How many of you have brand loyalty when grocery shopping? I’m sure all of you know what I mean by brand loyalty but just in case some of you don’t, my definition of it is when grocery shopping I pick certain brands first and some items I only buy in one specific brand.
I have a bunch of foods like this, for example, I only buy Heinz ketchup and Heinz baked beans. I prefer Maple Leaf for my meat, I also like Schneider’s, Kraft is a big one for me, Tetley for my tea and no other ever lol, I could go on as I recently realized there are a lot of foods that I pick from the grocery store shelf based on the brand name and not the price tag.
Where did this awareness come from? Well, I had to buy bread. Yup…this all started cause of buying bread lol. 😛 For I don’t even know how long now I have been eating Bodywise Bread, it is a Dempster’s product, you get two slices for one point and while I hated it when I first started eating it I managed to convince myself that it was just as good as “normal” bread and I wasn’t missing out on anything (like oh say, size, taste…). I got a bad loaf one time and I emailed Dempster’s to complain, I mean come on, at almost $4 a loaf I expect my bread to not have a huuuuuge hole going all the way through the loaf making each slice half the size it normally is – they agreed with me and mailed me a bunch of coupons, each one worth one free Dempster’s bread product, Yah! 😀
This meant that even when my money got way restricted and I was learning I had to be uber careful with how I spent it I could still get my Bodywise bread. Sadly, the coupons did eventually run out. I automatically switched to buying the Weight Watcher’s bread since they are basically the same thing, same size, same taste, same points, same price. It was just an automatic swap – I was thinking in weight watcher’s points, not dollars.
Well, couple weeks ago I had a very specific amount of money I could spend on groceries and I couldn’t justify spending so much money on one loaf of bread – really, when I thought about it, almost $4 for one loaf is ridiculous! I was in Wal-Mart so I went searching through all the other loafs having to actually “shop” for my bread as opposed to blindly picking it from the shelf…weird. I found that a lot of bread is around the same price range, but at least with the not-as-healthy-bread you’re getting a proper size and a better taste for your money…course you’re also getting a lot more calories and fat (and usually less fibre) which in our world equates to More Points. Suckfest.
In the end I chose the cheapest bread which was the Wal-Mart brand, there were two options, white or brown – so totally back to basics lol. It cost me a little over a dollar and is 3 Points for 2 slices – which is ridiculous (seems to be my word of choice this evening lol) but I have to be more concerned with my wallet then my waist when shopping nowadays. shrug. I chose the brown cause it had one more gram of fiber then the white, otherwise they were identical for nutritional information – I thought the extra fiber was a good choice even though I prefer white bread.
After the bread shopping, which lemme tell you, I was in the bread department going back and forth between the various loaves for a good 15 minutes lol, I started thinking more about the choices I was making. I didn’t have a lot to buy that day and the bread was my only deviation from my normal brand but it makes me wonder how much money I might of saved over the years if I had shopped based on price tag and not brand name?
Usually if there is something I want that is pricey I wait and buy it when it is on sale, most food items go on sale in a predictable manner so it’s not so bad, but with some items even when they are on sale the no-name brand is still cheaper…but are they just as good? This is where my brand loyalty rears it’s ugly head.
To me Heinz is always better, as is Kraft, Maple Leaf, Tetley and others. If I buy a can of no-name baked beans will they be as good as Heinz? Part of me thinks probably they would be, but part of me thinks nope. shrug. I am really not sure. Some brands I will never mess with or stray from, like Tetley, no way I would risk a change with my tea! lol But perhaps I will branch out of my comfort zone in the weeks and months to come and try different and cheaper brands of the foods I like….maybe I will become less of a brand snob and more of a thrifty shopper – nuthin wrong with that! 😀
The Amazing Shrinking Woman 
Most store-brand products are made in the same factories as the name-brand ones (the factories tend to be not owned by the brands so the factories that have spare capacity serve other customers). The ingredient list / quality may not be 100% the same, so you do need to taste/try, but do it blind after taking off the labels. In many cases it’ll be fine.
weirdly enough, I knew that about things like contact solution, a lot of the cheap brands are made by the expensive brands so they are identical just a less known brand so cheaper…a sneaky way for the companies to get all the money but the consumer to not know they are getting it lol
I didn’t realize that about food though! I don’t think I’ll have to do the taste testing as a blind study, I’m fairly non judgemental (I think? lol) and really, all I can afford right now is the cheaper version of things so I’ll have to like it if I want to eat lol
Ha-ha, loved the story of Dempster’s bread, I wonder if I ever could get coupons for such incident in my country. I guess not.
I guess I’m not a brand loyalist. At least, when it comes to groceries (I tend to choose the same brand stuff in electronics department, though). I always check the food labels before trying something new and choose the one that has most appealing ingredient list AND is not overpriced. And believe me, I rarely end with well known brands, usually simpler is better and unknown firms tend to make simpler (when it comes to ingredients) stuff.
Do not be afraid to try something new 😉
I didn’t know the unkown companies had simpler ingredients lists, interesting. It’s amazing some of the things companies put in our food, I wanted to buy some bran muffins from Safeway couple months back, I read the ingredient lists and almost choked it was chock full of such random unpronouncable things! I decided to just make my own, least I would know what was in them lol
I don’t see why you couldn’t get coupons for a similar incident where you live – the power of the email is an amazing thing! 😀 lol
I will branch out with my food brands for sure from here on out, mostly cause I have to pick the cheaper things from now on but hey, whatever makes me branch out! lol