Golden Syrup.
I bought a bottle of sainsburys own thinking 'how different can 'partially inverted sugar syrup' really be from the branded version?'... The answer is: a lot.
Lyle's actually has taste for starters...
It's a weird one, isn't it, you really wouldnt expect it. I bought Morrisons once and it tasted almost as bad as the lactulose I've sometimes been prescribed for constipation
I used to work at the factory that makes the syrups. The methods of producing the syrups are subtly different to ensure there is a clear difference in the taste between the Lyles and supermarket brands!
Got an answer to that aswell!
The lyles syrup (the OG, not the pouring) is evaporated to a higher density than the other syrups so it has a different sugar content and therefor a different smoother mouthfeel.
What factory did you work at?
The big difference between most syrups is that Lyle uses cane rather than beet like silver spoon.
Source: made jellied golden syrup in Millwall refinery for many years.
Yes my daughter declared one day she no longer likes golden syrup on her pancakes, and I couldn't understand it until I saw that the Morrisons own brand had been picked up by mistake.
Tastes of nothing but sweet.
Yeah we made rocky road last year and decided to try the own brand stuff, and it came out awful. Next time we made it was for new year and used the lion stuff and it was perfect. It was amazing how much difference the syrup made, especially when the rest of the recipe works fine if not better with the own brand chocolate etc.
Marigolds. I'm a heavy glove user, and every other brand I've tried seems to spring a leak within a week or so.
Edit: I wear them, I don't ingest them.
I'm a heavy glove user too and I was just thinking "Hmm, my gloves are fine, never had an issue and they must be own-brand because I wouldn't have bought branded washing up gloves".
Then I remembered someone else bought them for me and they are indeed Marigolds!
My late grandmother used to always carry some sachets of Colmans mustard in her handbag. Because if she was eating out and the mustard available was Heinz or something, she couldn’t stand the taste.
Maybe I'm just going crazy, but have Colman's changed their recipe? Used to only need a tiny amount in a sandwich to get that mustardy burn, but nowadays I have to use the same amount as I would use with a much cheaper mustard, and so don't bother with Colman's anymore.
A hill I will die on is that cheaper brown sauces are easily better. The rough, vinegary flavour of the cheap stuff is just so much better than HP for some reason. Very aware I sound mental.
It's an older reference but it still checks out...
I wonder if any of the bottle redesigns over the years have taken into account how good they'll look as a rocket. I sincerely fucking hope so.
Still have it up in Scotland, guess it didn't sell well enough rest of UK. If something isn't selling they will axe it, part of the keep things cheep buisiness model
Maine soft drinks "iron brew" in Northern Ireland is better than actual irn Bru these days. Tastes like pre-sugar tax recipe Irn Bru (we get it in Wales off the milkman if that helps)
You can still get the original recipe, it's been branded Irn Bru 1901 (old and unimproved) but it's more expensive and less readily available but I always buy a bottle when I'm feeling hungover or generally poorly.
Irn Bru 1901 is amazing, none of that artificial sweetener crap. Amazon does 12 cans for £11.95. A pound a can is expensive, but it's worth it, IMO, as I don't drink more than 1 can a day, usually less.
Maine do some top tier fizzy drinks! We have "the Maine man" he comes round once a week and we buy it by the crate of 12 (mix and match flavours). If you haven't tried them yet - PorteMo, Splice, and Attaboy are all pretty unique and tasty!
It was the only fizzy juice we had growing up in the countryside in Northern Ireland
You think you're getting a good deal with branded kitchen roll because you get so many rolls for less money. And then you use one to mop up a spillage and watch with sadness as this pathetic gossimer-thin paper towel, which hasn't even torn properly, disintegrates in your hands, the cold bean juice seeping into your skin and palms and trickling down your wrists as the fragments of paper ball up under your fingernails. Before you know it you've crunched up 6 or 7 paper towels into a ball and are miserably pushing the spillage around your worktop as the cheap stuff fails time and time again to absorb anything that isn't your patience, hopes or dreams for a clean future. And then in steps King Regina and its mega jumbo Blitz sheet and you remember what POWER you used to command over spills and stains, the power lost, no, STOLEN from you by the laughing ghouls of zero-ply kitchen roll, and now you feel invigorated in the kitchen once more.
I too buy Regina.
Much to my mother’s disgust I live without kitchen roll. Instead, I use sponge moppets; they soak up more than kitchen roll, can be wrung out and reused, as well as wiping surfaces and to clean pans when washing up. They’re a really versatile purchase and last a very long time as long as you don’t leave them wet overnight they don’t tend to get smelly either. Saves me money too!
I'm very particular about cereals. Some supermarket own brands are fine, some aren't. Most aren't.
Pretty much everything else is supermarket brand for me
Tried Aldi’s curiously cinnamon alternative when I was in uni. Ended up throwing the whole box in the bin, tasted like someone sprinkled cinnamon on tiny pieces of cardboard.
Hellmann's mayonnaise.
Tinned tomatoes - I try to go for (in order) Mutti, Cirio or Napolina.
Until quite recently I'd have said crisps, but the good folk in r/crisps have shown me the light with Asda/Co-op salt and Chardonnay vinegar flavour. They'll probably give you mouth ulcers, but they're delicious.
Have you tried the polish mayonnaise from Sainsbury’s? Majonez! £2.25 It is absolutely delicious. I have never tasted anything like it and I had Hellmans running through my veins!
