Great 'disguised Own Brand' Hunt.

ailuro2

Car tyres- most of the big names now make tyres branded under a different banner, aimed at mostly the replacement market. The information is out there if you care to do a little Googling.

These tyres are still very well made, reliable, perform well etc, but technology such as run flat probably won't be made in these brands for some time, since ,for example, run-flat systems are mostly fitted to new cars.

If you are looking for tyres and it has to be on a budget, then I'd choose one of these lesser brands rather than remoulds/far east never heard of 'em names. As one poster said, the area in contact with the road is around the size of the palm of your hand for each tyre, and that isn't a lot when travelling at 30mph in dry conditions, never mind 70mph in the wet.:eek:

Definitely one area to spend that money you saved on buying expensive choccie biccies.

p.s. to reduce the distance the tyre has travelled, and to support buying British, ask the garage to check the DOTmark on the side of the tyre- it tells you where in the world the tyre was made;)

lorrydriver_2

i live in kettering, northants, and very close to the weetabix factories, they make all the supermarket brand cereal bisks, plus virtually all the ready break type cereals, plus all the cheaper alpen type cereals, very busy company, very little difference in the ingredients. weetabix is now owned by the americans.....shame really:mad:

also pringles are made by golden wonder/hunters foods in corby:D

also if you buy whitworths products from wellingboro the cheaper alternative is asda smartprice....morrisons...tesco etc....same factory blah blah:cool:

best thing is they all hail from the best county in the land, the rose of the shires northamptonshire:T :cool:

MissBehaving

Hi Guys

Sorry if I missed it in this thread but... I used to call on a company in Newbury called English Provender Company (EPC). They make things like Lazy garlic, cranberry sauce etc.
They are typically in square glass bottles with round lids and a square label.
Their products are wonderful.
However, they also make Tesco's versions! They will be in the same shape bottle, but obviously with the Tesco Finest label.

jamster

Here is an interesting paragraph from the Competition Commission report in to the acquisition of Macaw Holdings by Cott - two soft drinks manufacturers for the supermarkets.

http://www.competition-commission.gov.uk/inquiries/ref2005/macaw/prov_find_report.pdf

"Many retailers told us that switching suppliers was straightforward and inexpensive. Cott cites recent examples of Lidl, Tesco and Sainsbury’s switching to Cott and being supplied in as little as two to 12 weeks....many
supply agreements operate on a rolling basis or are not formally documented, which means that retailers are not locked in to using their incumbent supplier. Retailers own the brand name, packaging tends to be homogeneous, and it is relatively straightforward to replicate a recipe. The only costs that a customer seems to have to bear when switching are administrative and logistical. Cott suggested that these costs were limited to tendering costs, establishing new product and supplier codes... "

piggypoints3

You are right, English provender Company make a number of tesco Finest chutneys, sauces and salad dressings. They also make nearly all of Sainsburys salad dressings, including their taste the difference range. As well as making for Asda and Morrisons own brands!

A friend of mine used to work at Benedicks of Mayfair, who make chocolates on behalf of Marks and Spencer.

MissBehaving wrote: »

Hi Guys

Sorry if I missed it in this thread but... I used to call on a company in Newbury called English Provender Company (EPC). They make things like Lazy garlic, cranberry sauce etc.
They are typically in square glass bottles with round lids and a square label.
Their products are wonderful.
However, they also make Tesco's versions! They will be in the same shape bottle, but obviously with the Tesco Finest label.

Broke_Student

I saw an article in the newspaper today of how supermarket own brand products are disguised as supermarket own brand products!

What I mean is researched showed that 50% of supermarket premium brand products (i.e. Tesco Finest, Asda Extra Special) is not much better than their regular own brand products (in terms of both quality and taste).

Schamansky

Well, of course not!

There needn't be a real/physical/objective difference in the products at all. It is enough to create a perceived difference, by means of packaging or advertisement for instance. Price works too. There are enough muppets out there who tick "more expensive = better". And they fork out for that perceived difference.

That's how it's done. Increase profit through extracting higher margins out of a specific product.

Market segmentation, product differentiation, perceived value, and all that jazz.

Supermarket sells a product called "Ooze" Contains exactly that, and nothing else.
On the shelves you'll find:

Ooze Value (49p)
Just Ooze (1.19)
Ooze Finest (2.99)

Cost per unit: 35p + 10p more packaging cost for Ooze Finest.

Where's the money?

Vans_101

A friend of mine used to work for Marshalls Chunky Chicken (I think its Grampian now) and they used to pack the chicken for M&S and other companies. M&S were given the highest quality chicken and they standards were really high. Like a lot of people here have said, M&S do a lot of checks to make sure the standards are kept high. Also, if there were any complaints instore then feedback would be sent to the company that produced the products - If there were frequent complaints then they would lose the contract. A lot of people have also said that for certain products, the only thing thats different is the packaging. Im sure if there was an inspection by M&S then this would not be the case.

It was also mentioned by someone that salads and fruit etc are sent back to the supplier to be repackaged. I can assure you this never happened when I worked for M&S. Nothing was sent back to the supplier - Even damaged goods. Also stock taken off the shelf at the end of the night is sold to staff at a reduced price, offered free of charge to charities or binned. Any food products returned eg, bought by mistake but still in a saleable condition is disposed of just incase.

Moving on, Last summer I was away camping so went to ASDA to buy some battaries. I picked up some Energizer and ASDAs own make and ASDAs lasted longer and were only a fraction of the price.

As for medication, I always buy own brand paracetemol etc. Its exactly the same as the more expensive branded products as its such a regulated industry.

cnixon

No use now but about 6 years ago I was in Safeways, Basingstoke I found a bottle of washing conditioner with a Safeways label on one side and ....a Lenor label on the other side. Management would not let me buy it because....it had no bar code.

rmg1

Don't know how accurate this first one is, but apparently Lyons Bakeries (near to where I live) used to make apple pies exactly the same whether they were going to M&S or anywhere else.

From a personal point of view, I used to work in a meat factory where they made the sliced chicken/turkey, etc.
I can tell you for definate that they use the same ingredients for all customers, just put different "lids" on the plastic tubs.
(And you wouldn't beleive what goes into them .... if you really want to know what you're eating, PM me!)