Generic Brands are Good

Originally Published: June 24, 2019

When you’re shopping I know you’ve come across the same product under two different brands.

Either a name brand, like Oreo, Lays, Coca-Cola etc. or a ‘generic’ brand, Great Value, Signature Select, Shasta Cola etc.

And we often see these ‘Generic Brands’ as being of significantly lower quality compared to the name brands.

So, if you saw Oreo Cookies or Great Value Cream Cookies right next to each other, which would you get? Most people would probably choose the Oreo Cookies, right?

Well, while I won’t deny a quality difference, Oreos are definitely better than Great Value Cream cookies (Or whatever Generic brand I bought a few weeks ago) I’m not sure if it’s worth the $5 Oreos charge compared to the $2.50 from Great Value.

So I definitely think that Generic brands are a better deal in a lot of cases over the name brands.

However, I do think that some brands are worth the money they charge.

How does that work after I just told you how good of a deal Generic Brands are? Well, here’s a case where it is worth the money.

Ben & Jerry’s Ice Cream. So you can either buy Ben & Jerry’s for $5, or you can get more Ice Cream for $3 by choosing a more generic brand. In this case, Ben & Jerry’s is the better deal. Why is that the case here and not with Oreo? Well here’s a fun fact about Ice Cream. There are different rankings so to speak, for ice cream. The IFDA lists 4 quality segments for ice cream.

There’s low quality “Economy”, which is pretty much just ice cream speak for “it’s just plastic with some milk.”

Higher quality “Regular,” which may qualify as Ice Cream.

Pretty good “Premium,” which is when it starts getting “Hey, that’s pretty good.”

And finally, the best Ice Cream in the known universe “superpremium.” Yes, that is what is it called. It’s pretty much when the manufacturer uses the best ingredients they can to make the ice cream.

So why do I mention all this in a video saying that generic brands are good? Well, it’s to teach you all that, it’s often more complicated what’s good and what isn’t. Sometimes the Generic brands are better, sometimes the Name brands are better.

So, this is all to say, buy Generic first, save some money, and then look into it and see why the name brands charge upwards of 2-4x generic costs.

And to buy what’s actually worth the money.