Personally I only ever buy things when they're half price so for me buying ColesWorth home brands happens when the other brands are not on sale.
That being said, I have noticed that most times the home brands are still cheaper than the other brands at half price.
What do you usually do?
Can confirm this is 100% the case with some products. (Eg: some sugar products and flours)
Source: Use to work with many different food and household distributors.
Colesworth just strong arms some businesses into packaging them the same products to distribute as “home brand” to sell cheaper than the original.
Thats not across the board for all home brand, but happens often enough.
Products like that probably aren’t much different.
They are sometimes identical, especially with goods as mentioned above.
Some home brand flour, sugar, and flavourings are exactly the same as the name brands and come out of the same production line as their would be competitors.
When colesworth cant get goods directly from a brand they stock on their shelves, they often buy it from overseas and still find a way to market it as Australian products.
@El cheepo: Back in my uni days I had a friend who had a job removing “made in China” labels from goods and putting on “made in Australia” ones. Nowadays they probably have “packed in Australia” as the get around.
Sugar is a chemical so it is 99% the same
@rando88: Can be some variance. How finely ground is it? How processed is it? There is a scale between raw brown and whitest of white..
More complex products have different recipes for the home brand stuff, often with cheaper/less ingredients.
Wilmar Sugar Australia?
A lot of Aldi products are like this as well. Very easy to tell when the box, plastic shape / size etc is the same.
yesterday hot day I didn't want to heat up the home with the oven so used the microwave to heat up some Aldi pies recommended I think by a Guardian taste test article - slow-cooked chunky meat - a copy of some name brand - I forget maybe $5 for 2 pies - anyhoo while I didn't love the pale chewy pastry, milady said she liked it - I checked the ingredients and saw something like 49% pastry, 11% chunky beef, and 17% beef mince - say 28% beef - hmmm - so that's a maybe
Guardian taste tests have recommended a number of Aldi food products as best value so yeah if you're near one, maybe
For example, when the Confidence toilet rolls had Quilton printed inside.
I would never really buy home brand, that's shocking. However Woolworths or Coles brand, that stuff is good. I remember when they used to call it Woolworths signature or something, that was the good stuff. However, now they've blended it down to homebrand and the signature brand almost look the same. Just like how Coles doesn't really emphasise their luxury brand over their home brand any more either.
Not if it's food.
They're too coy and crafty about where the ingredients come from.
I shop at ALDI. 97.52% of what I buy is home brand.
Is it your local Aldi, or a 2.48% imported one?
Yeah, Aldi mimics the packaging of brand names so they can pretend they are the same product. This is why I don’t tend to buy groceries at Aldi. If they are that certain of their products then use their own distinct packaging.
This isn’t some great revelation you just revealed. Nobody is going into Aldi thinking they’re buying name-brand products. Aldi sometimes stocks the name-brand product next to theirs to show how much cheaper theirs are
@FireRunner: Yeah, they copy the packaging of the brand name products to try to differentiate themselves? How many times do we hear people say they are just the same product in different packaging? I don’t mind buying stuff from the junk aisles, even then I’ve had stuff I had to take back, but I avoid their packaged produce.
@try2bhelpful: I don’t doubt they’re piggybacking off the brand recognition of the name brands. I just didn’t think anyone would consider them the same.
@FireRunner: So they set the idea they are the same quality by copying the packaging and then “rumours” start they are the same product from the same factories. Aldi knows how to play their rusted on customers. As I said if they really thought their products were quality they wouldn’t copy the packaging.
@try2bhelpful: I see it as "Hey, you like this product from regular supermarkets? This is our equivalent that looks similar so you can quickly identify what it is!", with a dash of whimsy in some of the more on the nose renaming added for good measure." Nobody that shops at Aldi thinks they are buying the name brand variant, nor thinks the Aldi equivalent is identical in all instances (unless they are as Aldi seems to stock those more and more these days).
