A To Z Challenge: Store Brands

Like many people out there times are tight for us in the domicile, not to mention the Minions are eating us out of house and home.  #1 can devour two hamburgers, #2 gulps down three hot dogs and #3 is fast on his way to catching up with them.  Besides trying our hand at a garden this year and short of raising our own cows and chickens, we routinely purchase the store brands of the major brand items.  I'm sure lost of people do that, especially with growing children and there is absolutely nothing wrong with that.

Now there are some items you cannot skimp on and purchase the store brands:

• Toilet paper - Why risk it?  Besides who really uses one square?
• Kleenex - Who wants to have a hand full of snot?
• Beer - Goes without saying.

But for the most part store brands are just as good and cost less than major brand items.  While shopping this past week, I began to notice things about store brands.  The stores are sneaky, yet right up front with you about their product.

First you need to hunt to find the boxes.  If you are too quick about grabbing something off the shelf you could end up grabbing the more expensive item and who wants that?  The store brands are usually colored the same so to the untrained eye, they could be easy to miss.  It makes you stop and wonder though, you would think the stores would want you to buy their product over the major brand because they would make more profit off of it...or do they?  Maybe the conglomerate companies pay the stores to push their product?  Hmmmm, I smell a conspiracy theory here.

The second thing I noticed is that while they hide on the shelves, the packaging hides nothing.  You might as well package them in transparent boxes.  Take chicken noodle soup for example, Campbell's calls it chicken noodle soup, where some stores label them something like "lotsa' noodles".  Both are probably the same where you get 2, maybe 3 chunks of chicken in there.

Then you have something like soda, these guys are leaning right on the copyright infringement line.  We drink soda and purchase the store brands, besides diet cola, you get something like Dr. Perky..obviously a spin off of Dr. Pepper.  Then there is Mountain Dew's redheaded step child, Mountain Lightning.  You guys are teetering on that line aren't you?

We eat a lot of cereal in the domicile and yet again have resorted to the store brands.  The names are like the sodas, instead of Fruit Loops you have Fruit Rings, Toasty O's instead of Cheerios and my favorite, Koo-Kies instead of Cookie Crisp.  They all taste the same as far as I'm concerned but why put them in bags?  Sure you get more for your dollar but it's a pain in the ass storing these things on the pantry shelf.

Take a look next time you are grocery shopping, they hide but yet hide nothing.