Brand ‘Snobbery’?

Peas, I have tried a few own brands but, for me, it has to be the well known brand.

SueDonim

Henderson’s Relish is a vegan equivalent to Lea & Perrins. I’ve never tried it but a friend says her vegan son says is most acceptable.

www.hendersonsrelish.com/

Henderson's Relish is also gf!

Branstons Beans
Heinz Mayo
Meridian Yeast Extract (I'm coeliac and Marmite has gluten in it)
Nairn's GF crackers and oatcakes
Holland and Barrett jumbo GF porridge oats
Suma Yirgacheffe coffee beans
Twyning's Assam
Dove's Farm GF flours

Other than that, we tend to cook almost everything from scratch and most ingredients are bought as locally and independently as we can reasonably manage.

TerriBull

Many own brands are more than ok, but there's only one brand for beanz imo, and we all know which one that is, no other supermarket's own, or indeed any other well known producer of the humble baked beanz doez it for me

I absolutely love Branston Baked Beans and wouldn't entertain other beans in the house but at my daughters house she served beans which I swore were Branston, until she informed me they were Asda baked beans. They are identical and so much cheaper

Henderson’s Relish is a vegan equivalent to Lea & Perrins. I’ve never tried it but a friend says her vegan son says is most acceptable.

www.hendersonsrelish.com/

Cornflakes, must be Kellogg's.

Maggiemaybe

Ah, DH always insisted there was only one brand of baked beans - until they weren't available one day and we discovered Branston.

I'm always up for trying own brands. I've no loyalty to supermarkets, let alone to the big brands. The only time I came a cropper was when I bought Sainsbury Marmite....

I prefer Branson too. The sauce is thicker and richer in flavour.

Buy what you can afford if you don’t like the taste you sure will get used to it when the price gets that high lol

Callistemon21

Jaxjacky

HP sauce, ditto Lea and Perrins, Yorkshire tea, M&S or Stockwell baked beans, Hellmans mayo and viakal cleaner.

Is there an alternative Worcestershire sauce to Lea and Perrins, Jaxjacky?
I must admit I've never looked

Yes, some supermarkets do their own brand. I've got a bottle of Tesco Worcester Sauce at the moment and I can't tell the difference.

Jaxjacky

HP sauce, ditto Lea and Perrins, Yorkshire tea, M&S or Stockwell baked beans, Hellmans mayo and viakal cleaner.

Is there an alternative Worcestershire sauce to Lea and Perrins, Jaxjacky?
I must admit I've never looked

Oh no!
That must have been a dud tin, I'm sure.
It's usually packed, and no dark stems or anything.

The one tin of tomatoes I bought from Aldi had precisely one and a half tomatoes in it, floating around in some watery juice. ?

Their blackcurrant jam is very nice, though, and their black pepper cheese crackers.

The only mayonnaise I like is Hellman’s. As for coffee, tea etc, I’m quite easy - no preferences

We prefer Sainsbury's baked beans and their choc digestives too. Aldi paracetamol at 19p is a must.

I was always a brand shopper until my daughter and her brood moved in, and then the doubling of the food bill forced me to reconsider, some things are fine, but for one thing, no alternative is acceptable.
It has to be Twinings English breakfast loose leaf tea.

I really like el cheapo tinned toms.
Perhaps they have more bad but tasty additives in?
Aldi ones are delicious!

I do stick with Yorkshire Tea otherwise mainly buy supermarket items. Waitrose have lured me into buying Mutti tinned tomatoes and tomato puree and I am paying an extortionate amount for vialone nano rice which seems to be almost unobtainable since Brexit. It sounds awfully precious but I can't make a decent risotto without it.

Many years ago as a student, I worked in the Frank Cooper jam part of the Knorr factory.

All jam lids had to be polished and inspected for scratches, as the jams and marmalade were actually being made for M&S stores under the M&S label. The quality control was so strict.

As an aside, the smell of the summer fruits cooking was absoluely amazing, added to that, the line of students all singing as they sorted the fruit on the conveyor, made it a happy place to work.

Oh yes.
I forgot I'd tried Aldi tomato soup.

Not a patch on Heinz, for me.

In general, I’ll give most things a try but tomato soup just has to be Heinz.

Nescafe Gold Blend is hard to replicate.
I did get quite into the Aldi equivalent, but I don't get there anymore.
I like Branston beans. Apart from that, anything goes.

I have always avoided brands except for Heinz tomato ketchup which I bought for years until I discovered Lidl's own brand - Batts tomato ketchup which is better and about a third of the price.

It's obviously worth testing the cheaper alternatives just to make sure the fancy brand is actually better.

Cheapest supermarket baked beans for us now, but then we add salt, pepper and a pinch of chilli powder to them. Much tastier than the well-known brands.

For me it's nothing to do with snobbery and everything to do with taste. I have tried many own brands of baked beans but only Heinz will do, I have tried Branston and never again thanks. Same with Hellmans mayonnaise nothing else will do. I don't drink tea very often and don't claim to be a connoisseur but when I do drink it it has to be PG. I don't drink coffee at all or wine. Own brand washing up liquid is fine but dishwasher tabs are fairy platinum. I'm fine with Aldi milk chocolate and Aldi washing liquid which is the equal of many premium brands. I buy what I like.

Baggs

When you say cocoa, Calendar, do you mean cocoa or hot chocolate? Wondering because cocoa is cocoa is cocoa and how the drink turns out depends on how you make it, e.g. whether with water or milk, whether you add sugar, etc. In my experience cocoa doesn't vary but drinking chocolate does very much so and that would totally fit what you describe ☕️ ?

I mean ‘cocoa’ not ‘drinking chocolate’ Baggs.:

I make it with skimmed milk, no sugar.

I think the difference is that some cocoa powder is now ‘dutched’, a process I had never heard of.

The Tesco one is not dutched, the previous one I bought was.