Food buyers leave large labels for the “flat box” and experts say you should do it too

Generic brands, sometimes known as the “private label” or “shops”, are becoming more popular today, as buyers are facing food prices in grocery stores.

Some consumers believe that these brands are lower, as generic articles usually cost less than their brand counterparts. As a result, they avoid these products.

But experts say they have noticed a change in consumption to generic brands, as people save money by buying these generics.

“Do not assume a luxury label means higher quality,” said Sylvain Charlebois, a professor and food distribution and food policy researcher at Dalhousie University in Canada, at Fox News Digital.

“Sometimes the flat box is the best product and the best product.”

Kyndra Holley, author of the cookbook “Simply Delicious”, told Fox News Digital that he uses store brand ingredients in his kitchen “without hesitation”.

“It’s less important than people think,” he said.

“Although there are some name brands in which I trust the consistency,” he added, “I’m generally not faithful to labels.”

The food blogger, which lives near Seattle, focuses on grocery shopping tips for the budget in his new book, and said that the preparation for large eating should not be “complicated or expensive”.

When there may be some small nutritional differences between generic articles and their brand counterparts, Holley said that “differences are minimal”.

“Sometimes you will see a little more sodium or sugar on each other, but they are usually comparable or sometimes even identical,” he said.

“If you know how to season, balance the flavors and cook with intent, you can even turn the most humble pantry graphics into a showstopper,” he said.

Elizabeth Schwab, a founding president of the Arts Behavioral Economics Program and president of the Chicago School Business Psychology Program, said he has noticed a similar behavior to the consumer when buying.

“Consumers seem to adopt generics about the name brand in many categories due to a variety of influences, both economic and social,” Fox News Digital told.

Fox News Digital contacted the Private Association of Manufacturers of the Tag for Comments.

The scarcity of products during the pandemic encouraged many consumers to try other brands, such as generics, due to the limited availability of products at that time, according to Schwab.

“This worked to expand consumers’ awareness of the breadth of the options they had and discovered that generic, in certain categories, maintained small perceimable differences in quality,” he said.

This is in line with what Charlebois has also observed in the industry.

“People are more sensitive to the price than ever,” he said.

Now, Charlebois said, price sensitivity should not be the cost of quality.

“Some brands of current stores are practically indistinguishable from national brands, especially for basic products such as pasta, preserves and dairy. In many cases, they are manufactured by the same manufacturers.”

Holley shared a similar observation, emphasizing that the quality of generic versions has “improved dramatically”.

“Current storage brands often rival, or even overcome, name marks with flavor and texture,” he said.

“You can find excellent generic for everything, from pasta sauce to frozen vegetables.”

The author of the cookbook also praised the quality of generic pantry products such as flour, sugar, canned beans, dry pasta and basic spices, saying that the shop brand is “often equal to good”.

She advised: “They split the ingredients that really affect the taste, such as good cheese, oils and vinegars and butter, to name a few.”