The Rise of the Home Brands

Recently, we asked you what you thought of the rise of the supermarket home brand and here is what you said:

The things you like about home brands – well, perhaps not surprisingly, top of the list is more money in your pocket! Never mind the quality, if there’s a saving you’ll take it. Particularly in the case of staple items – bread, flour, pasta and so on. This doesn’t apply to all categories of products though – when it comes to personal hygiene or products for your kids, or even your favourite tuna, quality comes first!

Home brands are not all good news though. According to some of you, the home brands are taking away from and replacing your favourite brands, and not everyone is convinced that their quality is as good as their old favourites. Jan also dislikes “the sneaky way the home brands go about it by using the same colours, designs etc as the named brands so that sometimes you actually buy them by mistake.”

Another big concern is that home brands are not Australian. Lyn says, “The issues become a problem when the home brand products start to be imported for overseas & the branded & "Australian Made" products start to disappear from the shelves.”

But the view of many is - don’t be snobby about home brands. If they taste the same or do the same, why waste money! And If you can’t make up your mind what to go for, why don’t you follow Chemosa’s suggestion of blind testing - “and if you cannot tell the difference, buy the cheapest!”