Great 'disguised Own Brand' Hunt.

jasjo

Just remembered tesco dishwasher cleaner is exactly the same as finish,dishwasher salt seems to be the same and the powder,much cheaper too

siobhan.hobson

I used to work for Tesco, and their Tesco Value Salad cream is made by Heinz, it's just lacking a "secret ingredient", whatever that might be.
Also, Aldi's mayonnaise is actually (imo) NICER than Hellmans. It's got ever such a slight mustard tang to it, and it's so yummy. I actually go out of my way to buy Aldi's mayo now - it's better than the brand name stuff!

RMACKLIN

I am an electrician, and i know that wickes own brand hand tools are usally made by draper, but at half the price. Same goes for Wickes professional drills ect. very good tools but half the price of branded alternatives. You also get a 5year warranty!

I know a bloke who used to manage a halfords store. the halfords professional spanners and socket sets are actually made bySnap-on, but sold at less than a third of the cost (even less when sales are on). You also get a lifetime warranty with these.
I have saved hundreds of pounds buying my tools in the right place.

tiggy_114

charlieheard wrote: »

Which magazine recently compared all the main brands and own-brands and said that Fairy was their best-buy, as long as you only use the correct (small) amount. People who put in the usual amount are wasting money.

Own-brands are worth getting as they are cheaper, though you do need more. Their top recommendations are Tesco Citrus and Asda Original with Antibacterial Agents.

I will never use anything other than ecover ever again because although it is expensive, you need such a small squeeze per washing up session that it lasts us weeks, and you get tons of bubbles every time. Not found any other that lasts as long and if you live near a shop which refills your old bottles, it's even cheaper. Would recommend to anyone.

mattandjanno

I purchased a Dennon DVD player a number of years ago to find when opening the battery compartment to find a Panasonic badge and Panasonic batteries. I could believe £300 extra for a different case and Gold contacts on the connectors....

SimonJ_3

Andrewfmills wrote: »

Just to clarify things, I can't vouch for whether this story is true or not, but for parts to go in aircraft engines there is an enormous audit trail of quality standards to ensure plane engines are airworthy. The washing machine versions are cheaper because if your washing machine bearing breaks down its not going to drop out of the sky!

Another amusing (?) but absolutely true tale. In 1982 during the height of the Falklands conflict I was Chief Engineer of a Frigate (Arrow) which was well overdue deep maintenance and (probably then as now) we were seriously lacking in onboard spares. At a critical time the main on-engine fuel pump of one Olympus propulsion engine failed. We had no spare pump (but should have had) and we were many 1000 miles from home with the prospect of further torpedoes/bombers chasing us so we had to use our ingenuity to keep going. After dismantling the pump we realised we needed a near mechanical seal for which also we did not have a replacement. However, we opened many packets of spares for other equipment which we hoped might have something therein which could be adapted. Eventually we found a washing machine seal which we modified and eventually fitted to the engine fuel pump which then ran quite happily for several hundred more hours and finally also got us home!
OK we were not going to fall out of the sky but there were several other rather nasty and equally unpleasant possible outcomes if the ship could only go slowly without this fix!
Meanwhile I continue to enjoy and learn from the discussion and revelations in the remainder of the thread.

baggie58

Aldi's Power Force Limescale Remover spray (white bottle, blue label) smells exactly the same as Cillit Bang and works just as well.

Also, on a slightly different tack, baby wipes (even the cheapest) do exactly the same job as posh face wipes, and they also get red wine out of clothes when freshly spilled.:rotfl:

sequinsandstars

I used to work for Homebase and their own brand was made by Akzo Nobel who make Crown paints! Not sure if its still the case?

Mac_Ian

I used to work for Boots and on one of my visits to Nottingham took the guided tour of their production site and during this tour one of the display's was of bars of soap made by the company.

There were samples from all the supermarkets own brands. It was the sort Boots used to wrap in clear film I think the bath size came in a 3 pack and the toilet size was in a 4 pack.

The different supermakets supplied their own formula/ingredient list which Boots followed, hense Boots claimed their soap was better than the others because knowning what went into the others gave Boots inside knowledge

The same princple went for the toothpaste as well.

negg

A long time ago I used to work for Samsung in a plant that made computer monitors.

Samsung made monitors for HP, IBM, Compaq, Dell, DEC ... and the list goes on with lots of well known brands.

At the time, there was apparently only 4 companies that actually manufactured monitors, or so I was told.