I never used to touch the no name brands (black and gold etc) but recently with the cost of some stuff (and having a mortgage) We've been trying some of the cheap coles or woolies branded stuff, in some cases I find them actually better than brand name stuff. So in honor of boredom, add your suggestions to try out or avoid.

THE GOOD

Coles Brand BBQ Crinkle Cut Chips
These are awesome, they taste just like the old BBQ ruffles which I used to love, although obviously not the same style of chip, they're cut more like samboys. The Salt and vinegar flavour of these are awesome too, a lot more seasoning on them than smiths\samboys.

Corn Chips
I've only tried the original flavour of these, no complaints, would buy again. They're probably slightly saltier than CCs or Doritos though.

Coles\Woolies Brand Coco-Pops
Surprisingly these taste better than real coco-pops, actually it's not so much the taste (which is identical) but the texture, they're much crunchier and don't go soggy as quickly as the real ones.

Taco Mix
Tastes exactly like the branded stuff, no difference

Cheese
We usually get light and tasty (I used to get devondale) but the coles one of this is probably better, a lot more taste, not as mild.

Milk
I usually would get Trim or the farmers branded one (whatever it was called) but the coles\woolies brand ones are just as good.


THE BAD

Cheese
As mentioned above I like the light and tasty style of cheese. We recently got the woolies one but I was not impressed, it's not as sharp and it's quite soft and creamy (I guess if you're into that kinda thing you might like it hough)

Tim Tams
Complete fail, these were nasty and powdery. No match for the real deal.

Home Brand, Cracked Pepper Water Cracker.

$0.99c a pack... tasty, perfect and completely satisfiable for dip.

f*** yeah, I forgot about those add them to the list too

Aldi nearly everything

Also Vitafresh cordial from coles/woolies 60cents a packet. Big in NZ not much at all over here tho, No Raro! :(

Home brand icecream tends to be s***.

If you compare the containers you can find where the products are actually made.

home brand peanut butter is identical to kraft peanut butter, etc.

Frakture has the right idea. Woolworths gets a lot of companies to make their prodcuts. For example their homebrand bread is made by tiptop. Homebrand milk is identical to woolworths milk.

The Select WOW brand is just a relabeling of homebrand products.

Good:
You'll Love Coles pasta is pretty tops. Nothing compared to the fresh stuff, but it's as good as any other dried stuff you'll get for under $5*
Home Brand tuna in brine/springwater
Canned tomatoes (I can't stress this enough)
Olive Oil (I've found the savings on this isn't that great though, meh)
Milk (it all comes out the same cow tits. When I worked at Woolies, I'm pretty sure the full cream cheap milk was from Dairy Farmers and the low fat ones were from Pura)
Scotch Fingers
I don't know if they still make it, but Home Brand puff pastry used to be good
Fruit cake ($3 last time I got one. Great to slice up for lunches or serve when you have visitors for a cuppa. Goes great with custard too for a nice dessert.)
Oats - the rolled kind you use to make porridge (Homebrand Oats are the best you'll find on the shelf in your supermarket IMO)
LA Ice cola is dirt cheap and rocks. Their Pepsi Max clone (Maxi Ice) is tops.
Frozen mixed veggies
Frozen sliced onions (VERY convenient)
YLC chips (I've tried plain and salt + vinegar, both good)
Lightbulbs. Come on, it's made of glass, you can SEE that they're all just the same thing.

Bad: (i.e. Not good, but passable if it's all you can get)
Cheapo brand cornflakes/rice bubbles
Tea

Ugly: (i.e. I'd rather starve)
Flavoured Tuna (particularly home brand and you'll love coles)
Coffee
Packet pasta mix thingies (the ones with pasta and powder in a sachet, you add water etc and it makes a pasta in sauce type thing)
Eggs (cage eggs are s***, I'm happy to spend the extra dosh for free range. This is mostly a conscience thing, but they do taste better)
Frozen pies


Cleaning products is also a place where you can benefit if you shop carefully. Spree brand laundry powder is only $3 a box, and it ranks highly in all the product tests I've seen (often top 3, usually top 5, beating products twice the price). I use that hippy brand fabric softener... Earth Choice I think it's called. $2 a litre, environmentally friendly and decent results. I'd spend maybe $2.50 a month on laundry products (unless the ATO is asking *wink*). Things like insect sprays and detergents are good too. They all do the same s***, the Mortein MIGHT just do it a bit quicker. Buying expensive dishwashing detergent liquid is a waste of money too, they're all pretty much the same thing with different stuff added (like antibacterials or fragrance). Ask anybody who knows a lot about polymers or chemicals (I'm guessing Chub could back this up).

Buying fruit and veg that's in season is a good trick too. It's cheaper AND better. I know, avocado is awesome, but when they're $4 and as hard as priest in a playground, it's not worth it.

*If you like pasta and want to save money, I'd recommend buying a pasta maker (it'll set you back $30). Once you have one, you can make pasta for 4 people for as little as 60 cents, and it will kick the s*** out of all the dried packet stuff. Just need flour + eggs. You can experiment with wholemeal (to make your meals healthier), colourings/flavourings, sizes/shapes etc. Plus if you have kids, they'll have a BALL making their own pasta. You can get them to do it and it makes your job hells easier :D

I was a uni student for 4 years, and spent 1 year of that living off Youth Allowence alone (lived away from home for the whole time too).

last edited by Crizane Tribal at 02:02:08 16/Jun/08

damn homebrand coco pops are awesome.. i went back to real coco pops a few weeks ago, they tasted like s***. give me double the quantity for half the price any time!

hmmm, weird, whered my post go!?

