are problems and concerns, but these are not them.
People scared of genetically modified foods need to take a good look at vegetable and fruits. You think bananas and watermelons always looked like that? Hell, I’d say most have something going on to make them grow bigger and faster…
My main objection to GMO are the ones that enable them to bathe our food crops in Roundup and similar.
Selective breeding is one thing, chemical engieering to make your food resistant to poision that kills all other plants? Sounds like something I’d rather not participate in the beta testing of, thanks.
Corn is probably the most fundamental subject example. Heh.
But yes, you are spot on of course
Mexican vs US corn is a very clear example of natural farming vs industrial. I’d prefer to pay triple for corn that has diversity in its nutritional elements instead of a monocrop with maximum calories for minimum price.
These all easily wash off, and you need to be washing your fruit and veg because they are dirty.
Keep telling yourself they wash off and have no effects. Then call me from the oncology ward.
How about you go actually look up studies? I just did and confirmed:
- Washing fruit/veg removes most of the residue that’s there
- The amounts typically left do not significantly increase your cancer risk
Do whatever the hell you want, but don’t pretend the science is behind you when it is not. Take your smug misinformation somewhere else.
I stopped buying products that went from chocolate to chocoly
Framing this as a customer loss is funny. Switching brands means it’s the brands that are losing, geniuses.
Pretty mind blowing to think maybe people don’t need 200 variations of the same sugary grains.
This was the big eye opener when we ditched our near-monopoly chain grocery for a smaller competitor. Smaller stores, but they had more employees stocking the shelves and more cashiers so you waited less to get out. And in the jelly aisle they had 4 flavors instead of 84. Six kinds of cereals plus six more granolas to choose from, not an endless aisle of $8 wafer thin boxes of sugar coated puffed grains with familiar cartoon characters on the front. Five flavors of ice-cream, not 205. 20 types of yogurt, not 386. It took a little while to get used to the idea that I couldn’t get my preferred brand and size of grape jelly, but after I tried their one option - organic and half the price per ounce of the chain competitors - I decided: grape jelly is grape jelly, this one is fine.
P.S. - I feared I may have been exaggerating, but the above numbers are accurate - I overestimated a little on jelly at first, but pretty much nailed the ice-cream and yogurt first try.
I honestly can’t trust any brands and their packaging because of shrinkflation.
Eveytime I go into a grocery store i see packaging stay the same size but the amount inside the packages keeps getting smaller and smaller.
In the image below for example now frozen fruits come 50% less filled, and the price has gone up from the originally 600g.
I think this may be a bad example. Different fruits are not necessarily sold in the same weights. Fresh strawberries are typically sold in heavier containers than a container of raspberries, and have been for a long time. Raspberries are just a more expensive fruit.
Exactly what I was thinking. Large strawberries are pretty uniformly cheap for me. Much less so for raspberries, blueberries, etc.
If we want to complain about the state of things fabrications make our arguments less trustworthy the moment they come out of our mouths.
Uh… those are two different fruits. If you are going to compare packing to measure shrinkflation, shouldn’t you be using the same product?
My favorite shrinkflation is Campbell’s soup, particularly their low-sodium offerings. Costs twice as much, comes in a slightly smaller can, and isn’t condensed. So you pay five times as much for them to just not put so much fucking salt into their soup in the first place.
Making soups has become a really fulfilling one of my cooking challenges I set myself. Tinkering with veg soup and getting slightly different variations each time has been a journey. Extra bonus is there’s always tons so there is always some in the freezer for days I cannot be bothered.
The one that burns me is whipped Cream Cheese - bigger container but less product in it at the same price as solid. And damn them, I prefer it with the air in it.
Even just regular cream cheese. It’s $8 for a 12 oz. tub of Philadelphia brand but $1.50 for an 8 oz foil-wrapped blocked of the generic. For years now I’ve been buying the generic blocks and packing them into old Philadelphia tubs because my parents insist on the name brand. They’ve never said a word about it.
I’m sure you could make your own whipped cream cheese with a food processor.
I’d say “That’s Loblaw’s for you” but the other day I was in Costco, and even THEIR packages have shrunk. You still have to buy a pack of 6, but it doesn’t weigh as much.
Oddly though, a 1kg bag of oats is still a 1kg bag of oats… just more expensive.
Bob Lablaw of the Lablaw Law firm and Bob Loblow Law Blog takes issue with your hasty generalization.
Same, I usually compare the net weight and amount of servings in a package vs the other brands nowadays.
There are definitely brands I stopped buying due to shrinkflation. A few times I’ve seen shrinkflated items on sale later and then do the math just to realize the price is still too stupid to buy even at sale price.
Fr fr
Are you comparing the two package sizes? One has strawberries and one has raspberry’s….
