Great 'disguised Own Brand' Hunt.

Sofa_Sogood

Cullumpster wrote:

Doug,

Some of the posters on here have mentioned that they used work in X factory and only used to stop their lines to change the packaging from one super,market to another so how can that be an urban myth

No offence meant

I worked in an 'X factory' so I think I can back up that it's not all urban myths. Apart from M&S having less salt in their products, (depending how big the job was or how much time the factory had left to complete the order), the same stuff went into numerous brand label containers. The only thing I saw that was different was that M&S visited the shop floor more often, checked the quality control etc. Maybe that's why they can be dearer? But they weren't on site full time, so often their stuff came from the same vats as others, and vice versa.

All I saw it as was M&S checked on the site and product. The ingredients were sometimes exactly the same as those priced at a lot less.

zappomatic

jazzyjustlaw wrote:

Thats disgraceful. No wonder it all goes off so quickly. There must be something we do about this guys. I wonder what Martin thinks of that!! Must be against some EU law!

When I worked at Waitrose a couple of years ago, any salad or veg, prepared or otherwise not sold went straight into the bin.

trace-j

DougWeller wrote:

Sorry to be skeptical, but some of these posts sound like urban myths.

An so what if factory X makes products for Retailers Y and Z? That doesn't make them the same.
What makes them the same is:
1. Identical ingredients/recipe (for food).
2 Identical manufacturing processes.
3. Identical quality control

etc.

For food, compare the labels -- even the you won't know if the ingredients are the same quality, but it's a start.

Doug

I agree, why would every manufacturer with a brand to sell then want to use the exact recipes for supermarket own branded products, who invariably be cheaper anyway?

Not saying it doesn't happen, but it's not that straight forward. I've seen a post about Sunny Valley somewhere in this thread. They make stuff for Sainsburys and Iceland amongst other supermarkets, but all the recipes are different. Different cuts of meat, proportions etc are used. In fact the better quality products are sold by Iceland own label and not Sun Valley themselves due to the cuts of meat used!

buses7675

grahawk wrote:

I think that Aiwa is made by Sony. I was looking for a radio CD cassette and found two identical looking models - one was Sony (£59) one Aiwa (£29). And of course if you search for Aiwa on google you get Aiwa.com listed as copyright Sony Corporation 2003. I assumed Aiwa get the cheap components and Sony just own them but perhaps not.

Hi All,

A bit late in this thread, but I believe Lite On (they make various computer components and stand alone DVD writers) are also owned by Sony.

There are several things to base this on, including Lite On and Sony seem to bring out DVD writers with the same specs within days, last year Lite On changed all its model numbers to a Sony series eg : they previously, for a DVD writer, used LDW (Lite on Dvd Writer), and they now use SOHW (which according to a DVD writer forum stands for SOny Half-height Writer), and finally, all Lite On drives have the note '(C) Sony Corporation' in their firmware!

Cheers

Steve

DougWeller

buses7675 wrote:

Hi All,

A bit late in this thread, but I believe Lite On (they make various computer components and stand alone DVD writers) are also owned by Sony.


Cheers

Steve

Lite-On makes drives for Sony and other retailers. Don't assume that the firmware is always the same.

DOug

buses7675

Hi All,

If you open up the firmware in Notepad, (you can do this as Lite-On let you download updates), they all have (C) Sony Corporation or similar towards the bottom of the file, or at least they did when I last checked!

Cheers

Steve

surfnlurk

Bought a Bosch dishwasher some while ago, some Hotpoint dishwashers are made by Bosch and are identical except for one or two cosmetic changes. The hotpoint are always much more expensive. I suppose this may happen across the ranges.

wilbur111

I agree with Doug. I've just read the past 24 pages and I'd say that the majority of non-biscuit/bread examples simply say "are made by the same company".

When a B&Q sales assistant told me that their own brand was the same as the name brand, I phoned up the company right there in the aisles and asked them. There was about a fiver (times six tubs) difference so it was worth the call. The company rep appeared angry that the B&Q man would say this, not because it was a secret but, it seemed, because it was inaccurate.
Although they made both adhesives, B&Q contracted his company and told him the recipe they wanted it made to - and that recipe was not the same as his.
At the same time, as own-brands are more profitable, I can see why B&Q might encourage its staff to seed the legend that they're identical. Or say things in such a way that such an impression might be given to their staff.


On top of that: an internal component being made by a different company to that on the badge is less important than which component it is.
Roksan make very expensive CD players, for example. The lasers they were using (if I remember rightly) were Panasonic, but they were using very high quality Panasonic lasers - and they are different quality of lasers depending on which of their CD players you got. I seem to remember reading how the latest Roksan sounded so incredible in part because of the new Panasonic XYZ789 laser it was using.
So I would imagine that a cheaper CD player may use panasonic lasers as well, but perhaps only laser model ABC123 which only costs 10p instead of £20.

Let's not forget that companies like Matsuhita are huge and probably make lasers similar to those found in CD players but that are vastly superior and cost tens of thousands of pounds each - and are used in delicate areas like medicine.

lipidicman

I used to sell Roksan. The lasers were certainly Japanese, but had very little impact on the quality of the cd player. The superior quality (over a cheap Panasonic CD player) is largely due to the quality of the digital to analogue conversion, the analogue stages and critically the power supply of the cd players. Obviously the transport and laser mech need to accurately read the disc, but any reasonable mechanism should do this. The laser will make a difference, but it is small compared to the other components. All that is required is accuracy and reliability, and the Japanese kit cannot be beaten in these departments.

RufusA

Just to second what wilbur11 & Doug said, being made in the same factory is no indication of quality.

One of my pet hates is when you go to purchase new tyres, and almost every time the tyre "specialist" tries to sell you some overpriced generic brand usually based on the fact that it "comes from the same factory that makes the F1 tyres for Bridgestone" or similar. The implication that if you buy their Raging Good Fast Korean tyre it will offer similar levels of grip as F1 tyres!

Seeing as a few cms of rubber is all that prevents your car from oversteering in to the opposite lane when cornering. I personally never skimp on tyres.

YMMV - Rufus.