Aldi nearly everything

f*** yer:

people love my aldi coffee's (african bean)

Black and gold chocolate bullets (chocolate coated licorice)

It is better than many of the normally good brands at the supermarket

Thanks guys this is an awesome thread!

I went back to full time study this year, and with my new timetable Im about to have to cut back on even more more - so Im really fretting about surviving.

I hope zor reads this and realizes that no name products are not the devil!

i like homebrand party mix lollies

Homebrand mixed nuts s*** all over Nobby's IMO. Much fresher and less oily.

Tried Coles Jubes the other day and they were f***ing good too!

Homebrand soda water ftw. Soda water is the best thing ever when you're hungover, and homebrand sell it for about 50cents a litre!!

Coles brand cola is pretty good. It does taste different to Coke/Pepsi, but not in a bad way. When it's on special, you can get a 24 can cube for like $10, and it hardly tastes any different at all if you use it as a mixer.

I use diet/coke zero for mixers... we generally add enough alcohol to not really care about the taste of whatever we're mixing it with, so we may as well consume less calories!

Cheese

How does Homebrand compare to uncut dick cheese?

I remember some sort of report that implied that Homebrand stuff is pretty much the same as regular brands just repackaged. The idea being that different people buy cheap/medium/expensive stuff regardless of the actual quality of the product.

So you get the cheap as products, package them up pretty maybe cut them to a different shape or slightly change the colour and put them on the self. Middle income earners then go, O my, that product looks better then homebrand therefor it is better and purchase it, same for the even more expensive stuff.

Meanwhile the cleaver marketing people rejoice in making yet more money with very little change in products.

A lot of homebrand products are made by big brands, but often not to the same standard. For example, Home Brand cheese is made by a big company (Devondale IIRC), but they don't mature it for as long so it doesn't taste quite as good.

I used to work in a factory

At midday we would change the plastic wrapping on the conveyor belt from Fancy Brand Name coloured wrap to Black and Gold style home brand budget wrap.

Needless to say, the product cruising along that conveyor was exactly the f***ing same.

You pay extra for the brand name, not the quality of the product. People are dumb.

I'm sure this isn;t the case for every foodstuff on the shelf, but i'm sure it's often the case.

examples of food levels?

I liked no frills crink cut chips

The Woolies and Coles homebrand Weetbix is exactly the same as the branded stuff but its usually a buck cheaper.

HomeBrand Frozen Pizza is a vile, evil, demonic product.

Yeah give us some examples Levels.

Crizane Tribal, you're correct devondale does make the HB block and shredded cheese. Don't know about sliced processed cheese though.

just returned from coles and while I was there I remembered that their coles brand Belgian chocolate is actually pretty damn good too, surprisingly.

I don't know if it counts as a 'generic' brand, but the Dick Smith brand Peanut butter, cheddar cheese and Anzac Biscuits are all awesome.

Yeah Dick Smith peanut butter is probably the best IMO.

Pretty sure it was Dick Smith Tim Tams I tried a few years ago, they were foul

Crizane Tribal, you're correct devondale does make the HB block and shredded cheese.

Homebrand Shredded Mozzarella, $5 for 500g bag.

Honestly, the big name brands are $6 - $7 tops for the 500g bag, so some wouldn't bother... but the HB tastes really good + there's massive amounts of stock and good dates always.

Homebrand Tomato Sauce is my favourite

My mum complained about some homebrand/blackandgold muesli she bought one day, had a piece of plastic in it. She got an apology letter from Uncle Toby's.

It's great isn't it, our super-successful capitalist companies are tearing rapidly towards giving us no real choice of products and we are supporting them all the way. I want my illusion of choice back. It's important to have 20 different types of toothpaste to chose from, 90% of them made by Colgate-Palmolive, all of them no more effective than soap, just with more sweet.

products i saw copping the treatment were spring rolls that you buy in bulk packet in the freezer section, and other product was pizza bases (fancy italian branded wrapping vs generic woolies labelled wrapping)

Generic RAM is decent, as long as you're not overclocking.
Generic PSUs - stay away. These buggers can take out all your hardware.
Generic cases - decent for budget, watch out for sharp edges.

well the 1 thing that i always likes.. is home brand strawberry yogurt.... i think its the same as cabulture yogurt.. f***ing awesome...

and i used to get wollies cashews from indo china or where eva the f*** was about 10 bux for 500g TOPS MUM

Woolies tuna with Woolies single pasta snacks. Add together too make a nice lunch.

I nearly broke a tooth on a rock which was in coles brand muesli. be warned!

Le Cock, I've had that before too. I try and avoid anything but lowan muesli for that reason. Seems to happen whenever I stray from that brand.

Having said that, the YLC muesli might be ok, I've been forced into that a couple of times and had no dramas. So not worth the possibility of breaking a tooth to save a buck or two on muesli though.

but the Dick Smith brand Peanut butter, cheddar cheese and Anzac Biscuits are all awesome.

Agreed! Dick Cheese tastes awesome.

On the repackaging tip:

I used to know a guy who was an ex fire fighter. They were doing inspections at a factory of their fire plans etc. The factory was churning out washing powder.

The had two boxes getting fed from the same mix, one homebrand the other brand name (I can't remember which one).

Then there was another spout that was getting mixed with little blue grains to go into another brand box - probably some premium shizzle. But anyway, in the end they were all basically the same product being sold at different prices.

Agreed! Dick Cheese tastes awesome.

Where were you on the foreskin thread pal


OT
it might not be a "no name" but its cheaper than no name and the other 'branded' competitors

mi goreng - I f***ing love this stuff



last edited by teq at 14:30:51 19/Jun/08