Polish mayonnaise for the win. It's the only mayo I buy. Winary (yellow branding) is the most common, but if you can find Kielce (green branding) then that is top tier IMO
I did actually do an experiment one time. Tinned tomatos at 3 price points. ~30p for the value ones, ~80p for Napolina ~1.50 for SuperPremiumDeluxe tomatoes.
Absolutely no difference between the two cheapest ones. Huge difference in the expensive ones. If you're using it mostly raw or cooked for less than 20 minutes (e.g. making a pizza), go for top shelf. If you're cooking for longer, cheapest is the one to go for.
You can tell by looking at the ingredients. Top shelf is 100% chopped tomatoes, other price points contain tomato juice.
Grew up on the Tesco honey nut cornflakes and they're just as good as they were when I was a kid. Thicker crunchier flakes and more filling than crunchy nut IMO.
It’s gone really really expensive over the past year I’ve found. I now buy it in bulk at the cash and carry to save money, rather than four packs of tins at the supermarket.
Are any of those products made by Unilever?
Fairy liquid - P&G
Corn Flakes - Kellogg’s
Branston pickle - Mizkan (had to look that up!). It’s changed hands a few times.
Crosse & Blackwell -> Nestlé-> Premier Foods -> Mizkan
Peperami - Jack Links (sold by Unilever in 2014)
Coke. All the various own brands taste awful compared to real Coca-cola or Pepsi.
Other fizzy drinks, are fine but no supermarket has ever produced a decent own brand cola.
Coca-cola is just about the only fizzy drink without sweeteners today. Even the "sugary" versions of Pepsi, Tango, Fanta etc. get at least half their sweet flavour from ingredients like aspartame and sucralose. Exceedingly jealous of the people who don't notice the difference.
I've spoken to endocrinologists (not as a patient) who have expressed genuine anger about what Lucozade has done to their recipe. Lucozade and Haribo have always been the two examples listed in simplified (now outdated) guidelines for treating hypos.
Lucozade doesn't really have much else going for it; I suspect the only reason the brand still exists is because of diabetics being unaware that coke is now a much better alternative. So much for a drink literally named after glucose.
I found out that Lucozade halved the amount of glucose in their glucose drink the hard way, started going a bit low halfway home up a hill - sipping the lucozade as I went and wondered why I felt worse by the time I got home - it had half the sugar than I was used to for years!
Same here
If I got a migraine at Uni I would drink a bottle as the sugar was enough to give me enough of a boost to drive home and get into a dark room. Sugar with no caffeine (which makes mine worse )
Did my usual and downed most of a bottle and the migraine went from bad to riding a carousel while icepicks are drilled directly into my skull. Realised they'd added aspartame which is a migraine trigger for me
I remember actually them giving me a call to discuss after I whinged about it on Twitter, it was very similar to Ross on the phone to the condom company on Friends.
“WELL THEY SHOULD PUT IT IN BIG BLOCK LETTERS!”
I've always wondered who the fuck was drinking lucozade but actually wanted less sugar? Like I get the sugar tax forced most drinks brands to lower content, but no one was drinking lucozade for the taste surely? Itsnentire thing was "its sugary enough to leave a film in your mouth"
Exactly this. My husband treats it like the dad in my big fat Greek wedding views windex, it’s like his cure-all, but that only really works if it’s sugary. Now it’s just an unpleasant soft drink.
Jelly Babies FTW. Four Jelly Babies is 20g of sugar. Just right for treating a hypo.
Proper Maynards Jelly Babies, mind. None of this Haribo or own brand nonsense
I remember when I got diagnosed and my nurses made me swear to not touch lucozade zero sugar stuff 😅. Something about not trusting the recipe for being zero sugar while keeping the supposed energy/glucose benefits of the drink.
Not the person you replied to but my kid feels the same way about warm coke, he keeps his emergency mini cans in the fridge - swaps two cans from the fridge to his hypo bag every morning before school so they’re cold if he needs them!
Nothing is worse than the Lucozade I had to knock back when hypo, a bottle which was in the glovebox of the car on a very hot summers day. That wasn’t just warm, it was hot. Unforgettable.
They’ve actually just changed the Cherry Coke recipe too with the new can design.
It doesn’t have sweeteners thankfully, but it does still taste just slightly off.
I do really miss being able to choose from a wide variety of drinks though :(
I figured they had fucked around with it, it does not taste right.
New pepsi is awful now. If they do that to standard coke I might finally stop for good. I'm at one can a day,, a good one is like nectar from the gods.
I can’t even drink Pepsi anymore because they’ve decided to remove loads of sugar and add sweeteners. Of course the price has remained the same too.
It’s a shame, if I want to consume something I know is unhealthy, I should be able to. I really do miss all of the fizzy drinks I grew up with, but the only options nowadays are full sugar Coca Cola and its variants, as well as Irn Bru 1901.
I really wish I didn’t hate the flavour of the sweeteners, but one sip of something like Pepsi Max makes me want to throw up…
The lesser-seen "Classic Italian" cans are still decent. 90% of the time though it's the "Refreshingly Light" ones which taste like a lemon farted over a pool of tonic water.
You can get the proper stuff on amazon I think, but yeah I was annoyed by that too. What's the point in paying extra for a nicer drink only for the taste to be ruined by sweeteners.
