Brand = quality? (in food and drinks)?

[Daph81]

Do you associate branded products with good quality? (in food and drinks only)

Do you buy products from big companies with famous brands, because you think they taste better or are healthier, etc? Even though they cost double the products of non-famous brands?

Over here, the supermarkets have their own brands. Their chocolate spread, for example, turned out to be made by Ferrero, the company that also produces Nutella. But Nutella cost twice the supermarket-branded spread... And tastes quite the same too..

Thoughts or comments? What's your habits like when it comes to brands of food products?

[Hyped_up_on_coffee]

Yes, especially with beer. I expect products like budlight and any light beer to be piss water without any flavor. In fact I know this is so because they spill more beer in a year that small craft beer company makes in a year. Craft breweries make creative products and have to have good quality control like if they ruin a batch of beer they do not let it out as it would ruin their reputation. The owner of Dogfish head really cares about the quality of his beer and he is very enthusiastic about his products as he wants them to taste great and gets his employees to put some imput into newer beers. He even puts up beer and food pairings on his website because he wants us to have a great experience with his beer.

Also another thing is that big companies put a lot of shit in our food like Gmos in our food , strange cuts of meat, pink slime, chemicals, lots of dyes. And even with non food products they put terrible shit in there like they put sulfate in our shampoos which is what is used for laundry detergent if you think about it.

And with chocolate a lot of companies use hydrogenated fats instead of cocoa butter because it is cheaper. It has a waxy mouthfeel and i can usually tell because when I took Advanced Patisserie they made us taste High quality chocolate and then cheap Hershey chocolate and the cheep chocolate is quite waxy and feels a lot different on your palette that chocolate coverture.

Companies just use shitty ingredients to lower their cost control percentage, and they decrease it by like a lot.

[Daph81]

the companies that use low quality shit on the production of their products... they're usually the big companies with big brands.

So are you saying price or brand doesn't always equal quality or healthy products? (except for beer, as you've mentioned)

[Hyped_up_on_coffee]

It depends on the company and on their vision and mission statement a lot of the time. Its also really tricky today because you need to just learn to read a label sometimes and google some of the ingredients at times. And it also has to do with marketing just because sometimes companies use smart product placement to sell their brands

[Daph81]

there's a reason why I don't study economy, marketing and the stuff... haha!

[Hyped_up_on_coffee]

Its important to understand the basics though because you as a consumer have power over many things

[Daph81]

Not over what they decide to put in to trick us or what lies do they use to manipulate us... I mean, companies will always try to get our money and they use dirty tricks anyway... It's all a filthy game

[Hyped_up_on_coffee]

You just need to like read your ingredients and consistently look up on the iternet what some of the things they put in X product may be and what it does

[janine167]

When to comes to taste no not all of the time. Some unknown brands can taste better. But, generally brands are better. I usually try different brands and then decide.

When it comes to health, I don't trust any brand or annything packeted. I even doubt some organic brands.

[Daph81]

how exactly are brands better? I mean, in what way? And have you ever considered the possibility of placebo when trying out different brands?

[janine167]

Sometimes brands can be better in terms of quality and safety depending on the product type. A known chocolate brand can taste much better than an unknown one. A known detergent brand can clean better and be less harmful.

What does placebo effect mean?

[Daph81]

I mean when you try a cereal from Kellogg's and one from the store brand, for example, you've already had it in your head that brands usually have better products, so in the end, you're biased already and you'd say that Kellogg's are better.

[janine167]

No I don't do that. I have tried local chips that is cheap and have tried imported chips like pringles and lays and I find the local brand to taste much better. Same thing with cheases and chocolates and many other brands. But sometimes the known brands taste much better.

[HandsomeRaj]

1. A brand is not a name on a package or a company - all of them have it
2. A brand is not cleared by FDA - all of them are cleared by FDA & certified
3. A brand is something that is particular about their reputation, doesn't franchise out their output but has their own quality control processes in every plant that manufactures their product
4. A brand is something that constantly keeps changing to improve and proves it to it's market
5. It's not about if the organization is new or years old, it's about how they conduct themselves
6. There are super markets that come up with their own brands and I sure do try them if they are a reputed super mart, if I find them upto the mark, I use the product else no.
7. There have been instances of quality dropping from a reputed brand where I use the alternate better brand
8. But end of the day I watch the brand and reputation as well as quality all the while.

[MrOracle]

Certain foods are definitely better from the brand names, and others don't matter so much.

Nothing is as good as an Oreo, Pepsi, or Nacho Cheese Doritos. But I'm fine with generic cheese, condiments, canned vegetables, dried pasta, and many other items.

Having said that, it's important to realise that there ARE differences. For example, many items at Trader Joes are brand-name items that are packaged for TJ and sold for less, under TJ's name. BUT... some of them are of lower quality - the TJ version will use chips and snacks that may be broken (whole, unbroken chips go into the brand name version), or that may be slightly over or undercooked, as occasionally happens. Generic foods are often brand names, yes, but the quality standards are lowered for the generics to offset the lower price, allowing slightly less perfect stuff to still be sold at close to full price.

[Dandeus]

I think a lot of people don't realize, but in the food world a great deal of private label items (aka house brand) are made by the same companies that make the brand name items.

This is done for a very specific reason... A lot of brand name companies have production facilities that are capable of producing more volume than their market share can support, so they're often running well below peak efficieny. Factories/plants are expensive to own and operate, so running below capacity is a major burden.

These companies make deals with retail chains to produce private label lines at discounted rates because it actually maximizes the productivity of their facilities. They're relatively high margin products for the retailer, and they're inexpensive for the consumer.

That's an all around win.

[Dandeus]

Point being that differences in quality between brand name and private label are almost always a matter of false perception on the part of the consumer. It's often the exact same product with a different label slapped on it.

I know this from having previously worked in the industry.

[Daph81]

This actually answers all of my questions I have related to this brand stuff lol

If no one else gives a better, more detailed, more scientific answer, the MH goes to you man!

[SuperPickle]

For me, brand usually equals I know what to expect more than it equals quality. Depending on the product, for some things I go for the brand name, because it is the good stuff, for others, I go for a store brand or a lesser known company, because that ends up being the better tasting stuff.

I do think a lot of us buy whatever our parents did, for the most part, unless we decide to try something else out, for reasons of cost, availability, etc. That know what to expect factor sometimes keeps us from trying other things out, but sometimes there's a real gem of a product in an unknown label.

[kheserthorpe]

Depends on the item. The 'non branded' stuff here, there tend to be levels, like a given store will actually have two tiers of store-brand stuff, one of which is basically on par with brand name stuff, one which is not quite as good (often) but much cheaper. But for some items the cheap tier is fine, and for others... even the branded isn't as good.

There's not general rule, you have to try and find out item by item.

[Rail2k]

I've generally found that brands really mean nothing. A more famous brand will tend to have slightly better quality, but usually it's not worth the price increase at all. I'm fairly well-off, but I'll usually only buy name-brand products if it's something where quality is really important and buy off-brand products for food, clothes, etc. as the brand really doesn't matter there.

[Anonymous]

No. I don't associate brand with quality. I always try the least expensive brands and compare them to the well known brands that I've already tried, to see how well they stack up.. if they pass my taste/quality test, than i happily buy the cheaper brand.

[Opinion Owner]

then*

[douride2]

In my experience brand names generally were of better quality. But in recent years some of the store brands have increased quality & taste substantially.