Great 'disguised Own Brand' Hunt.

steveeeee

muggles wrote: »

OK from what I can tell, nobody's mentioned cars here. Soooo, here goes.
Seat Leons are VW Golfs, which are closely related to the Audi A3 and the Audi TT. The Leon is cheaper, so buy that one and get a better spec for your money. Incidentally, the TT is available with a choice of either a 2.0 197BHP TFSI engine and two wheel drive, or a 3.2 247BHP V6 with four wheel drive. As is the VW Golf. This is not a coincidence. Price difference between the TT and the Golf? Five grand.
Ford Mondeos and Jaguar X-types are the same, but taking the top of each range as an example, the Mondeo 3.0 V6 ST220 is six grand cheaper than the Jaguar 3.0 V6 (which granted develops a whole eight more horsepower on the books, but Ford are well-known for understading the power of their engines, so they're probably the same in reality). I believe Mazda6's are also pretty much the same mechanically.
I think I'm right in saying that Ford TDCi engines are the same as Peugeot HDi engines when you take the branding off.
The Toyota Aygo, Citroen C1 and Peugeot 107 are in fact the same car, but have slightly different options and are priced differently.
The Masterati MC12 is a Ferrari Enzo.
The Vauxhall VX220 is a Lotus Elise.
The Ford Focus and Volvo S40 sit on the same chassis. As, I believe, does the Volvo C30.
The Citroen Berlingo, Renault Kangoo and Peugeot Partner are all the same. They haven't even bothered to change the styling (or what they seem to think passes for styling), it's just the badges that are different. The same goes for the Vauxhall Vivaro/Renault Trafic/Nissan Primastar.

There are others but I'm getting bored of this now, feel free to add to it

Did you even read this thread?? :think:

http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?p=3998793#post3998793

alsmith_3

Uncle_Cuddles wrote: »

Is it me, or is all Corned Beef canned in Brazil and just labelled in the UK? My wife insists on buying Princes branded, when the ASDA own brand has the same stamp on the base of the can!!

Too simplistic. Look at the batch codes, if they are the same you may be right. When they are different they can very easily use different ingredients and processing.

Manufactured products are produced in batches and ingredients are specified including weight/volume tolerances. The manufacturing process is specified including mixing times, temperatures, sampling points at relevant part processed points to meet the required specifications and can vary dramatically between superficially similar products made and packaged in the same factories.
The extra testing can provide a signifcantly more consistent final product. The cheaper products can produce more variability because the part process checks arent made so adjustments are not made to get that consistentcy of product. It possibly doesn't have too much effect most of the time but remember food is made using natural products. Even flour can have a lot of variability, as can other ingredients. For more expensive products these ingredients often need to meet certain specifications, for cheaper ones if it says flour on the sacks that is OK. Things like potatoes are seasonal so varieties used in products can change, and cheaper brands can use less expensive different varieties- and change this more frequently to the cheapest available variety. A potatoe is just a potatoe? I'm sure most people have favourite brands for different purposes. The favourite variety for cheaper products is often the least expensive one- they do have more strict costings to meet.

As I'm sure adding these tests adds cost but can improve consistency, and quality at times. In process checks add not just cost through the testing, but through added processing times- not all tests just take 20 or 30 seconds.

So things are not neccessarily as simple as portrayed, similar batch numbers can easily bear little relation to each other- batch 34d456201 may be a premium brand digestive biscuit, batch 34d456202 a supermarket own brand digestive biscuit, batch 34d456203 a bach of flapjacks. All with different recipes.
Just because a number is similar does not mean the product is similar- they don't make the batch numbers more different the bigger the difference in products. It's just a number to allow tracking when being made and tracing after being made.

If the products are the same look for the same batch number, but bear in mind that these companies aren't stupid. It's easy to assign a new number to any batch filled into different packaging- that is the standard process in some factories.

Btw- I was a quality manager, and in addition to our own manufacturing facility many other contractors were used. You may be buying one product but that could be made at one of many sites. That can add more variability into products- different sites can use completely different manufacting equipment, not just different people, quaity difference is often minimised by brand name additional testing and tighter specifications.

The only ones who know are product managers and the like, shop floor workers pick up bits of the story- often far from the whole story.