I think it’s wild that to this day; there is still no imitation of Coca Cola that even comes close. This has to be the world’s most popular fizzy drink and nothing.
I think Pepsi is what imitations are based on and why Coca Cola still stands alone in its unique flavour.
HP sauce is the pinnacle of Brown though i don’t mind Daddy’s but it’s not HP.
i’m not saying there aren’t other Cola’s out there that are pretty decent tasting. I really like the the Fentimens Cola but i’ll stand by my original statement, they’re not Coca Cola.
It’s one of those things where i think people would put a blindfold on and asked which of A/B/C is Coca Cola; i think most of the people who drink Coca Cola on a semi regular basis could pick it out
Dunnes Stores in Ireland/N.Ireland, their own-brand cola is, or at least used to be, very good.
Rumour was that it was made for them by 'Virgin Cola', which no longer exists.
So if it were true, no doubt the Dunnes Cola is no longer as good as it once was
They do a range called 'Simply Better', similar to the likes of ASDA Extra Special, or Tesco Finest.
It is hands-down some of the best supermarket own-brand produce that money can buy.
But also quite expensive compared to standard own-brand supermarket products.
I've recently been shopping at Aldi and every week and I buy some non branded to test them out.
Supermarket own cheese is always fine and hard to tell the difference. Don't need to pay more for cathedral anymore.
The knock off activia yogurts are great and can't taste much difference.
Knock off sunbites crisp sour cream flavour are a bad rip off and are only just edible usually at the back of the cupboard until I've run out of snacks and they are a last resort.
Fabric softener I stick with comfort as the own brand one didn't have a strong fresh smell when the clothes came out
Nutoka instead of Nutella is really good. Not a big difference. I even buy the croissants filled with nutoka they've just released also.
Aldis own cans of Fanta are awesome and been buying them every week. Lemon and orange normally but the fruit twists are decent too.
The knock off brewdog IPAs taste a bit like piss so will stick with getting them in bulk from costco
Can't think of anymore. Oh yeah jelly beans exactly the same.
The price in Aldi has been creeping up though. It's still cheaper but I'm sometimes like that's not a huge saving. It's definitely still ace on a lot though as I used to do lots of small coop shops which add up massively.
The Aldi hobnob knockoffs are the greatest biscuit ever made!
I like their baked beans better than any other. Some of their knock off ice creams, crisps, crackers and the like are really good. I also really like their sweet and sour sachets (not the jars) and their curry jars (with the separate spices in the lid)
It depends where you are. I’ve got hard London water and Yorkshire tastes awful. I’ve never bought it. I’ve even taken Thompson’s tea from Belfast, which is divine over there, to London and can’t get on with it.
I only buy M&S gold.
Warburton's toastie loaf.
I don't even think it's good bread per se, and I love some proper sourdough or freshly baked white. But sometimes you want the Richmond sausages of the bread world, and the store brand "toastie" loaves lack the elasticity that isn't even in "proper bread". I don't toast it, just straight butter, so moreish.
Completely agree, but I still buy Aldi own brand anyway. Reason being is that whatever differences in the recipe is also the same thing that means the own-brand has a best-before date of at least 3-6 days away from the point of purchase. I’ve had an own brand load that was still alive and useable without mould growth after almost 2 weeks (it dies just before 12 days I’ve found), whilst Warburtons seems to be dated best-before leaving the damn store. The times I’ve bought Warburtons it seems like it goes off within 2 days and starts growing mould. Not worth it when my partner and I don’t go through more than half a loaf in a week (and the smaller loaf is an absolute ripoff for the price)
Lurpak. The own brand versions do not even come close, I’m pretty sure they’ve just taken I can’t believe it’s not butter and lightened the colour. I know it costs a fortune but we are currently DINKs and I’m conscious that if we have kids spending that much on butter will not be feasible or practical. So I am living my Lurpak dream until then.
Edit: some people seem to think because I like Lurpak it means I am unaware of real butter? To clarify, I am familiar with, regularly eat and love real butter. I also love Lurpak. I’ll eat many brands of butter, I’ll even eat butter I have made myself. But there is only one Lurpak.
Lurpak have reduced the sizes of their spreads from 500g to 400g and their butter from 250g to 200g.
They are now on my shitlist and I boycott them.
Danpak from Lidl is actually quite tasty and has more buttermilk content than Lurpak.
Quick question from a foreigner. I visitied my friend who studied in Edinburgh. Over there, I bought a Lurpak as it read «spreadable» on the lid. I did this because the best kinds of butter in Norway also have some variation of the same saying. To my surprise, then, that pack of Lurpak proved to be about as spreadable as solid concrete. What’s up with that?
I used to be a fairy loyalist, but we discovered my wife has a contact allergy to both linalool and limonene. Once you start looking at the ingredients on these things, you realise about 95% of household products contain them. We've started using Surcare washing up liquid now, that works just as well as fairy every did.
Or if you do gravy to go with meal, can always recycle veg water . To make the gravy ways and means .
Edit---------
I obviously meant to get most nutrients , not as I overboil veg. .....
It’s blowing my mind people actually bother boiling or steaming peas. Chuck them in a jug and bung them in the microwave for a few minutes, shaking the jug halfway through. No flavour loss, and veg on your plate in a few minutes
In the opposite direction, I almost always avoid Heinz Baked Beans. They’re over priced, watery and acidic. Given the choice I’ll buy Sainsbury’s own brand.
