Great 'disguised Own Brand' Hunt.

Hello

The UHT milk in the own and value brands is the same, UHT means that it is heated for a short time to temps in excess of 135 degrees C - there isn't much else you can do to it to make it different! This does not include those with added Omega in it or whatever!

I know this because I used to work for a company that processes it.

irrelevant

One perhaps surprising place I have found to give clues as to who makes what for whom, is the FSA Food alerts website. For example, this page would seem to imply that various Heinz, Iceland, Morrisons and Sainsburys apple pies are all made on the same production line from much the same materials, otherwise how could they have suffered from the same problems!

davercvi

I have worked in the food industry for many many years. Most manufacturers make own brand and branded goods from the same ingredients. The biggest price difference I found:

Flour
Tesco Value Plain, Asda Smart Price Plain etc is EXACTLY the same flour as Allinson Plain Flour. You can't downgrade plain flour. However, you can downgrade self-raising, so never buy the 'value' lines - it really is poor quality stuff.

davercvi

moneysavingmaniac wrote: »

I have had a search for chicken but no results have appeared.

I was wondering if there was any difference between Tesco (Or any supermarket) Branded chicken Vs No Frills

As the nutritional info is identical.

Anyone have some knowledge they wish to share

I have knowledge and experience from working in this area.

There is very very little difference between the branded and value chicken lines - mostly just in farming techniques, age of bird etc. Unless you are buying a processed product e.g. escalope, then the chances are that the chicken meat will be exactly the same quality.

And yes, most of the chicken we buy in this country is from either Brazil or Thailand - check packaging to see if it says "packed in UK" rather than "produced".

rag31

My dh used to work for McVities and they made the digestives for themselves and also the own brands. They also used to make the expensive cheescake biscuit bases (Sara Lee I think) alongside the supermarket value ones.

Becky

buckhysen

rammy007 wrote: »

my oher half used to work for mcvities and all the digestives are made by them,tesco,asda,sainsburys,m&s,aldi,lidl happy shopper,its just that m&s specify a different cooking time and are taken from the centre of the batch its the same for snacks

On the same note as this, I used to work for St Ivel in the yoghurt section and the same applies. All the Store's own brand yoghurts are made with exactly the same yoghurt, they just change the tubs. Yet over the years I've seen a big difference in price between the cheapest and most expensive store names standard pack of four.

Judging by rammy007's post above it seems they probably do this with most brand name items. Just changing the packaging. So when it comes to brand name items, just go for the cheapest, it's almost certainly the same as the most expensive in most cases.

Toastandmarmite

I don't know if similar to this has been posted already, but Sainsos Basics natural yoghurt is exactly the same product as Yeo Valley Organic Natural Yoghurt.

prangers

i work for a company that supplies food and drink packaging to a very large amount of U.K and worldwide producers of products. and i can honestly say that i have found on a number of occasions that products for all the main retailers come from the same production factories. for instance... one company produces and bottles olive oil for every uk retailer and it all comes out of the same silo of oil.

here is some info for you all. when you find the 2 for 1 or BOGOF offers in say Tesco. how it works is Tesco will tell the manufacturer that they want to run a BOGOF offer on thier product and the supplier will have to give say Tesco all the free items in the offer for well...... FREE., i dont buy any offers anymore because i know how much major retailers screw the suppliers into the ground on price and demand so much for nothing. this is one of the reasons why i have seen so many of our customers go under in recent months.

so people who can afford to NOT buy the offers please dont. cheers

Pal

Toastandmarmite wrote: »

I don't know if similar to this has been posted already, but Sainsos Basics natural yoghurt is exactly the same product as Yeo Valley Organic Natural Yoghurt.

I doubt that very much. Yeo Valley make a big thing about running their own organic dairy cooperative and there is no way they would supply a non-organic basics product. They have a very strong ethical position to protect which would be damaged hugely if they started supplying non-organic products.

Also, if they were to do this, it would be labelled "Basics Organic Natural Yoghurt" at the very least to improve the marketing position.

Torkijo

Tesco Milk, Their Valu Milk and Wiseman Milk all come from the same Wiseman Dairy Factories, the only product that is different is their Cravondale competetor 'Pure' that has its own production line that has extra filter cycles in it to make it last longer,