Supermarket's own?

[Hover Fly]

Tinned peas are where it's at.

 

[Globalti]

I work closely with the industry that creates the own label products for the supermarkets and I can tell you with certainty that in the case of the toiletries, the household products and the laundry products the quality is definitley inferior. The typical pattern is that Unilver/Henkel/P&G/Colgate launches a new product or technology and within days Sainso/Tesco/Asda/Safeway/etc. etc are scrabbling to pull it apart, find out how it works and copy it for less money. The only way to do that when competing with the msssive buying power of the big multis is to give heavily inferior raw materials. Oh, and screw your suppliers.

 

[Tim Bennet.]

Birds Eye peas.......

A frozen pea is a frozen pea...........?

Now a fresh pea....ahem..... is much better...........

No, in the frozen pea factory, the peas are graded for quality (including time from harvest) and are bagged accordingly. Any pea good enough to be accepted by Birds Eye is sold to Bird's Eye - they pay the most.

 

[Paulus]

This morning I took a risk with the aim of saving a little money. I decided to try Sainsbury's Corn Flakes instead of Mr Kellog's. Surely you can't go far wrong with cornflakes. In reality, they don't taste of a huge amount anyway, what could possibly go wrong.

Uuugh! Come back Mr Kellog, all is forgiven.


I made the same mistake with the cornflakes. I do buy Sainsbury's red label tea though, i prefer it to PG or Tetleys.

 

[Mr Pig]

I can tell you with certainty that in the case of the toiletries, the household products and the laundry products the quality is definitely inferior.

My wife insists on buying obscure washing up liquid and it's rubbish! You need to use four-times the amount and it still isn't very good.

 

[Globalti]

Even a reasonable quality dishwash contains 55% water and that's not including the water that the surfactants come mixed with. The actual surfactant would be around 12 - 16%.

 

[srw]

I'm not impressed with any of the asda stuff. their pot noodles are absolutely awful.

That could be because it's a pot noodle...

 

[zizou]

tesco's finest chocolate chip cookies are great. sadly only 4 to a packet unlike their regular ones which come as 5s

 

[theclaud]

Yes, but freshly picked ones are nicer than any frozen one. Although the frozen ones are a very good substitute, I thought that was what he meant.

Yes but the point is that the "fresh" peas available aren't often all that fresh. Peas deteriorate so quickly - a freshly frozen one beats a stale "fresh" one any day.

 

[theclaud]

That could be because it's a pot noodle...

Funnily enough, that was exactly my analysis of the problem!

 

[theclaud]

I distinctly said "freshly picked" theclaud!

Point taken! I'm a bit slow this morning. But the only way to get freshly picked is really to grow your own. Same with sweetcorn. So if we're talking about supermarkets (and I believe we are) frozen petit pois are where it's at.

 

[karlos_the_jackal]

The only way to do that when competing with the msssive buying power of the big multis is to give heavily inferior raw materials. Oh, and screw your suppliers.

My bro used to work in the buying department of morrissons and my dad used to work for several years supplying to the supermarkets and M&S a range of fruit.veg and flowers.

And couldnt agree with you more, they tighten and tighten and tighten the margins, it just used to be tesco but its now all of them. The quality of own brand product is not there, unless you go for the finest range, and to make that different to the consumer you lower the bottom range and price.

 

[Kirstie]

I'm struggling to think of any 'big brands' I'm 'loyal' to.
Quorn, Colgate Total, Simple Soap, Weetabix and Colmans' English Mustard are all I can think of ie that we buy reasonably regularly. We have Mozza's own brand dishwasher tablets and washing power on a fairly regular basis... dunno really...

 

[theclaud]

Rachel's Organic for choice

I always buy their stuff. I used to live near them, and they were the country's first certified organic dairy. After the supermarkets started stocking them, their next move was to undercut them with their own inferior rip-offs. Same with the wonderful O'Hagan's sausages, although the story there is much more sinister.

 

[Globalti]

A friend of mine grows orchids in massive glasshouses and one fine day when he was out his wife hosted a visit from M&S, who retail this particular type of orchid for £11.99.

On hearing that my friend's price was £5.00 a plant the M&S buyer offered £4.50. "No, sorry", replied my friend's wife. "It's £5.00. There's the door."

She went up 1000% in my estimation when I heard that story!