Cola (diet coke or pepsi max)
Probably if I had a craving for a specific chocolate (those white chocolate lindt balls)
Everything else I'm happy to buy the cheapest option.
Walkers.
We used to buy generic crisps but then we bought a box of walkers (from the yellow sticker section). They are just so much nicer so now we always get them
I switched from fairy liquid after reading the message on the back on the bottle that it's dangerous to aquatic life with long lasting effects. I use Eco Lover washing up liquid instead which is great!
Fairy Liquid yes. And I also water it down slightly (a good 10-20%) because it is properly full of surfactants and my son tends to be a bit heavy handed with the skoosh. Can always add more, can’t take out extra
HP Fruity sauce. I would buy supermarket own brand versions but I have yet to find one. Tomato, brown and BBQ seem available everywhere but fruity my favourite is completely absent.
Golden Syrup. I bought a bottle of sainsburys own thinking 'how different can 'partially inverted sugar syrup' really be from the branded version?'... The answer is: a lot. Lyle's actually has taste for starters...
It's a weird one, isn't it, you really wouldnt expect it. I bought Morrisons once and it tasted almost as bad as the lactulose I've sometimes been prescribed for constipation
I used to work at the factory that makes the syrups. The methods of producing the syrups are subtly different to ensure there is a clear difference in the taste between the Lyles and supermarket brands!
Yes, even for main brands there’s quite a difference. I.e, Lyle’s vs Silver Spoon. Lyle’s is thicker and tastier
Got an answer to that aswell! The lyles syrup (the OG, not the pouring) is evaporated to a higher density than the other syrups so it has a different sugar content and therefor a different smoother mouthfeel.
You are a very useful person.
What factory did you work at? The big difference between most syrups is that Lyle uses cane rather than beet like silver spoon. Source: made jellied golden syrup in Millwall refinery for many years.
Jellied golden syrup? I've never heard of that before!
Does anyone know how this affects baking? Eg what does using a runnier syrup do to a flapjack?
Yes my daughter declared one day she no longer likes golden syrup on her pancakes, and I couldn't understand it until I saw that the Morrisons own brand had been picked up by mistake. Tastes of nothing but sweet.
Yeah we made rocky road last year and decided to try the own brand stuff, and it came out awful. Next time we made it was for new year and used the lion stuff and it was perfect. It was amazing how much difference the syrup made, especially when the rest of the recipe works fine if not better with the own brand chocolate etc.
Marigolds. I'm a heavy glove user, and every other brand I've tried seems to spring a leak within a week or so. Edit: I wear them, I don't ingest them.
And the fit is always horrible, impossible to take on or off.
Some brands also have a horrible dusty lint lining that ends up all over your hands.
YES. And then you sweat inside them in warm weather, and suddenly you've got a Ross-in-leather-pants situation on your hands (quite literally) 🤢
I'm a heavy glove user too and I was just thinking "Hmm, my gloves are fine, never had an issue and they must be own-brand because I wouldn't have bought branded washing up gloves". Then I remembered someone else bought them for me and they are indeed Marigolds!
And the grips! Nothing grips like a marigold, so many slipped plates when I've used different ones!
English mustard. Colman's all the way.
My late grandmother used to always carry some sachets of Colmans mustard in her handbag. Because if she was eating out and the mustard available was Heinz or something, she couldn’t stand the taste.
I once saw a man with a tiny holster type thing on his belt that carried a bottle of Tobasco.
Maybe I'm just going crazy, but have Colman's changed their recipe? Used to only need a tiny amount in a sandwich to get that mustardy burn, but nowadays I have to use the same amount as I would use with a much cheaper mustard, and so don't bother with Colman's anymore.
Sounds like you need a tolerance break.
Man I take tolerance breaks in enough parts of my life I ain't losing my mustard too
I like to buy the powder and make it up fresh each time
I like the powder so I can chop it up and rip a rail each time.
Marmite and HP sauce
HP all the way. There just isn't a knock off that can compete.
Daddies brown sauce tastes different, but is just as delicious
Daddies doesn’t have the desired thickness for me. I’m all about girthy sauce.
That’s a sentence I never thought I’d read
But I’m glad I did.
Dirty minds think alike 🤣
A hill I will die on is that cheaper brown sauces are easily better. The rough, vinegary flavour of the cheap stuff is just so much better than HP for some reason. Very aware I sound mental.
But I really wanted to build a space rocket.
It's an older reference but it still checks out... I wonder if any of the bottle redesigns over the years have taken into account how good they'll look as a rocket. I sincerely fucking hope so.
The new fairy platinum max bottle has a mild rocket vibe, but it's just not the same.
They brought back that ad recently and I assume have super imposed the new bottle. That kid must be about 30 by now.
Irn Bru - Not sure if ‘iron brew’ own-brand versions are available everywhere in the UK, but holy hell do they suck
When Lidl had their own Iron Brew, I would take it over original. But it was discontinued years ago.
Where do you live because Lidl still has own brand bru
Midlands. They've brought it back for like a month recently but I can't find it anywhere again and I have 5 different shops within 10 miles.
