1y ago

What common grocery item(s) is it absolutely fine to buy the cheap/unbranded version of?

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I'd say the other way around. The store brand version has nearly always been fine, in my experience. I'd instead use the store brand and make a list of cases where the store brand isn't okay. At least in my experience, it's pretty limited. What I can recall having bad experiences with, off-the-cuff:
Soup. I have had some pretty disappointing store brand canned soups.
Things with motors, like small kitchen appliances, blenders and the like. I've had a bunch of generic ones of those fail before.
Sodas. These aren't exactly the same. Some people particularly prefer the taste of one root beer or whatever, and it might be that they prefer a name brand. That being said, there are also people who prefer store brands, so...shrugs
There are also a few cases where I've run into a particular brand that doesn't have a store clone, and where I really like the name-brand product.
Pretzels. I particularly like Dot's. I haven't seen a store brand clone of Dot's.
Sardines. Bit of a niche, but I once went on some website with some guy that was absolutely rabid about sardines, reviewed them, wrote huge amounts about them. My dad always liked eating canned sardines on crackers. Tried a couple different brands, and yeah, there is a difference, but the big one is that stores in the US don't normally have heavily-smoked sardines (well, okay, sprats) in oil. I started eating Latvian "Riga Gold" sprats in oil, and they're just amazing. I don't like a lot of foods I've tried from Eastern Europe, but man, they hit it out of the ballpark on that. I don't think that we have a US-based comparable manufacturer.
Red Windsor cheese. It's not all that fancy, just cheddar with some port wine marbled in, but I really like the taste. Same thing on this -- I don't think that there are any companies in the US that make the stuff, so it's name brand or nothing.
If someone did clone any of the last three, though, I'd give 'em a try.
- I'll piggyback on your comment with Worcestershire sauce.
  Lea & Perrins make the original Worcestershire sauce, they also have never disclosed the full recipe, just the ingredients.
  There are store brands and even Heinz makes a sauce. None of them are as good as the original.
  
  Yea the heinz one sucked. I had to Chuck it I just couldn't get through it.
  
  Heinz is particularly bad, they use soy sauce and corn syrup, and I don't think ferment it at all.
  Whereas Lea & Perrins use zero soy, and ferment the sauce.
  The absolute worst part about it all is that Lea & Perrins was bought out by Heinz in 2005, and yet the Heinz branded sauce is still shit flavored water.
  The original is still made the same way, and is still good.
  
  The absolute worst part about it all is that Lea & Perrins was bought out by Heinz in 2005, and yet the Heinz branded sauce is still shit flavored water.
  No, this is the best part because L&Ps product didn't go to shit after getting bought out.
  
  True. That is a good thing.
  
  That's a good point. A number of sauces/mixed condiments in general are kind of like sodas. There are definitely competitors, but they all have slightly different variants, even within the same field. And people seem to have definite preferences on the specific variant.
  Like, the Brits have that brown sauce stuff.
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brown_sauce
  HP Sauce is the earliest brown sauce, and is the most popular brown sauce in the United Kingdom, accounting for around 75% of sales. Daddies, OK Sauce and Wilkin & Sons are other popular brands. Another is Hammonds of Yorkshire,[8] popular in Northern England.[9]
  Most supermarket chains in the UK[10] and Ireland also stock their own brand of brown sauce.
- Store brand ketchup is always awful.
- Trader Joe's smoked sardines in olive oil is delicious.
- Mac and cheese is another with significant variety in flavor between brands.
  
  Honestly, while not exactly the same, the Walmart Great Value Mac and Cheese is almost identical to Kraft Dinner. Slightly different noodles, and the cheese powder is fairly pale compared to the striking yellow name brand stuff, but once the milk and butter is mixed in the colour comes out and it looks and tastes pretty damn close.

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