@witheredcouch: Except you still get the people saying it is the same, that is just a fact. It isn’t whimsy it is piggy backing. If ALDI just pushed their own brand that would be fine but stealing other people’s brand livery is just scum territory.
Pickup a box of wheat bix, and a box of Aldi wheat biscuits. You can prove they are identical as they have the same batch number font and format, they literally come off the same production line.
That's just one example.
Yes not all their products are the same as the leading brand, that doesn't mean none of them are
@[Deactivated]: Yes some are the same but Weetbix & the Aldi equivalent are not. They have substantially different nutritional values which is why I stopped buying the Aldi brand. While other foods,may be identical, others are not so it's important to evaluate those labels and detirmine whether the difference is worth it though
@Cyphar: Interesting they don't add folate or magnesium to the Aldi product to intentionally make them different.
The highlighted minerals are all artificially added and do not reflect the quality of the main ingredients, but it does show they 'cheap out' on the generic brand
CF=0.
This is why I tend to buy groceries at Aldi.
The Woolies rocky road mallows are freaking awesome…. Idk if it’s strictly a ‘home brand’ as it’s quite different to the name brand arnotts Royals
Woolworths has a business called Woolworths Food Company that works with manufacturers to produce their own brand of products
Made by Griffins Biscuits (Nz)
Only buy other brands on sale, that's the correct way of doing it!
Their home brand stuff is usually the same if not better than branded stuff. Just depends on the item at end of day, but if you only buy branded stuff you're a sucker for advertisements.
Which home brand products do you find are better than the branded stuff?
Any basics like flour, salt, sugar, tissues, milk Etc. are the same so no point paying more.
In terms of better, I find oats from coles/ww to be the best. Far better than any of the branded options and cheaper to boot. The bread they bake daily is also pretty high up there and better than most brands.
yep - products with same ingredient I buy bottom shelf or home brand - also vinegar, bleach
home brand laundry soaker has More active ingredient Sodium Percarbonate than the more expensive NapiSan brand - try reading the active ingredient in the small print on the pack
we get Quilton 3-ply toilet paper as best value - other TP tends to be more s#it and break - not nice
rolled oats I bought the cheapest for many years - but with more spare cash in retirement milady expressed a preference for the softer more expensive organic, so now we get that - https://www.coles.com.au/product/coles-organic-rolled-oats-5… - Not the Quick Oats in similar pack, I h8 those - except I recently read they were great to add to pancake mix and such - yet to try that …
Yep, Woolies tissues are excellent and you'll save a ton of money. Not as soft as Kleenex but unless you have a cold and require 50 tissues for your nose/day, you won't notice the difference. So are Woolworths/Coles brand frozen peas. However, steer well clear of the essentials/home brand range of peas, they are horrible.
The price of home brand stuff has crept up to the point of them being a giant rip off. Take chips as an example. Coles and Woolworths own brand chips used to be almost half the price of the brand names. Now there is only 40c or so between their own brand chips and the McCain superfries etc which, are vastly superior. It's the same with lots of products now.
I don't buy homebrand anymore. Other branded stuff on special is cheaper
Especially if you look at the specials.
Woolies oven fries cost more than mccain, both 1kg. I see that every week in my shopping list and wonder how they have not picked up on it.
The real question is why aren't you buying birds eye golden crunch crinkle chips. Everything else tastes like cardboard.
The real question is why aren't you buying birds eye golden crunch crinkle chips. Everything else tastes like cardboard.
The real question is why are you not buying potatoes and cooking your own?
It's not a process that requires a chef-level skill or that takes hours for preparation.
Common, I can't think of every example I've encountered, but often per gram woolies stuff is dearer in a smaller size offering making it seem better value, though the quality has improved, woolies generic frozen mixed vegies is like charf compared to Aldi's
Not everything. e.g. I found woolies brand nurofen 1/3 the price of the name brand.
You don't eat them for dinner though, do you?