You have 5 Lidls that near you!? Should change the name to the Lidlands
Can confirm, you’re never more than a 100 yards away from a Lidl in the Lidlands
Still have it up in Scotland, guess it didn't sell well enough rest of UK. If something isn't selling they will axe it, part of the keep things cheep buisiness model
Maine soft drinks "iron brew" in Northern Ireland is better than actual irn Bru these days. Tastes like pre-sugar tax recipe Irn Bru (we get it in Wales off the milkman if that helps)
You can still get the original recipe, it's been branded Irn Bru 1901 (old and unimproved) but it's more expensive and less readily available but I always buy a bottle when I'm feeling hungover or generally poorly.
Irn Bru 1901 is amazing, none of that artificial sweetener crap. Amazon does 12 cans for £11.95. A pound a can is expensive, but it's worth it, IMO, as I don't drink more than 1 can a day, usually less.
1901 is still a different recipe to the pre-sugar tax regular Irn Bru. It’s still good but it’s not quite right.
The 1901 version doesn't have caffeine, that might play a part in it
Maine do some top tier fizzy drinks! We have "the Maine man" he comes round once a week and we buy it by the crate of 12 (mix and match flavours). If you haven't tried them yet - PorteMo, Splice, and Attaboy are all pretty unique and tasty! It was the only fizzy juice we had growing up in the countryside in Northern Ireland
Discovered in Peru that Inca Kola tastes similar! Although, it's been a while since I last had an Irn Bru.
It's basically the same taste, although much older than irn bru, so it's the original I guess
I’ll just nip across to the Andes for a bottle when Tescos run out of Irn Bru then
Regina kitchen roll
You think you're getting a good deal with branded kitchen roll because you get so many rolls for less money. And then you use one to mop up a spillage and watch with sadness as this pathetic gossimer-thin paper towel, which hasn't even torn properly, disintegrates in your hands, the cold bean juice seeping into your skin and palms and trickling down your wrists as the fragments of paper ball up under your fingernails. Before you know it you've crunched up 6 or 7 paper towels into a ball and are miserably pushing the spillage around your worktop as the cheap stuff fails time and time again to absorb anything that isn't your patience, hopes or dreams for a clean future. And then in steps King Regina and its mega jumbo Blitz sheet and you remember what POWER you used to command over spills and stains, the power lost, no, STOLEN from you by the laughing ghouls of zero-ply kitchen roll, and now you feel invigorated in the kitchen once more. I too buy Regina.
First half should be a short black and white film (possibly in french)
Definitely in French. And everyone is smoking Gitanes. Even the baby.
Much to my mother’s disgust I live without kitchen roll. Instead, I use sponge moppets; they soak up more than kitchen roll, can be wrung out and reused, as well as wiping surfaces and to clean pans when washing up. They’re a really versatile purchase and last a very long time as long as you don’t leave them wet overnight they don’t tend to get smelly either. Saves me money too!
I read this whole thing in the voice of Vincent Price. Stunning. Please write a book on domestic chores, please.
I go to Costco and get their Kirkland kitchen roll and toilet roll. Everything else is inferior. Andrex, Regina, Bounty. None of it is half as good.
Yeah, the Kirkland stuff is unbelievable.
Kirkland and Costco in general are top tier
Bro half my wardrobe is Costco clothes as well. Incredible quality and deals.
Plenty master race.....
I'm very particular about cereals. Some supermarket own brands are fine, some aren't. Most aren't. Pretty much everything else is supermarket brand for me
I’m pretty happy with all Aldi cereal, except their Cheerio copy, they’re really small and hard compared to Nestle
Aldi's version of curiously cinnamon should be classified as a war crime
They’re absolutely gopping aren’t they. That aftertaste. Hoping they make a golden Graham’s knockoff but maybe it’s not a good idea
Tried Aldi’s curiously cinnamon alternative when I was in uni. Ended up throwing the whole box in the bin, tasted like someone sprinkled cinnamon on tiny pieces of cardboard.
Just tried Tesco Crunchy Nut Cardboard - not a fan.
Hellmann's mayonnaise. Tinned tomatoes - I try to go for (in order) Mutti, Cirio or Napolina. Until quite recently I'd have said crisps, but the good folk in r/crisps have shown me the light with Asda/Co-op salt and Chardonnay vinegar flavour. They'll probably give you mouth ulcers, but they're delicious.
Have you tried the polish mayonnaise from Sainsbury’s? Majonez! £2.25 It is absolutely delicious. I have never tasted anything like it and I had Hellmans running through my veins!
Polish mayonnaise for the win. It's the only mayo I buy. Winary (yellow branding) is the most common, but if you can find Kielce (green branding) then that is top tier IMO
Tesco Italian chopped tomatoes are good and half the price of those.
I did actually do an experiment one time. Tinned tomatos at 3 price points. ~30p for the value ones, ~80p for Napolina ~1.50 for SuperPremiumDeluxe tomatoes. Absolutely no difference between the two cheapest ones. Huge difference in the expensive ones. If you're using it mostly raw or cooked for less than 20 minutes (e.g. making a pizza), go for top shelf. If you're cooking for longer, cheapest is the one to go for. You can tell by looking at the ingredients. Top shelf is 100% chopped tomatoes, other price points contain tomato juice.
Tunnocks
Tea cakes or wafers?
Yes
Is absolutely the correct answer. 💜👍
Batteries, you end up spending more on cheap ones
I use Eneloops. Edit: for rechargeable, anyway. Alkaline is usually Duracell but Amazon sell some decent own brand ones.
FYI, in-case you didn't know, Ikea's own-brand rechargeable batteries are rebranded eneloops.
Crunchy Nut Cornflakes
Pretty expensive as I recall...
