Great 'disguised Own Brand' Hunt.

sausagefans

lyniced wrote:

A family member works for a leading supermarket told me that 'leading' brands have to be put at eye level on the shelf. Apparently the manufactuers pay the supermarkets to do so. Its all to do will psychology. So we have to start bending and stretching to get the same stuff! By the way I often try the economy brands. Some of them are yuk (Tesco's economy tea for example) but some are really ok (Tesco's economy chocolate digestive bars are really nice) so give it a go.

You may also be aware that they often get paid for things which appear on the end of the isle, the idea being as you watch the corner as you go round with the trolly you see the products! Notice how many BOGOFs you get on isle ends.

Cheers

SK

Roccket990

I used to work at Weetabix, Burton Latimer and Corby, as a contactor and they were the only plant in the world making "bix" type cereals.

They did have a competitor in South Wales but they bought them out, shipped all the machines to Burton Latimer, and used them themselves

As far as I know the situation hasn't changed. so any Weetabix type biscuits you buy, all come from Weetabix.

sausagefans

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.

In the past (This may not now be true) Sony used the Aiwa brand to release stuff onto the market which they then "improved" (or not!) and released under the Sony label with a bigger price tag!

sausagefans

ajdandcjd wrote:

Just an amusing story to prove the point so to speak - my husband used to work on Rolls Royce aircraft engines and the ball bearings used on some of the components are exactly the same as the ones used on domestic washing machines but for the aircraft they paid around £300 and you can buy them for the washing machine for probably £30 at the most! Therefore, if you need a bearing for your aircraft engine - buy a washing machine one!!!

A mate of mine used to work for the RAF and he told me that the bolts for the ejector seat in a certain plane were £60 each, same available for pence at the local hardware store.

He explained that the engineering on the bolts on the ejector seat make the difference between the pilot living or dying, the ones in the hardware store are knocked out and not checked! Same with your ball bearings, I would happily pay £300 to make sure they were *perfect* and not just almost perfect!

Cheers

Stephen

wizk1

Hi

Not many people know this, but the WalMart group (Parent company of ASDA) have their own brand of electronics they sell in their stores.

Down to my own research, I have found that most Durabrand appliances such as VCRs and DVD players use Sanyo components. I'm not entirely sure if they are manufactured by Sanyo themselves, but internally, they are almost identical.

Denzelpuppy

For a few years I was Head Chef for Trust House Fortes In Flight Catering service which is now called (ALPHA). every airlines food is produced in the same kitchens using the same ingrediants, the only difference is packaging & weight difference on some items ie on a breakfast 1 Airline might stipulate 5grms mushrooms and another 3grms. One thing that always amazed me was for the grilled tomato. a raw tomatoe was placed into the container, we then had a branding iron (similar to what they brand cows with) that we just heated up and touched the top of each tomato so when it was reheated on the plane it looked like a grilled tomato

kennethian

You have obviously never driven a Vauxhall Astra. We have had an Astra Club 1.6 for the past 6 years from new. This car offers the cheapest and most reliable motoring I had in 45 years of driving and owning cars. Suggest you get out and try one.

youngie

woekitten wrote:

Waitrose, co op, somerfield, tesco and sainsburys houmus is the same as M&S it would seem :rotfl: :rotfl: :rotfl: :rotfl:

well they all withdrew the houmus during a contamination scare strange Asda didn't

crazy_guy

I used to work in a bacon factory over summer and found that all the bacon is exactly the same, comes from the same pig infact! (Sounds obvious but i've heard some people say its better quality)

The only difference between finest and value is that finest only has the best cuts and are quite attractive in their packaging while value has any of the bits that resemble bacon and the rest is the same as finest but generally didn't need packing as prettily

We also used to produce microwavable bacon, only difference is that inside the pack they have a absorbtion pack for the water. For lazy people!

Another place i worked, packaging branded meat. All i did one day was open up one retailers (cant remember who's) packaging and then putting the meat through a machine to make new packaging.

This is similar when i worked for one day (it was horrid) in a fruit factory, again i've heard people say that some packaged fruit is of higher quality. All we did there was, carry grocer's boxes of fruit up to a machine which put all the fruit in a net, price jumped up obviously for the lovely net, this was for tesco and sainsburys which used the same companies for their fruit.

Oh tesco value bananas are del monte branded

DocBambs

hollie.weimeraner wrote:

I've just replaced a ceramic fuse inside a Crown microwave oven. All the working parts were marked Toshiba.

This has been going on for years with white goods (fridge/freezers, washing machines, etc) and consumer electronic too.

Years ago, when I was a bench tech in a computer company, I repaired computer monitors/TVs and it was quite common to find Philips tubes in Panasonic monitors and Panasonic tubes in Philips units.

LCD/ & Plasma screens will be similar - not many companies make the screens, but different brands will use A, B or C class screens (Apple & Sony tend to want the best screens with fewest imperfections but they probably came off the same production line as the own brand products).

Buying computers, you will find that almost all companies just assemble from other manufacturers parts (HP Laptops may be fitted with an IBM or Toshiba branded hard disk.) In fact, with laptops, even the cases are used by different suppliers.... it's all mix and match!

How about Flymo? I understand that a number of it's competitors are also owned by the same company (Husqvarna) so whichever you buy they probably get the business and it may have been made on the same production line.

DB