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.
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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.
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”.
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.
Having worked in the food industry, a number of products have standards of identity in the USA. These include mayonnaise, peanut butter, butter, margarine, ice cream, etc. Since the food has a standard of identity, it is not difficult to make something similar. For instance, peanut butter has a standard of at least 90% roasted peanuts, sugar (or honey), salt, and possibly a stabilizer of partially hydrogenized vegetable oil. It doesn’t take a genius to reverse engineer that.
Yes, sometimes the big companies also make their competitor products. I was in a meeting with the margarine leader who said that their facility did make some competitor products. But he noted that they made sure that the competitor was inferior. Basically, we know the melting characteristics of our product, so we make sure that the competitors do not match that. Poor melting characteristics equals a waxy mouthfeel.
Also a big difference is consistency. The big manufacturers tend to have quality control of the products to make sure that it is always consistent (though there have been screw ups). The store brands or minor brands can be much less consistent, leading to a good jar this week and a funky one next week. This is what leads to brand loyalty, probably more than anything. Why save 5% on cost, when you really don’t know what you might get.
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.
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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.
More often than not, store brand and name brand are one and the same, often produced in the same facility. Sometimes the store brand is the cast offs or “good but not quite up to spec” of the name brand and then packaged in plain packaging and sold at a discount.
To put it another way, it’s almost never worth it buying name brand.
Having worked in the food industry, a number of products have standards of identity in the USA. These include mayonnaise, peanut butter, butter, margarine, ice cream, etc. Since the food has a standard of identity, it is not difficult to make something similar. For instance, peanut butter has a standard of at least 90% roasted peanuts, sugar (or honey), salt, and possibly a stabilizer of partially hydrogenized vegetable oil. It doesn’t take a genius to reverse engineer that.
Yes, sometimes the big companies also make their competitor products. I was in a meeting with the margarine leader who said that their facility did make some competitor products. But he noted that they made sure that the competitor was inferior. Basically, we know the melting characteristics of our product, so we make sure that the competitors do not match that. Poor melting characteristics equals a waxy mouthfeel.
Also a big difference is consistency. The big manufacturers tend to have quality control of the products to make sure that it is always consistent (though there have been screw ups). The store brands or minor brands can be much less consistent, leading to a good jar this week and a funky one next week. This is what leads to brand loyalty, probably more than anything. Why save 5% on cost, when you really don’t know what you might get.
In many cases, it *is* effectively the same recipe and product. The big brands are typically made by the same producers that make store brand. The big brands are price at a premium because they have a higher quality control, whereas store brand may have more or less the exact same ingredients but they don’t meet the high standards for the big brand, so they are relabelled as a budget label.
It’s worth noting that a store brand can’t be sued by a big brand for reproducing the same product, flavour or using the same recipe. Trade secrets are not protected by patent – and in fact, the brands *don’t* want to patent it because it means that *exact* formulation must be written in the patent, which means *everyone* can copy it – but no one can sell it without paying the big brand. So they simply don’t patent it and don’t reveal if anyone happens to get it right. Hence, some generic brands not only taste very similar to big brands, but in some cases might be better or liked more by certain people.
So two cola brands might end up being very close in flavour, but Big Cola’s secret might be that they only use sugar from one specific plantation in Mexico that has been touched by a man named Carlos on Tuesday, whereas Genericola uses sugar touched by Manuel on Wednesday.
More often than not, store brand and name brand are one and the same, often produced in the same facility. Sometimes the store brand is the cast offs or “good but not quite up to spec” of the name brand and then packaged in plain packaging and sold at a discount.
To put it another way, it’s almost never worth it buying name brand.
In many cases, it *is* effectively the same recipe and product. The big brands are typically made by the same producers that make store brand. The big brands are price at a premium because they have a higher quality control, whereas store brand may have more or less the exact same ingredients but they don’t meet the high standards for the big brand, so they are relabelled as a budget label.
It’s worth noting that a store brand can’t be sued by a big brand for reproducing the same product, flavour or using the same recipe. Trade secrets are not protected by patent – and in fact, the brands *don’t* want to patent it because it means that *exact* formulation must be written in the patent, which means *everyone* can copy it – but no one can sell it without paying the big brand. So they simply don’t patent it and don’t reveal if anyone happens to get it right. Hence, some generic brands not only taste very similar to big brands, but in some cases might be better or liked more by certain people.
So two cola brands might end up being very close in flavour, but Big Cola’s secret might be that they only use sugar from one specific plantation in Mexico that has been touched by a man named Carlos on Tuesday, whereas Genericola uses sugar touched by Manuel on Wednesday.
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