?
When did this conversation become about dinner?
@SlickMick: When i made my part of it about dinner. Home brand Ibuprofen and Paracetamol must be 0.000000001% of the homebrand range.
I only buy Smiths Original Chips on special - the other day after seeing mostly like $3-4/100g I saw a pack for under $2/100g and bought that - and after reading the 170gm pack serving size was 27gm I actually measured that ('about 6 crisps') and have eaten that each day - to last 6 days - a nice little snack with a cold beer on a hot day
depends, generic stuff yeah
If you shop at Aldi you rarely have another choice.
That’s aldi private label not home brand
What's the difference apart from packaging making it look similar to brand name goods?
They market their stuff as "Like Brand" and it's truly like the quality of what they are imitating, I miss Aldi, Coles/Woolies stuff often does NOT compare well!
Not sure if you are being serious or sarcastic.
why even bother? Aldi brand stuff is better and cheaper anyway
I sometimes buy half priced brand items, and am disappointed the quality is not as good as the homebrand stuff.
Sometimes the ingredients are better in the home brand.
I always stay away with coles and woolies home brand. Waste of money tbh.
Depends on the item … and increasingly what actually is a "home brand"?
For absolute commodity-type products (sugar, salt, flour, milk, etc.) I'm quite happy with the genuine home brand stuff. I also have found some items that are branded but seem to be available in only one of the major supermarkets. Are these effectively "home brand" just by another name?
Whilst some can be interchangeable and it makes little difference, for others there are discernable quality differences. My biggest concern with the rise & spread of homebrand products is what happens when the inevitable happens and competitors are squeezed from the market? Suddenly you're left with homebrand and not much else and prices go up whilst quality has diminished.
I try the home label\house branded products, if they're similar to the branded ones will keep buying but often they aren't, for example ColesWorth bakery bread is often better than the Tiptop, Helgas, Abbott's, Buttercup, Wonder branded loaves;
flour, sugar, butter, block cheese is just as good as the basic branded stuff;
Home brand milk and yoghurt, tea, herbs, are pretty terrible - are either too watered down or poorly sealed packaging leading to loss of flavour, stick with the quality brands for those.
House brand Chocolates and confectionery we won't even touch, because it's all 'Made in China' now - that breaks the golden rule:
If it's from the Red Dragon, beware where it's been, Never let it touch your mouth or your skin.
mmmm Woolies Crunchy Honey Poppas. Sanitarium stopped making (or selling) them a few year ago
.
very product dependent. Some home brand stuff is so feral even at the cheap price it is not worth it so I do without rather than buy. some items like their english muffins can suffice in a pinch.
Depends on the products, but woolies/coles organic pasta cannot be beaten for the price. $2 for a proper Italian pasta, not that highly processed san remo rubbish for twice the price.
Coles meat pies are the best, better than all the branded stuff
agreed - I like the cheapest Coles home-brand meat pies - but milady doesn't - so she'll pay 5x the price for a pie with 'chunky' beef
Good example is laundry soaker. Coles/Aldi brand is 30% sodium percarbonate. Name brands are 20%-25%. So you pay much more for less active ingredient…no thanks.
A long time ago, i used to buy home brands, these days i do my best to avoid buying them regardless of price, As what colesworth have done over time is move people over to buying home brand and then stopped stocking other brands . Basically its a method to over time get rid of competition and then increase the price of their own products. Long term, customer gets rorted.
Plus having friends who worked in the sales departments of other brands who had to deal with colesworth, they get treated as crap as well to provide stock or even to go with the home brand label.
Same. Knew a dude who worked in the dairy industry and he said coles/woolies had them over a barrel re forcing them to produce home brand stuff.
Criteria is price, quality of ingredients and country of origin.
We eat mostly whole food plant based so cheapest for basics like oats are home brands. Still Australian oats.
There are different types of home brands. E.g. will buy pasta sauce home brand from Italy (many branded ones are also from Italian tomatoes), but not from China.
