Depends which store brand too. Costco stuff (Kirkland) is almost always really good. Safeway has a good store brand too (O Organics and Signature). Kroger's are like, okay (Private Selection). Walmart's (Great Value) are hit or miss. Natural Grocer's stuff is usually good, and Trader Joe's is usually great. Target's Good and Gather seems good though I haven't tried many since I rarely go there for groceries. Uh... so I guess I mean pretty much everything.
this post was submitted on 18 Dec 2023
103 points (91.9% liked)
Ask Lemmy
26996 readers
2131 users here now
A Fediverse community for open-ended, thought provoking questions
Please don't post about US Politics. If you need to do this, try [email protected]
Rules: (interactive)
1) Be nice and; have fun
Doxxing, trolling, sealioning, racism, and toxicity are not welcomed in AskLemmy. Remember what your mother said: if you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all. In addition, the site-wide Lemmy.world terms of service also apply here. Please familiarize yourself with them
2) All posts must end with a '?'
This is sort of like Jeopardy. Please phrase all post titles in the form of a proper question ending with ?
3) No spam
Please do not flood the community with nonsense. Actual suspected spammers will be banned on site. No astroturfing.
4) NSFW is okay, within reason
Just remember to tag posts with either a content warning or a [NSFW] tag. Overtly sexual posts are not allowed, please direct them to either [email protected] or [email protected].
NSFW comments should be restricted to posts tagged [NSFW].
5) This is not a support community.
It is not a place for 'how do I?', type questions.
If you have any questions regarding the site itself or would like to report a community, please direct them to Lemmy.world Support or email [email protected]. For other questions check our partnered communities list, or use the search function.
Reminder: The terms of service apply here too.
Partnered Communities:
Logo design credit goes to: tubbadu
founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
Publix Monterey Jack cheese is, oddly, better than the other brands. Like it's the first one I ever tasted that wasn't just rubbery nonsense. Their milk and butter we like, and their coffee is good.
Whole Foods store brands are all pretty good stuff.
I buy any brand of canned beans (I don't buy refried beans, I refry them) or dry beans, unbleached white flour, egg noodles, fizzy water (though I do prefer Topo Chico, it's a weak preference), sugar, and a lot of what we buy is fresh fruit & vegetables, they mostly aren't branded.
For a couple of years, Kroger was selling some Ugandan whole bean coffee under its store label that was the best coffee I ever had.
It was perfect. And now it's gone.
Publix has great cheese in general for decent pricing. But holy fuck did everything else get so much more expensive in the last 3 years. Over a decade ago, Publix prices were comparable to Winn Dixie and only slightly above Sedanos or Presidente. Nowadays Publix makes Whole Foods look like Aldi's.
The fried chicken is still worth it though.
Yeah one of the odd effects of the food price inflation was a sort of flattening. The difference between whole foods and Publix just disappeared, I used to just get meat from whole foods (they probably thought I was a relentless carnivore) and food at other stores, but now it's about the same price, so just get most of the food from whole foods. Publix brand dairy stuff is so good (and I remember when they were the only big grocery to push back against RBGH) but Whole Foods has a literal cheesemonger training program with state board exams, their fancy cheese area is ridiculously good.
There's a lot of them. I find it easier to classify by the store. For example, Costco's and HEB's (in Texas) store brand products are considered great (and sometimes even better) than their branded counterparts.
I'm guessing this is an American thing, because branded versions of common grocery items are typically industrial, overprocessed garbage. Or maybe the OP means actively manufactured stuff like cereal or yougrt as opposed to actual common groceries like meat, cheese or vegetables? i don't know it's weird phrasing either way.
FWIW, not in the US and it's unbranded fresh/locally sourced stuff>store brand from specific stores>industrial brands for me in most cases. Except what? Olive oil, maybe? Cookies, in that locally made cookies are actually more expensive than the mass produced sugar pucks. Eh... I don't know, soft drinks and snacks? Basically if it's actively trying to kill you the big brands do it better.
load more comments
(1 replies)
You can still buy pasta for $1/lb at trader joes. It's completely fine.
Non organic and GMO foods. Oftentimes the only difference is the label. Even if truly "non GMO" that doesn't count for the thousands of years worth of selective breeding that are basically GMOs with extra steps.
Not to mention for organic and GMO food they often use a shit ton of pesticides because they can't use plants with built in insect resistance.
Another, perhaps controversial, item are non cage free/free range eggs and meat. Similar to the first point, most of these only differ in label and there is often no difference. Even if they are free range and certified by the government, the official definition for free range is a maximum of 5 chickens for a 1x1meter of space, hardly free range. Cage free is even worse, instead of many small cages it's essentially one large cage with thousands of chickens and much greater chance for workers to step on and crush them while attempting to work.
Food should be cheap but a company's soul objective is to increase revenue (high prices) and reduce cost (inhumane conditions). Even farmers markets are corrupted, many of the stands there sell goods from large producers to capitalize on peoples willingness to spend more for "local" and "humanely" produced goods.
That being said if they are genuinely a local farmer doing honest work then please support them. They need all the help they can get.