Great 'disguised Own Brand' Hunt.

Ken68

It would be a sticky, MRB is there is such a list. Yes you have to be fit to be a MSE'er lol.
I look forward to the day when the Consumer is King and not too far off with media such as here and Facebook/Twitter.

The_Miser

MRB wrote: »

Has anyone managed to compile a list of the: "This is just this made by the same firm." posts?

I know we can't be sure they're all true, but would be great to have a list of them stuck together. I've read about a dozen pages but my eyes are starting to bleed.

Several problems with this:
1) posts started in about 2005 so there will have been changes since then in many products. How far back do you go?
2) Even if made by the same firm qualities etc. may differ so the goods are not comparable. For example Renault and Dacia cars.
3) Identical goods may be sold by different companies but in different quantities / volumes so prices may not be easily compared
3a) Some supermarkets have the same goods in different places in the store at different prices as distinguished by the bar codes with the cheaper goods not at eye level.
4) Surely equally important is that even in one store their "cheap" brand might be better quality than their better more expensive brand
5) Slightly outside your terms of reference but do crosscheck prices per kilo / item. Sometimes bigger packages are more expensive than several packages of the same item adding up to a similar weight. Also check prepackaged prices against the per kilo price for loose goods. Check that there are not two prices - one in tiny print and one in large print; in my local UK supermarket they tried to charge the tiny printed but larger price.

Unfortunately many, perhaps most, shops are out to empty your purse so it is up to you to always be suspicious.

Mary_Hartnell

What really bugs me is the strange seemingly random number of grammes in a given package and the item is then discounted but the unit pricing is not updated. Add in a "bogoff" and some sort of points deal and you have Sainsbury's free bananas or Tesco's free wine. Obviously the staff did not understand their pricing anyway.

Then you you have the fruit and vegetables sold by the item and a very similar looking product (say apples) sold by weight. Ut aught to be mandatory to provide scales for customer's use in such circumstances.

Basically the idea is to get the consumer into a befuddled dream state and then over sell produce that will get thrown away eventually.

guns511

did a case study in business at college and mars bar are made by the same company who make pedigree dog food..

Also heinz make supermarket value tomato sauce but use less vinegar. Also mcdonalds use hovis to make all the buns etc but outsource the chicken from places such as taiwan!

richardw

McD's say Thailand http://www.mcdonalds.co.uk/ukhome/whatmakesmcdonalds/questions/food/chicken/where-do-mcdonalds-source-their-chicken-from.html

Li0nhead

callum9999 wrote: »

That doesn't mean they are the same product, it merely means they have the same barcode number - no information is actually stored on the barcode about the product.

There is technically no reason why Aldi brand washing up liquid couldn't have the same barcode as Tesco Finest Lasange.

I usually wash my dishes with Aldi branded washing up liquid but based on the above post i bought some Tesco Finest Lasange to try.

I can confirm they are not the same product and the Lasange does nothing to help the cleaning of dishes. In fact i did not notice any soapy foam that normal washing up liquids give off.

Will be sticking with my usual Aldi washing up liquid in future.

DCFC79

guns511 wrote: »

did a case study in business at college and mars bar are made by the same company who make pedigree dog food..

Its not really news is it, the company is called Mars incorporated, uncle bens rice and whiskas cat food are also made by the same company.

SquirrelNutkins

Aldi Almat washingpowder seems to be very similar to Ariel. It looks and smells the same as far as I can tell, but I cant do a direct comparison as Ive noticed it with the Ariel at my friends place and the Almat at my place. Maybe someone else knows more about this and can clarify?

DCFC79

SquirrelNutkins wrote: »

Aldi Almat washingpowder seems to be very similar to Ariel. It looks and smells the same as far as I can tell, but I cant do a direct comparison as Ive noticed it with the Ariel at my friends place and the Almat at my place. Maybe someone else knows more about this and can clarify?

It might have been covered in this thread.

michael.souris_2

callum9999 wrote: »

That doesn't mean they are the same product, it merely means they have the same barcode number - no information is actually stored on the barcode about the product.

There is technically no reason why Aldi brand washing up liquid couldn't have the same barcode as Tesco Finest Lasange.

Not true. The majority of barcodes on supermarket products are EAN-13 codes. The first two or three digits show the country the barcode was issued in (not necessarily the same as the country of manufacture, but likely to be the country it was packaged in) so for example 50 shows the UK, 40-44 would be Germany.
The next block of around 5 digits (this does vary by issuer) indicate the manufacturer. The remaining digits are a unique product identifier for that manufacturer, and a check digit.
So a barcode for Aldi washing up liquid could not be the same as a Tesco lasagne, because the manufacturer (or labeller, e.g. Tesco) would be different, and even if it was Tesco washing up liquid, they would not issue a duplicate barcode because they would encounter inventory management problems.