Are all oats the same? I've been buying organic as I'm worried about pesticide residue.
Tomatoes… the whole industry is built on exploitation, nevertheless money talks. I've found practically every brand of tomato sauce (the sausage kind) is now sourced from Chinese tomato paste.
A fascinating documentary on the industry for those interested
https://youtu.be/xqbNuejnP_4
I've been buying organic as I'm worried about pesticide residue.
Interesting. Here's an article saying they avoid pre-harvest spraying at least: https://www.abc.net.au/news/rural/2016-09-06/chemical-use-cr…
If they don't use they conventional ones, what do you think they use to contain weeds, etc. for the organic ones?
Do you buy organic for everything possible?
No I don't usually buy organic on principle.
The are all supposed to avoid pre-harvest spraying (for all fruit and vegetables not just oats) but if you speak to people in the industry you would know such guidelines are not enforceable. The example I was given is if crops were sprayed only a few days ago and heavy rain is expected (that would damage the harvest), they are going to harvest early and protect their income. Might not be relevant for grains but something to consider.
My idea is that a supplier willing to meet the 'organic' guidelines might have better farming practices. I would pay more if I knew of a reliable supplier or brand, at the moment I buy oats from Costco as they generally have high standards for their suppliers.
organic doesn't mean no pesticide, it just means no synthetic pesticides, organic pesticides can be just as toxic as synthetic ones. So just like non-organic you should be washing organic fruit and vege thoroughly.
Tomatoes… the whole industry is built on exploitation, nevertheless money talks. I've found practically every brand of tomato sauce (the sausage kind) is now sourced from Chinese tomato paste.
Then buy a brand like Berenberg which uses 100% Australian grown tomatoes
Thread would be better focused on which products are worth buying certain brands for.
Home brand/aldi frozen meals mostly now no good
I’d rather eat expired discount brand food than homebrand. The Woolworths Select is okay though. And technically Aldi is homebrand, but it’s more like clonebrand really.
Back in the day the No Frills neapolitan ice cream were just as good if not better than the branded stuff
All my brands are home brand..I shop at Aldi because I don't like to throw away my money shopping brands at woolies and coles
Have not had the pleasure of shopping at Aldi for nearly 6yrs, have planned to get my camper on the Ute then to Townsville, which is 700k's away- twice recently to look round and do an Aldi shop, both times there were weather events that stopped me … soon!
Since I'm now 700k's from an Aldi now and broke, that's my life, but, you have to look at Woolies stuff carefully (woolies is 98k's away coles is an extra 40k's further) for example, Woolies custard powder is dearer per gram than the next cheapest branded custard powder, woolies is 200gram packet, the next one is 250grams, there's heaps more like that, but that's just the one I can remember.
Depends on the product
Aldi 'tim tams' are way better than tim tams
Coles/woolies coconut milk is DISGUSTING and watered down…… please don't use this!!!
Other things like sugar, cling wrap, frozen berries, jam - home brand is good.
A few items I need branded would be nutella and milo.
I missed out on discounted Nutella at Coles last week, so I tried their home brand alternative. The regular price of which was slightly cheaper than the discounted "real" stuff (3c/100g, big deal).
Seems every bit as good to me!
I'm wondering if some understand the meaning of 'branding'
last I looked it's a marketing technique to create in consumers' minds the idea that the product is more attractive than the competition (bikini girls hugging car tyres?) so they will pay more for what is otherwise a similar product that is no better.
it may be first established by better service or quality - but over time big corporations tend to reduce the quality while increasing the price - to maximise profits at the expense of consumers who have been lulled into the habit of believing that product is somehow 'better' and worth paying more for.
Supported by folk who grew up poor and imagine that paying more for something makes them feel RICH !!!
Not supported by folk who grew up middle class and always had enough if they managed carefully and paid close attention to things like ingredients lists and value for money, what some on the net call CP value - cost-performance …
bikini girls hugging car tyres?