That is like… well comparing strawberries to raspberries they are totally different… I would assume packaging and pricing would be different.
deleted by creator
I stopped buying cereal years before covid. A recent trip to the grocery store took me through the cereal aisle and I happened to stop to pay closer attention. The shrunken boxes and jacked up prices were very apparent. Yet another reason not to buy that unhealthy trash.
Yet another reason not to buy that unhealthy trash.
ButButBut it’s part of this complete breakfast!
Gestures broadly at the huge array of breakfast items on the table of which the cereal is a minor component
I only buy specific cereal, and only when it is on sale, because my wife and daughter have celiacs disease and their options for “easy” food are fairly limited. Cheerios and Chex are essentially all I buy and only when they on a significant sale.
I’m not sure if you are aware, but Cheerios aren’t actually gluten free. They use some crazy process to blow the gluten off of the oats with air… When I first read about it I decided I wasn’t going to try them. Since then, I believe the gluten free claim was removed in Canada.
If your family doesn’t have symptoms or feel ok after eating them, maybe they are comfortable with the risk.
That site doesn’t claim that they aren’t actually gluten free. What it does claim is that the data General Mills provided has not convinced the Canadian Celiac Association that the process for verifying that that there was no cross contamination was not rigorous enough. That is good info, but starting off with “Cheerios aren’t actually gluten free” is simply not true. My family has not had any issues due to any cross contamination with them (we would know immediately), but this does make me want to cut it out as the risk is simply too high. Thanks for the heads up.
No disagreement there at all. I should have started with the oats don’t start out gluten free instead.
Personally, I do know a couple people who had reactions when they first came out. For me it was enough risk to say no to them, plus, I didn’t eat Cheerios to begin with.
I just didn’t trust their method of removing the gluten from the oats, it sounded like there was room for errors in the process.
We used to buy specific cereals, then our local chain jacked up the prices 100% and started running “BOGO” Buy One Get One Free sales once every 3 months for a week - so: either pay 100% markup, or stock up during the BOGO when it hits… we quit shopping there. We do drop in a couple of times a year since then and last time I browsed the cereal aisle, not only are the prices higher than they were after the doubling, but the size of the boxes is down by 50% and more as well… good riddance.
That sounds like Publix behavior, though I am sure they are not alone. I have noticed that with essentially all grocery stores even after I moved across the country and have all different stores now, so it could be the manufacturers that are driving that sales flow. Either way, I get it. I just do the “stock up during sales” thing you were referring to because my wife and daughter were a bit starved for choices of “easy foods”.
Around here we have Publix, Winn Dixie, and further afield there’s Ingles which all seem virtually identical in their marketing / selection of products approaches. It’s been decades since I’ve been a Food Lion or Kroger’s but back then I remember they were a little more toned down - not as radical as Trader Joes or Aldi, but in that direction.
I don’t want to be forced into a particular store every single week to “grab the bargains when they’re avaialble” and otherwise pay doubleprice for most common items. So, I don’t shop those stores.
That sounds like where I used to live, so I figured the BOGO was Publix. I’m now in the midwest so no Food Lion or Kroger either, all store chains I had never heard of, but they do a lot of the same things.
they do a lot of the same things.
It works, just like marketing nasty tasting bubbly acid sugar syrup using cute polar bears at christmastime worked in the 70s. It was “the real thing” and one of the most valuable companies on the planet, based on nothing but delivery of that nasty unhealthy stuff.
I think if you unpack the roots of the BOGO, it pushes a lot of the same reward buttons as nicotine delivery death sticks.
almost ever chain i go to, nobody visits the cereal aisle ever, they know its just pure sugar in a box. they opted for the “healthier” foods. the only people that buy cereal, are people with children or is addicted to the even more sugary granola cereal.
You people have such a small world. There are plenty of healthy cereals. Especially if you’re looking for more fiber, which isthe single largest deficiency in diet that we have in Western nations.
Y’all see one fucking reddit post and treat it like gospel 🤣
Most of the nutritional value I’ve seen in cereals have been through supplemental ingredients. For example, a lot of the vitamins and minerals are added in as if you crushed supplements and put them in your bowl. There are better ways of getting those nutrients, including fiber: beans, chickpeas, lentils, peanuts, flax seeds, chia seeds, various vegetables, etc. None of those require milk to be palatable and they’re much cheaper than the ultra-processed cereals. When it comes to fiber, you’ll want a variety, cereals largely just rely on bran.
ReEEEeeeEEE their diet is not as optimized as mine 🙄
Fucking nerds.
Cereal is a mostly non perishable. It’s easy and predictable. Christ 🤦♂️
If I were going for optimization, I wouldn’t be suggesting food, I would be suggesting supplements and powders. Odd that you seem to have a problem with optimization in your first sentence, then you promote cereal because it’s non-perishable, easy, and predictable, which all sound like optimizations to me. Just so you know, beans, chickpeas, and lentils all fall under those categories as well.
