A Better Bag of Groceries

Scoring the Store Brands

Wednesday, April 28, 2010 at 08:05 AM

Yesterday’s post  was kind of like that Seinfeld episode when Jerry and George pitched their “show about Nothing” to NBC.  I wrote about coffee – which we’re not scoring at NuVal.  I didn’t really have a trade-up story to tell.  It was a post about Nothing.  But in the end, it sparked some great comments and questions from so many A Better Bag of Groceries readers. 

One of my favorites came from Carolyn C:

Carolyn C with two of her three boys

“I would love to see how the generic label foods rate from grocery stores vs. the brand name foods. We often buy the generic food labels (because of cost), and I can’t even begin to tell you how much I’d love to know what we are eating!”

Well, Carolyn you are not alone!  According to the National Grocers Association  Consumer Survey Report for 2010, 52% of shoppers reported that they buy store brands instead of national brands. 

Just for the record, in the grocery biz’, we call store brand products “Private Label”.  It sounds so secretive, doesn’t it?

Anyway, according to a 2009 study  by A.C. Nielsen, U.S. private label sales were up 7.4% over the previous year.  So, people are watching their budgets.

Unfortunately, Carolyn, my answer to you is kind of lame.  The answer is, “It depends.”  Sometimes, the private label product scores higher than the national brand, sometimes lower, and sometimes the same.  One thing that I can tell you, though, is that the retailers who decide to implement NuVal in their stores are taking a very careful look at their private label products.  If they score lower than the national brand, they are going out and reformulating their recipes so that they score equal to or better than the national brand.

Check out this pasta sauce example from Price Chopper:

You could buy Classico sauce with a score of 37…

or the Price Chopper brand, with a score of 81.

And look at the difference in price!  You would pay 70 cents less for the product that has much better nutrition!  I bought that Price Chopper marinara sauce and is was delicious!

Now, I know that many A Better Bag of Groceries  readers are not so lucky as to have a grocery store near them that has NuVal on the store shelves.  So, while you can learn a lot about National Brands here on my blog or on Trading Up Downtown, you are probably wondering how your Stop & Shop Nature’s Promise Whole Wheat Penne scores or how your Albertson’s 100% Natural Oats and Honey Cereal scores.  Unfortunately, you won’t know how those Private Label products score until your store decides to implement NuVal.

I know many ABBGreaders are eagerly awaiting the day when their local store will implement NuVal.  To speed things up, you can Suggest a Store  on the NuVal website, talk to your local store manager, or get in contact with your retailer through their website.

In the meantime, if you are lucky enough to shop in one of the retailers that currently has NuVal scores on shelf (Price Chopper, Hy-Vee, Meijer, United Texas Markets, Kroger- Lexington, KY), please email me and/or send pictures about the stories in the scores that you are seeing. 

Posted by: Melissa 3 comments

Posted in: Price Chopper, Private Label

Tags: Price Chopper, Private Label, Store Brands