Generic vs. Name Brand
You Get What You Pay For
When you shop for groceries where do you stand in choosing either a generic vs. brand name product? Do you reach for the brand name box of Kraft macaroni and cheese, or would you rather pick up a generic box of macaroni and cheese to save that extra 10 cents? Is your decision based off a difference in taste or is it simply a matter of paying for quality of the product? What does spending more money on a brand name food product have to say about who we are in our culture today? Today there is an idea that by buying a brand name product a person is buying something of more quality, which can strangely in turn determine our importance in society. My mother stood firm by the phrase “you get what you pay for”. Meaning name brand foods taste better and are higher quality, and that the no name “generic” brands are cheap and don’t taste as good. I even remember years ago on a routine trip to the grocery store, my mother asked me to get spaghetti sauce. When I returned my mother remarked, “Lauren you got the wrong sauce. Please run and get me the good sauce, the name brand spaghetti sauce, not this cheap gross sauce”. Afterwards she was even given a taste test between the two sauces, and struggled to make a choice and give me the right answer to support her belief.
Considering most generic brand foods and the name brand foods taste almost identical to one another, wouldn’t one think that the less expensive, no name brand would be the obvious one to buy? Yet society still is drawn to choose the name brand items. Shoppers are quite leery of some categories. Although they’ll snap up store brand paper goods and plastics, consumers almost never buy store-brand wine, pet food, soda, or soup. That may be especially true when the category includes a name brand such as Coca-Cola or Campbell’s.
Most grocery store shoppers know that buying generic store brand products instead of the brand name products can save a lot of money. In fact, by
When you shop for groceries where do you stand in choosing either a generic vs. brand name product? Do you reach for the brand name box of Kraft macaroni and cheese, or would you rather pick up a generic box of macaroni and cheese to save that extra 10 cents? Is your decision based off a difference in taste or is it simply a matter of paying for quality of the product? What does spending more money on a brand name food product have to say about who we are in our culture today? Today there is an idea that by buying a brand name product a person is buying something of more quality, which can strangely in turn determine our importance in society. My mother stood firm by the phrase “you get what you pay for”. Meaning name brand foods taste better and are higher quality, and that the no name “generic” brands are cheap and don’t taste as good. I even remember years ago on a routine trip to the grocery store, my mother asked me to get spaghetti sauce. When I returned my mother remarked, “Lauren you got the wrong sauce. Please run and get me the good sauce, the name brand spaghetti sauce, not this cheap gross sauce”. Afterwards she was even given a taste test between the two sauces, and struggled to make a choice and give me the right answer to support her belief.
Considering most generic brand foods and the name brand foods taste almost identical to one another, wouldn’t one think that the less expensive, no name brand would be the obvious one to buy? Yet society still is drawn to choose the name brand items. Shoppers are quite leery of some categories. Although they’ll snap up store brand paper goods and plastics, consumers almost never buy store-brand wine, pet food, soda, or soup. That may be especially true when the category includes a name brand such as Coca-Cola or Campbell’s.
Most grocery store shoppers know that buying generic store brand products instead of the brand name products can save a lot of money. In fact, by