What Are the Best Foods to Buy Generic at the Grocery Store?
Some grocery staples are virtually identical whether they carry a national brand or a store label, making them some of the easiest places to cut your grocery bill without sacrificing quality. We spoke to grocery pricing experts and food professionals to find out which foods they say consistently offer the biggest savings when bought generic and where brand names are worth paying for. They also shared tips on how to shop smarter every trip.
Why Generic Foods Can Cost So Much Less: Private-label products, a store’s own brand, are often manufactured in the very same facilities as the national brands sitting next to them on the shelf.
“When you buy store brand, it’s not that the specific retailer is making mustard or tomato sauce; they contract with the big brand manufacturers to produce goods that are then packaged under the store’s private label,” says Jessica Rice, senior test kitchen editor at Budget Bytes. “Often, they share the same factory and quality, which makes a great argument for store-brand items. The prices are kept low for store brands because they don’t have to buy television advertising to support the sales like most name-brand products.”
Excerpted from Martha Stewart
