Do they have food scientists just guessing and checking with taste testers? Or do they know the exact recipe somehow and just tweak it to avoid lawsuits? Or do big box stores require name brands to hand over their recipes as part of a contract to shelf their brand along with their own store brand? Do the name brands try to keep it a secret but they keep getting bested? I have no idea how this works.
In: 45
Its generally made by one of the name brands just with a slight tweak then relabeled
Stores can’t afford to each have their own cheese production and pasta production and peanut butter production and soda production. Its far more cost effective to license someone’s existing peanut butter production lines to make store brands
If you’re Jif and the Walmart will pay you $1.25 per jar of peanut butter, what do you care if two thirds of them are labeled Great Value and sold for $2 vs $3 for Jif? You’re selling more peanut butter and making more money for only a little increased complexity
A lot of times the store brand is the name brand. They are made in the same place at the same time but labeled differently.
Store brands are the same and made in the same factory as the name brand with little to no changes.
Fun fact: a lot of the times these products are made _by the exact same company_ and distributed with different names.
Past that, food products do have the ingredients listed and a lot of the time it’s not that hard to figure out. Plus a lot of the time the taste isn’t _exactly_ the same. It’s not that hard to get to “close enough”.
A lot of the time it’s literally the same product with a different label. There’s nothing to force. The store gets a cut on the sale, and the “name brand” gets to reach more cost conscious consumers they normally wouldn’t without devaluing their own brand. It’s a win-win from their perspective.
Store brands are the same and made in the same factory as the name brand with little to no changes.
Big box stores typically require name brands to provide their recipes as part of a contract to shelf their brand along with their own store brand. The name brands may try to keep the recipes a secret, but the store brands often reverse engineer the recipes to create their own versions. Food scientists often use a combination of scientific techniques and taste testing to develop new products and optimize existing ones. This can involve analyzing the chemical composition of the ingredients, running sensory tests to determine the ideal flavor profile, and running shelf life and stability tests to ensure the product is safe and has a long shelf life.
Its generally made by one of the name brands just with a slight tweak then relabeled
Stores can’t afford to each have their own cheese production and pasta production and peanut butter production and soda production. Its far more cost effective to license someone’s existing peanut butter production lines to make store brands
If you’re Jif and the Walmart will pay you $1.25 per jar of peanut butter, what do you care if two thirds of them are labeled Great Value and sold for $2 vs $3 for Jif? You’re selling more peanut butter and making more money for only a little increased complexity
A lot of times the store brand is the name brand. They are made in the same place at the same time but labeled differently.
Just an interesting tangent note to some of the explanations above:
I grew up in the USA, but now live in Canada, and here in Canada I’ve always been impressed with the Loblaw’s grocery store chain store brand called,
“Presidents Choice”.
Loblaw’s does have chefs/food scientists that actively try to enhance and improve upon the formulation of name-brand foods, and create a new unique product that is actually higher quality (using higher quality ingredients) and sometimes (often enough!) at a lower cost than the name brand!
They also strive to use products produced by Canadian farmers as much as possible.
Having tried a lot of President’s choice items over the years I have to say many times they do exceed actual name brand quality, and have some amazing tasting products that you can’t get outside of Canada.
So ya: I’ve always been pretty impressed with most President’s Choice items.
————————————
ALSO:
I vaguely remember hearing that Costco sometimes tries to do the same with some of the “Kirkland” branded items… ? But don’t quote me on that as I’m not too familiar with how Costco handles the Kirkland brand quality/formulations, but maybe someone else here will know.
Latest Answers