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”
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.
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.
“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.
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
- 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.
I stopped buying Campbell’s or any of its subsidiary brands a few years ago when they both raised prices and reduced the size of the can.
They were underhanded about it too because they made the cans slightly taller so it wasn’t obvious that they had less volume.
Shrinkflators can go F themselves. That shrunken package with the same, or often higher, price is a major incentive for me to buy their competitors’ products instead.
Yeah but like 99% of them do it now. There’s often no alternative that isn’t also shrinkflated
Some things like Orange Juice have gone there for reasons beyond greed - though greed is still a major component.
Many things that practice shrinkflation are entirely optional in your diet…
I stopped buying products that went from chocolate to chocoly
Hmmm, if only there was something those companies could do to retain customers. Something like lower prices without shrinking sizes?
Everything sucks these days. Every product is worse today than it was 10 years ago.
Remember when the Kellogg’s CEO told everyone that’s poor to just eat more cereal? And then tried to bust the union?
I can’t think of any food or drink (save for alcohol, but I cut down to one drink per week) that I’d buy because of the brand. The majority of what I’m buying is from store private labels. Living in Europe, however, I do pay close attention to country of origin, and try to buy as close to home as possible.
I am loyal to certain cheese producers, from local small scale producers to national artisan producers that ship to me, to national larger scale cheese makers who have specific products I like. I’ll buy certain imported cheeses with place protections, like Italian DOP cheeses.
With chicken, I like a particular producer, because the chicken just tastes better to me when it’s air chilled and of a specific size (4 lbs/1.8 kg is the ideal size).
For flour, I use a combination of a local mill for whole wheat, and a reputable national producer for bread flour and all purpose white flour. I have a specific brand for 00 pizza flour. I know what to expect from those products, and that allows me to be precise.
For pasta, I have several brands and shapes to choose from, and can obviously do fine with whatever box, but I still have my preferences for specific shapes and brands and bronze-die lines. Some of them are imported and some are domestic.
Condiments and sauces? Yeah, I have a preferred ketchup brand, 3 specific soy sauces for different applications, 3 specific mustard brands for different applications, and a preferred mayonnaise. I keep about 5-10 hot sauces on hand, each for a different style of food.
As you mention, for wine and beer and liquor and liqueurs, I am fairly picky when it comes to brands and quality. Life is too short to drink bad alcohol.
But it also pretty much extends to non alcoholic beverages, too. I choose my coffee and go for specific roasts by specific roasters. I like a particular brand of soda. I even have a preferred brand of orange juice.
For chips and snacks, I very much prefer specific flavors of specific brands, including even the biggest of the industrialized brands for certain products.
With chocolate? Yeah, brand matters to me a lot. Most other candy, too.
I have a preferred butter brand. I can make do with others, but I prefer mine. There are only two bacon brands I like. I have a hot dog brand preference, too.
I’m pretty serious about food, and I love blind tasting things and forming preferences around new foods, revisiting old taste tests, etc. I couldn’t imagine not caring about the details on food, and that often means knowing the difference between brands (and knowing when a brand has changed its formula/recipe).
People out there are doing good work, making delicious food. Sometimes they put their name on it, and that means something.
I abandoned many brands many years ago. They provide me nothing of value so I don’t give them my money.
This article felt a bit like AI click bait. Seems like they were really more interested in talking about AI and providing a link to [redacted]'s AI site. When writing an article about price hikes, why would you take a quote from a CEO pitching his AI site? Why not talk to actual consumers or even better yet CEO’s of companies that are gouging us, or companies that are providing lower priced items. And what about stores, nothing said about them yet they are not innocent in this, nothing about them in the article.
