{"id":6142,"date":"2009-09-15T05:00:55","date_gmt":"2009-09-15T12:00:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/getrichslowly.org\/blog\/?p=6142"},"modified":"2023-12-06T11:09:59","modified_gmt":"2023-12-06T18:09:59","slug":"slash-your-grocery-bill-with-store-brand-products","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.getrichslowly.org\/slash-your-grocery-bill-with-store-brand-products\/","title":{"rendered":"Slash your grocery bill with store-brand products"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"NameThe October 2009 issue of Consumer Reports<\/i> contains an article extolling the virtues of generic store-brand products. While shoppers used<\/i> to sacrifice quality when choosing generic, that’s no longer the case. From the article:<\/p>\n

If concern about taste has kept you from trying store-brand foods, hesitate no more.<\/b> In blind tests, our trained tasters compared a big national brand with a store brand in 29 food categories. Store and national brands tasted about equally good 19 times. Four times, the store brand won; six times, the national brand won.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

In other words, store brands offer roughly the same quality as national brands<\/b>, but at a much-reduced cost. How much reduced? Consumer Reports<\/i> says that the store brands they tested cost an average of 27 percent less than the name brand equivalents.<\/p>\n

<\/span>How Much Can You Save?<\/span><\/h2>\n

Sometimes theory is one thing and reality another. It’s nice that Consumer Reports<\/i> can score great deals on store brands. But could I? Last week, I walked to two local grocery stores to do my own research. First I looked at Safeway, where Kris and I shop most often. Next, I walked across the street to Fred Meyer, a store we usually try to avoid. (The store is huge and its layout makes little sense to me.)<\/p>\n

I spent an hour in each store, roaming the aisles, looking for representative prices on a variety of items. I tried to pick one item at random from every section of the store. When I’d finished, I had a list of 25 products for which each store carried the same name brand and their own store-brand equivalent.<\/p>\n

The results actually surprised me. You can<\/i> save a lot of money with store-brand products<\/b> \u2014 far more than I suspected. Here’s the raw data from my research:<\/p>\n

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\nClick to open larger image in new window<\/i><\/div>\n

The first column lists the name-brand item I used as a basis for comparison. I’ve given each store two columns, one for the price of the name-brand item, and one for the generic item. On each line, red text<\/span> indicates the highest-priced option and green text<\/span> indicates the least expensive option.<\/p>\n

Here’s a closer look at some of these comparisons:<\/p>\n