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Brand Names & Store Brands Compared

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Oct 21, 2009 5:45 pm US/Eastern

Brand Names & Store Brands Compared

LINK: ConsumerReports.org

(KDKA) Generic brands used to come in those boring black and white packages on grocery store shelves that looked and usually tasted bland.

But Consumer Reports now says that store brands are lot better in terms of the quality and in terms of the packaging.

Consumer Reports surveyed subscribers about their preferences when it comes to food. Seventy percent of those surveyed said the quality of store brands is really quite high.

Trained tasters with Consumer Reports compared leading brand names to store brands, trying 29 different foods. They did blind taste tests on everything from salsa to frozen strawberries.

Betty Crocker's au gratin potatoes went head to head with Great Value's by Walmart. At half the price, Great Value was the winner.

Old El Paso Thick n' Chunky Salsa battled it out with Costco's Kirkland Signature Organic. Testers found that Kirkland's medium salsa was tastier and is almost half the price.

Also, DiGiorno's frozen pepperoni pizza was pitted against the Archer Farms pie from Target. That taste test turned out to be a tie, but the Archer Farms brand was about a dollar cheaper.

Overall, Consumer Reports said tasters found the store brands as good as or better than big-name brands 23 out of 29 times. So switching to store brands can be a tasty way to trim your grocery bill.

Many supermarkets are making a tryout worth your while by offering a money-back guarantee on their brands and some regional stores are going even further.

(© MMIX, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.)

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