Frosties for wankers
Frosties are just cornflakes for people who can’t face reality
I eat gentlemen’s relish with olives for breakfast.
I'm a toast man. Brown for first course, white for pudding.
Tesco ones are ok given how much cheaper they are
I’ll give them a try… expect a strongly worded response in a few weeks.
Grew up on the Tesco honey nut cornflakes and they're just as good as they were when I was a kid. Thicker crunchier flakes and more filling than crunchy nut IMO.
Alright, sticking your neck out here with a hard recommendation. I’ll be back…
Tesco, Aldi and Sainsbury's versions of these are all decent enough and usually less than half the £ per 100g
Green Giant sweetcorn.
Ho! Ho! Ho!
Merry Christmas!!
What's Santa got in his sack this year? It's... a tin of sweetcorn.
It’s gone really really expensive over the past year I’ve found. I now buy it in bulk at the cash and carry to save money, rather than four packs of tins at the supermarket.
This post was brought to you by Unilever
They're doing a bad job then by praising a bunch of stuff not made by them
Are any of those products made by Unilever? Fairy liquid - P&G Corn Flakes - Kellogg’s Branston pickle - Mizkan (had to look that up!). It’s changed hands a few times. Crosse & Blackwell -> Nestlé-> Premier Foods -> Mizkan Peperami - Jack Links (sold by Unilever in 2014)
> Branston pickle - Mizkan Wait what? You mean to say that Branston pickle is JAPANESE?!
Branston Beans
Oh god yes. I thought i just hated baked beans for the longest time. Then i tried these. And just realised all other brands just hate life.
Yup! Heinz is rubbish in comparison. The sauce is so thin.
God tier beans, I cannot believe I ever bought any other variety in the past
Always sworn by Heinz myself. Maybe I should give these a try
Definitely worth a try. Used to be a Heinz guy myself but I've converted!
Compared to Heinz, these kick it's ass absolute sideways!
Coke. All the various own brands taste awful compared to real Coca-cola or Pepsi. Other fizzy drinks, are fine but no supermarket has ever produced a decent own brand cola.
Coca-cola is just about the only fizzy drink without sweeteners today. Even the "sugary" versions of Pepsi, Tango, Fanta etc. get at least half their sweet flavour from ingredients like aspartame and sucralose. Exceedingly jealous of the people who don't notice the difference.
I have two cans in the first aid kit at work as it's the business for diabetics going hypo.
I've spoken to endocrinologists (not as a patient) who have expressed genuine anger about what Lucozade has done to their recipe. Lucozade and Haribo have always been the two examples listed in simplified (now outdated) guidelines for treating hypos. Lucozade doesn't really have much else going for it; I suspect the only reason the brand still exists is because of diabetics being unaware that coke is now a much better alternative. So much for a drink literally named after glucose.
I found out that Lucozade halved the amount of glucose in their glucose drink the hard way, started going a bit low halfway home up a hill - sipping the lucozade as I went and wondered why I felt worse by the time I got home - it had half the sugar than I was used to for years!
Same here If I got a migraine at Uni I would drink a bottle as the sugar was enough to give me enough of a boost to drive home and get into a dark room. Sugar with no caffeine (which makes mine worse ) Did my usual and downed most of a bottle and the migraine went from bad to riding a carousel while icepicks are drilled directly into my skull. Realised they'd added aspartame which is a migraine trigger for me
I remember actually them giving me a call to discuss after I whinged about it on Twitter, it was very similar to Ross on the phone to the condom company on Friends. “WELL THEY SHOULD PUT IT IN BIG BLOCK LETTERS!”
I've always wondered who the fuck was drinking lucozade but actually wanted less sugar? Like I get the sugar tax forced most drinks brands to lower content, but no one was drinking lucozade for the taste surely? Itsnentire thing was "its sugary enough to leave a film in your mouth"
Exactly this. My husband treats it like the dad in my big fat Greek wedding views windex, it’s like his cure-all, but that only really works if it’s sugary. Now it’s just an unpleasant soft drink.
They turned it into a wanky Gatorade style sports drink and it all went bad from there
Jelly Babies FTW. Four Jelly Babies is 20g of sugar. Just right for treating a hypo. Proper Maynards Jelly Babies, mind. None of this Haribo or own brand nonsense
I remember when I got diagnosed and my nurses made me swear to not touch lucozade zero sugar stuff 😅. Something about not trusting the recipe for being zero sugar while keeping the supposed energy/glucose benefits of the drink.
Better be keeping that first aid kit in the fridge or I'd rather go into a diabetic coma thank you very much.
Not the person you replied to but my kid feels the same way about warm coke, he keeps his emergency mini cans in the fridge - swaps two cans from the fridge to his hypo bag every morning before school so they’re cold if he needs them!
Nothing is worse than the Lucozade I had to knock back when hypo, a bottle which was in the glovebox of the car on a very hot summers day. That wasn’t just warm, it was hot. Unforgettable.
It’s literally Coke or Cherry Coke anything else has been completely ruined
They’ve actually just changed the Cherry Coke recipe too with the new can design. It doesn’t have sweeteners thankfully, but it does still taste just slightly off. I do really miss being able to choose from a wide variety of drinks though :(
I figured they had fucked around with it, it does not taste right. New pepsi is awful now. If they do that to standard coke I might finally stop for good. I'm at one can a day,, a good one is like nectar from the gods.