Now I have a hankering for car tyres.
Branding doesn't mean the product is otherwise similar to the competition, or no better. It's simply a way to convince the consumer to pay more for the product than they would otherwise. That can be a quality product whose price is excessive, despite the high quality.
'a quality product' - did you know why businesses love to say they sell 'quality products' ?
because it's undefined - and they cannot be sued for advertising 'quality products' because it's legally meaningless.
like saying would you like 'size shoes' - What size ?
low quality - high quality - if they don't promise high quality, I don't assume it is.
Are you trying to say the concept of quality doesn't exist?
@[Deactivated]: try reading again - quality could be good or bad - and the word 'quality' alone is liked by advertisers as unthinking consumers can assume 'we sell quality products' is some sort of guarantee of GOOD quality. Nuh-uh girlfriend … ! ;-)
@Hangryuman: I'm not talking about the subjective meaning of "quality" that has no definition. I am talking about the objective quality characteristics of a product.
There is such a thing as a good quality and poor quality battery for example, it isn't your subjective personal reality that determines its performance.
A number of years ago, I noticed Coles branded food products increase dramatically in quality, for example their baked New York cheese cakes, and numerous other products I can't recall now.
Recently, Coles Regular Soy Milk improved massively in taste, and consequently the price nearly doubled (from about $1 to $2).
Coles Urban coffee beans ($15/kg) are roasted at the same location as their much more expensive Daley Street brand ($35/kg or $20-$25 on sale), and if you check the roast dates they are often identical, so I would wager they are identical beans with slightly nicer packaging. In addition, the cheapest Coles Simply Coffee Beans ($12/kg) are also roasted at the same address, and roast dates are similar (or possibly identical). I haven't compared them to see if they taste the same.
Often when I buy a Coles brand product, I expect to get similar and sometimes even better quality than a more expensive product.
Recently, Coles Regular Soy Milk improved massively in taste, and consequently the price nearly doubled (from about $1 to $2).
Nope. They've been the same for yonks and $1.60, then increased to $1.70 last year and recently $2. Woolworths increased theirs in lockstep; they must have similar suppliers.
'Often when I buy a Coles brand product, I expect to get similar and sometimes even better quality than a more expensive product.'
sounds like you might be working for Coles … ;-)
to counter that, I recently bought Aldi ground coffee after reading a Guardian ?blind taste test that recommended it as best taste best value or somesuch
One neat feature is the nitrogen seal round thing on the pack, which suggests that they've used nitrogen to prevent oxygen from deteriorating the coffee—I don't know, but that's what I thought.
Anyway - first pack I'm happy with - will try the Peru bag next …
sounds like you might be working for Coles … ;-)
Nope, but you should try the Coles New York baked cheese cake. It's fresh, costs $14, and is better than the Cheese Cake Shop ($38).
coles brand soy sauce and malted milk both tasted horrible.
coles brand level 3 cheddar is unreal!!
As are their triple choc chip cookies
I do most of my shopping at Woolies and avoid their home branded stuff because of their practice of effectively bullying brands into producing them for them for lower margins.
I'll typically go with whatever gives the best price per unit, unless there's a tangible benefit to paying a bit more for a different brand. In most cases, I end up with the home brand product (though I do mostly shop at Aldi anyway).
Colesworths seem to be following the UK Tesco model I saw years ago where yellow stickers suggest half-price specials - e.g. the Monte choc biscuits I bought today.
Tesco had a thing where you got something like 40% off if you bought 2 - which was always almost irresistible to me - so that seemed to me to be killer marketing
It's cheaper to make it from scratch.
Depends what products. Some of them are quite obviously made in the same factory as the branded stuff with the same product, same jars/packaging, nutritional information, expiry dates etc. Would be smart to opt for the cheaper choice. Other products, maybe not so much the same quality or added value.