There can be far more to this than many of the jigsaw pieces in this thread. Few see the whole puzzle. Bottom line - try the lower priced products and buy if you like. If you get an odd different one don't necessarily stop buying, it could be product variability for a number of reasons. Just make sure you get a different batch next time.

charlieheard

muggles wrote: »

OK from what I can tell, nobody's mentioned cars here. Soooo, here goes.
Seat Leons are VW Golfs, which are closely related to the Audi A3 and the Audi TT. The Leon is cheaper, so buy that one and get a better spec for your money. Incidentally, the TT is available with a choice of either a 2.0 197BHP TFSI engine and two wheel drive, or a 3.2 247BHP V6 with four wheel drive. As is the VW Golf. This is not a coincidence. Price difference between the TT and the Golf? Five grand.
Ford Mondeos and Jaguar X-types are the same, but taking the top of each range as an example, the Mondeo 3.0 V6 ST220 is six grand cheaper than the Jaguar 3.0 V6 (which granted develops a whole eight more horsepower on the books, but Ford are well-known for understading the power of their engines, so they're probably the same in reality). I believe Mazda6's are also pretty much the same mechanically.
I think I'm right in saying that Ford TDCi engines are the same as Peugeot HDi engines when you take the branding off.
The Toyota Aygo, Citroen C1 and Peugeot 107 are in fact the same car, but have slightly different options and are priced differently.
The Masterati MC12 is a Ferrari Enzo.
The Vauxhall VX220 is a Lotus Elise.
The Ford Focus and Volvo S40 sit on the same chassis. As, I believe, does the Volvo C30.
The Citroen Berlingo, Renault Kangoo and Peugeot Partner are all the same. They haven't even bothered to change the styling (or what they seem to think passes for styling), it's just the badges that are different. The same goes for the Vauxhall Vivaro/Renault Trafic/Nissan Primastar.

There are others but I'm getting bored of this now, feel free to add to it

This has been covered in this thread, though it is getting rather large to trawl through.

The list of similar cars is getting longer as makers cannot afford to develop cars for every niche appearing in the market. Mitsubishi's latest Outlander is to be sold as the Citroen C-Crosser and a Peugeot (name escapes me). The new FIAT Sedici and Suzuki SX4 are essentially the same cars under the skin. But see my earlier posts about the similarity of a SEAT to an Audi! For example, the VW Phaeton is a built on the same platform as the Bentley Continental, but they are NOT the same car.

Finally the Renault Kangoo is a totally different car to the Citroen Kangoo/Peugeot Partner twins, although they have a similar profile. Those with time can look at the Kangoo's sliding door handles and runners compared to the Citroen's

Schamansky

Update on Aldi:

the orange squash is made by the British subsidary of Cott Beverages, Toronto, number 4 in the world of soft drinks.

http://www.cott.com/

With over 700 employees and headquartered in Kegworth UK, Cott operates 3 beverage production facilities in the United Kingdom.

Our customers include some of the biggest food retailers and wholesalers in the UK, as well as a large number of leading retailers throughout Europe.

Some of Cott's UK recent market introductions include an exciting Hi-energy mixer and a premium organic fruit carbonate.

They should be the ones behind quite a few other supermarket brands, since they mainly produce retail brands.

dancingfeet

Just a quickie - I did a few days work in a bread packing factory when I was a student in Cardiff (many years ago). The person I was working with said that all the bread is the same recipe it just goes into different bags, whether it is value or not, and for whichever supermarket! The only bread that was made to a different recipe was Kingsmill - and it did look different.

This was 10 - 12 years ago and the story may well have changed as many stores have their own in store bakeries now.

Schamansky

Talking cat and dog food,

we got two nice high stacks of makro's so called "breederpack" cat and dog food each. The cans had a strange layer of stuff on the top, like sprayed on after. Being inquisitive by nature, we scratched those sprayed-on layers off, and what appeared:

the "Felix" paw
"winalot"

Resprayed and flogged at 29p incl.

xgizzy

My sister used to work in a factory packing dried pasta & sauce. All the same pasta went into different packaging whether it be Batchelors,Morrisons,Sainsburys,Aldi,Netto or Shops own brand.
Just goes to show you only pay for the name. Beware probably exists for other products too.

Sami_Bee

Al_Inshearah wrote: »

Kellogg's do make cereals for others. Their Rice Krispies go into Nestle Toffee Crisp's. But you're right the don't sell there cereals as breakfast cereals to anyone else

I don't believe that nestle (a company that produces breakfast cereals) would buy kellogs to use in there choc bars!

si_and_linz

Apologies if this has been mentioned before - I havent read the whole thread through!
My daughter and I did a mystery taste test and couldn't tell the difference between Baileys Irish Cream and Asda's County Cream - I think they're the same.

shellt40

When I lived in North Yorkshire, i worked for a company called Moorland foods. They used to cul and pack chickens and turkeys. I worked over Christmas for extra dosh and was amazed when we packed xxxx amount of turkeys in Tesco bags then swopped to M & S bags after xxxx of those they then moved on to Sainsburys and so it went on. So they were the same turkeys but in different packaging for the relevant shops. So tesco turkey was the same as M & S but cheaper..... How does that work. I let all my family know that there was absoloutly no difference in the contents but only the price.