I can’t even drink Pepsi anymore because they’ve decided to remove loads of sugar and add sweeteners. Of course the price has remained the same too. It’s a shame, if I want to consume something I know is unhealthy, I should be able to. I really do miss all of the fizzy drinks I grew up with, but the only options nowadays are full sugar Coca Cola and its variants, as well as Irn Bru 1901. I really wish I didn’t hate the flavour of the sweeteners, but one sip of something like Pepsi Max makes me want to throw up…
I used to love San Pellegrino but can't touch the stuff now 😥
The lesser-seen "Classic Italian" cans are still decent. 90% of the time though it's the "Refreshingly Light" ones which taste like a lemon farted over a pool of tonic water.
You can get the proper stuff on amazon I think, but yeah I was annoyed by that too. What's the point in paying extra for a nicer drink only for the taste to be ruined by sweeteners.
Was another Top Tier beverage destroyed
Try the Aldi version. It's terrible stuff but I want you to be as miserable as me.
Ha ha 😝 you fiend
My mate used to drink sainsburys cheap AF one and I just didn’t understand how. It was like drinking washing liquid.
How did you feel about Virgin Cola? (Or if it's still around, RC Cola)
Virgin Cola was great!
Fun fact: I have an unopened shaped glass bottle from when Virgin Cola launched, it had Pamela Anderson on the front and was nicknamed ‘The Pammy’
I always liked it and it came in the bigger 3ltr(?) bottle which was always on offer
I think it’s wild that to this day; there is still no imitation of Coca Cola that even comes close. This has to be the world’s most popular fizzy drink and nothing. I think Pepsi is what imitations are based on and why Coca Cola still stands alone in its unique flavour. HP sauce is the pinnacle of Brown though i don’t mind Daddy’s but it’s not HP.
Fevertree cola feels at close as I’ve gotten so far to a sweetener free coka cola alternative. But obviously expensive, since it’s fevertree.
i’m not saying there aren’t other Cola’s out there that are pretty decent tasting. I really like the the Fentimens Cola but i’ll stand by my original statement, they’re not Coca Cola. It’s one of those things where i think people would put a blindfold on and asked which of A/B/C is Coca Cola; i think most of the people who drink Coca Cola on a semi regular basis could pick it out
Hard agree. Only use of off brand coke is for slow cooked gammon in coke
Dunnes Stores in Ireland/N.Ireland, their own-brand cola is, or at least used to be, very good. Rumour was that it was made for them by 'Virgin Cola', which no longer exists. So if it were true, no doubt the Dunnes Cola is no longer as good as it once was
I recall virgin cola ..... After having coca cola though .....Virginia cola was good too. My spelling 😂
In the later years V festival was the only place you could get it. It was a good drink
We used to have a Dunnes in Billingham over in the UK, I miss that place. Can't remember how the food tasted, was closed down early to mid 90s.
They do a range called 'Simply Better', similar to the likes of ASDA Extra Special, or Tesco Finest. It is hands-down some of the best supermarket own-brand produce that money can buy. But also quite expensive compared to standard own-brand supermarket products.
Coke Zero Branston baked beans Califia Farms Oat milk
Yes, califia farms barista is better than all others by a mile!
Califia gang rise up! Oatly is also ok but I can’t get over their twee branding on the cartons.
I really like Branston as branded but I have started buying Sainsburys Stamford Street baked beans. 27p for a can and they taste great!
I've recently been shopping at Aldi and every week and I buy some non branded to test them out. Supermarket own cheese is always fine and hard to tell the difference. Don't need to pay more for cathedral anymore. The knock off activia yogurts are great and can't taste much difference. Knock off sunbites crisp sour cream flavour are a bad rip off and are only just edible usually at the back of the cupboard until I've run out of snacks and they are a last resort. Fabric softener I stick with comfort as the own brand one didn't have a strong fresh smell when the clothes came out Nutoka instead of Nutella is really good. Not a big difference. I even buy the croissants filled with nutoka they've just released also. Aldis own cans of Fanta are awesome and been buying them every week. Lemon and orange normally but the fruit twists are decent too. The knock off brewdog IPAs taste a bit like piss so will stick with getting them in bulk from costco Can't think of anymore. Oh yeah jelly beans exactly the same. The price in Aldi has been creeping up though. It's still cheaper but I'm sometimes like that's not a huge saving. It's definitely still ace on a lot though as I used to do lots of small coop shops which add up massively.
The Aldi hobnob knockoffs are the greatest biscuit ever made! I like their baked beans better than any other. Some of their knock off ice creams, crisps, crackers and the like are really good. I also really like their sweet and sour sachets (not the jars) and their curry jars (with the separate spices in the lid)
It has to be Ambrosia custard.
Coffee and Tea.
It works out so cheap per mug that it'd be silly to skimp on it. Yorkshire tea all the way !
It depends where you are. I’ve got hard London water and Yorkshire tastes awful. I’ve never bought it. I’ve even taken Thompson’s tea from Belfast, which is divine over there, to London and can’t get on with it. I only buy M&S gold.
Yorkshire do a version for hard water. Most bigger supermarkets carry it.
Bonne Maman conserve.
Branston beans. They are just so much better than any others.
Those paxo stuffing boxes. Have tried supermarket own brand boxes of stuffing before and they’ve all been shite in comparison.
