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Don't Overlook the Store Brands

Posted on: Monday, 15 August 2005, 12:00 CDT

In testing a variety of products during the past several years, we have often found that store brands are as good as name brands.

Indeed, when we recently evaluated more than 60 products in six common grocery categories, there were store brands that performed at least as well as name brands in most categories, and better in one.

Store brands have increased their market share or held steady in nine of the past 10 years, with sales now totaling more than $50 billion annually.

During tough times, buyers embraced them as a way to save on commodities such as canned vegetables, soda, flour and pasta. Eventually, shoppers would return to their national brands.

But the lure of a famous name isn't what it used to be. In surveys that track long-term shopping attitudes, NOP World Roper Reports has found that many consumers hesitate paying more for some big brands because they don't see enough of a difference to justify the higher price.

(When you buy a big-brand product, you're paying not just for the product itself, but also for the enormous advertising and marketing costs, plus hidden extras such as slotting fees, which branded manufacturers pay for placement on store shelves.)

Just how much higher is that price?

Peter Berlinski, editor of Private Label magazine, estimates that consumers generally can expect 15 to 20 percent average savings across all categories on store brands versus national brands sold in supermarkets; 25 percent to 30 percent at drugstores; and up to 50 percent at mass-merchandise stores.

Those rewards, moreover, come with little risk: Most store brands offer a money-back refund if you're dissatisfied.

And just who is making these products? Many are national-brand companies, although they won't put their names on the packages.

As a result, you can't identify the real manufacturer by looking at the label. Not that it would necessarily matter. National-brand companies won't simply slap a different label on products that are rolling off the same assembly line: They sometimes manufacture a different type of product to be sold as a store brand.

And even if it's the same type, they make it to the store's own specifications, which could mean a change in ingredients or quality.

Still, many store brands aim to compete with name brands in quality, packaging, and variety. They enjoy prominent shelf placement, more promotion, and generally higher manufacturing standards than in the past, according to an industry trade group. Those standards may explain why store brands did so well in our recent tests.

In those tests, two store-brand yogurts (Stop & Shop and America's Choice) bested two costlier national brands (Dannon and Yoplait) and several other store brands in blind tastings by our trained panelists.

In three of the five other categories -- paper towels, frozen french fries, and gallon-size plastic storage bags -- one or more store brands shared top rating with one or more national brands.

Brand names prevailed in the two remaining categories, where Del Monte's canned peaches edged Trader Joe's jarred (although, in a twist, Joe's peaches cost more), and Puffs Non-Lotion facial tissues brushed aside cheaper but still very good products from Stop & Shop (Pure Softness) and Safeway (Select Softly).

Although we didn't test them in this round, store- and name- brand versions of aspirin, cold and cough remedies, antihistamines, and other such medications are likely to be even more similar than other types of products.

If the active ingredient is the same, says Susan Johnson, associate director of over-the-counter products for the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, both products must have met regulatory standards for efficacy.

Visit the Consumer Reports Web site at www.consumerreports.org.

Source: Daily Breeze

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