Shea Simmons
One of the oldest tricks in the grocery shopping playbook is to buy store brands instead of name brands. Allegedly, they taste the same, but they can be up to a quarter of the price. Not bad, right, but is it true?
Are grocery store brands the same as name brands?
According to a taste test by Consumer Reports, many grocery store brands are just as delicious as name brands. Some were actually better. Will all store brands be identical to their name-brand counterparts? No, but even when not the exact same, nutrition tends to be equivalent and flavor profiles are still delicious. Plus, the savings are real.
Consumer Reports said that store brands save you an average of 25% on your purchases, but in doing their own taste test, they found store-made alternatives could be up to 60% less than name brand items. People are definitely taking advantage of the savings, too. In the outlet’s survey of shoppers, 72% said they’d bought a store brand in the last month, and 78% said they were the same as name brand items.
As for that taste test, the outlet examined 19 different foods in both grocery store brands and name brands. When done, 10 brands tied, eight name brands were dubbed better, and one store brand was named the winner. You can find the full results here.
The next time you’re looking to save money at the grocery store, you might want to grab that store brand.
