I always buy well known brands when buying food as I think the quality is better but there are a lot of shops own brands becoming available which are a lot cheaper. I have always thought that you get what you pay for and so have never bought shops brand food or other products but are there any advantages besides from price. Are shop brand products as good as branded products, which do you prefer?
I will never buy the bottom end own brands (like Tesco Value or Sainsbury's Basic) But sometimes I do buy the own brand (mid range) and have found them to be best value for money. I buy mostly known brand products for food though. This is especially true for stuff like meat and diary products for which quality is important.
Well you always get what you pay for, but when it comes to food, I don't mind spending more for the well known branded ones. But I have tried the shop branded foods and they don't seem to be any different from the branded ones though.
I usually buy branded products if it's the type that I would worry about the sanitation of the product. For example, I'd usually opt for grocery packed bread because I know they are factory made and are probably not even touched by human hands aside from the shipping part, as opposed to my local bakery wherein I'm not really assured of how well maintained the machinery is and who really is handling the bread. I do still sometimes buy from the local bakery, though, but I still prefer to just buy the factory made ones if I could, and I do this for weighing decisions on similar type products.
For me, there are certain things that I will only buy the brand name version because I find a huge difference from that to the no name one. Things like Kraft Dinner or Kraft mayonaise, I can really taste the difference if I buy the no name version. I have tried a bunch of different brands of toilet paper and I find the no name one is just too thin and scratchy, so I wait till the Charmin or the White Swan goes on sale. Other than a few other things like cereal or crackers, I don't mind getting the no name brand to save a few cents here and there. Someone people have said they can really tell the difference in taste between Heinx ketchup and no name, so they won't get anything but Heinz. Myself, I don't really taste much difference so it doesn't bother me to get a lesser brand.