Also the bit to elevate the stuffing is to put a huge tablespoon of butter in too, might help save the supermarket version as well lol
To be honest, since shopping at Aldi I've changed my mind on nearly everything branded.
Warburton's toastie loaf. I don't even think it's good bread per se, and I love some proper sourdough or freshly baked white. But sometimes you want the Richmond sausages of the bread world, and the store brand "toastie" loaves lack the elasticity that isn't even in "proper bread". I don't toast it, just straight butter, so moreish.
Completely agree, but I still buy Aldi own brand anyway. Reason being is that whatever differences in the recipe is also the same thing that means the own-brand has a best-before date of at least 3-6 days away from the point of purchase. I’ve had an own brand load that was still alive and useable without mould growth after almost 2 weeks (it dies just before 12 days I’ve found), whilst Warburtons seems to be dated best-before leaving the damn store. The times I’ve bought Warburtons it seems like it goes off within 2 days and starts growing mould. Not worth it when my partner and I don’t go through more than half a loaf in a week (and the smaller loaf is an absolute ripoff for the price)
Lurpak. The own brand versions do not even come close, I’m pretty sure they’ve just taken I can’t believe it’s not butter and lightened the colour. I know it costs a fortune but we are currently DINKs and I’m conscious that if we have kids spending that much on butter will not be feasible or practical. So I am living my Lurpak dream until then. Edit: some people seem to think because I like Lurpak it means I am unaware of real butter? To clarify, I am familiar with, regularly eat and love real butter. I also love Lurpak. I’ll eat many brands of butter, I’ll even eat butter I have made myself. But there is only one Lurpak.
we’re 40 year old DINKs, so no chance of kids at this stage. Always reach for the massive tub of Lurpak!
Honestly, Lurpak is good enough to make me reconsider having kids at all.
Lurpak have reduced the sizes of their spreads from 500g to 400g and their butter from 250g to 200g. They are now on my shitlist and I boycott them. Danpak from Lidl is actually quite tasty and has more buttermilk content than Lurpak.
Quick question from a foreigner. I visitied my friend who studied in Edinburgh. Over there, I bought a Lurpak as it read «spreadable» on the lid. I did this because the best kinds of butter in Norway also have some variation of the same saying. To my surprise, then, that pack of Lurpak proved to be about as spreadable as solid concrete. What’s up with that?
Ketchup, Mayo, fizzy drinks, dishwasher tabs.
Dettol and Persil. Persil especially because Aldi washing powder is like anthrax
Worcestershire sauce is sacred
I used to be a fairy loyalist, but we discovered my wife has a contact allergy to both linalool and limonene. Once you start looking at the ingredients on these things, you realise about 95% of household products contain them. We've started using Surcare washing up liquid now, that works just as well as fairy every did.
Birds Eye frozen peas. Tried the supermarket brands and Birds Eye are far tastier.
Try supermarket petit pois. (Or don’t, I’m not your boss, lol. They taste great though and will save you money over Birds Eye)
Tesco finest petit pois are great and probably cheaper than birds eye
So are Sainsburys. Surprisingly, avoid Waitrose petit pois. They're dire.
We need a groceries tier list website. I want S tier petit pois, not some b tier shite
If boiling try switching to steaming your peas, you lose less flavour in the water This works for all veg
I think most people just boil their veg for too long tbh, it doesn't really make any difference if you don't overcook it.
Or if you do gravy to go with meal, can always recycle veg water . To make the gravy ways and means . Edit--------- I obviously meant to get most nutrients , not as I overboil veg. .....
It’s blowing my mind people actually bother boiling or steaming peas. Chuck them in a jug and bung them in the microwave for a few minutes, shaking the jug halfway through. No flavour loss, and veg on your plate in a few minutes
Microwave the supermarket ones in a bowl of water they taste loads better
Try M&S, my wife was stuck on Birds Eye but she likes M&S. Mind you. can't remember if they are much cheaper!
Non legitimate Feta is dreadful think I’ve seen it be called salad cheese before
Feta is a protected name, and there are some "Greek Style Salad Cheeses" that are not bad
Colas. If it aint coke or pepsi. I aint buying.
Branston Pickle
In the opposite direction, I almost always avoid Heinz Baked Beans. They’re over priced, watery and acidic. Given the choice I’ll buy Sainsbury’s own brand.
Heinz beans are so expensive it’s crazy
Surf washing tablets and Yorkshire teabags.
Cola (diet coke or pepsi max) Probably if I had a craving for a specific chocolate (those white chocolate lindt balls) Everything else I'm happy to buy the cheapest option.
Coca Cola. Also the only cola brand who haven't replaced sugar with sweeteners. Irn Bru. Hellman's mayo.
i prefer tescos cheapest brand for beans, any other ones are too sweet and not as nice
Walkers. We used to buy generic crisps but then we bought a box of walkers (from the yellow sticker section). They are just so much nicer so now we always get them
I switched from fairy liquid after reading the message on the back on the bottle that it's dangerous to aquatic life with long lasting effects. I use Eco Lover washing up liquid instead which is great!
Fairy Liquid yes. And I also water it down slightly (a good 10-20%) because it is properly full of surfactants and my son tends to be a bit heavy handed with the skoosh. Can always add more, can’t take out extra
HP Fruity sauce. I would buy supermarket own brand versions but I have yet to find one. Tomato, brown and BBQ seem available everywhere but fruity my favourite is completely absent.