I heard all milk is the same across brands. Like I heard in the factories they fill the jugs with the same milk and then slap on the stickers of the various brands and call it a day. Yet, at the grocery store you see different prices. Why would anyone buy the more expensive one? Clearly people seem to be doing that because otherwise the prices wouldn’t be different.
When I was living in MA, there was a cool battle between the two main milk brands. One, commenting on the other brand’s method of adding vitamin D to their milk, although not saying that vitamin D was why they were adding something, ran ads saying “unlike the other brand, we don’t add chemicals to our milk”. The other brand responded with ads that said “well, we don’t add fish oil to our milk”. Awesome battle.
I don’t think I ever heard about whether people ended up preferring the chemicals or the fish oil.
There’s a guy in my neighborhood that works for United dairymen of Arizona. I could ask him for some perspective on the question.
I probably won’t, but I could…
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Hmm, around here there are usually differences that I assume mean something. Like one is organic, one is kosher, one is none of the above. While I suppose it’s possible that all 3 are actually organic and kosher, my guess is they aren’t.
I don’t think I’ve seen different brands of non-organic, non-kosher milk at the regular grocery store. I have at Trader Joe’s and I just buy their brand as it’s cheapest and I have no clue what’s supposed to make the other brands better to even opine on whether I agree.
I will say that when I’m making ice cream I will do a lot to get cream that isn’t ultra-Pasteurized. I don’t mind normal Pasteurized but ultra-Pasteurized is the pits. It really kills the flavor. I have to drive like 30 miles to get to a store that carries non-ultra-Pasteurized cream. If it were available closer I’d be willing to pay quite a lot extra.
If I saw ultra-Pasteurized milk in the store I’d avoid that too but it either doesn’t exist or I just haven’t noticed it.
I don’t drink milk. ew.
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Back in the “before time”, when I still went grocery shopping (as opposed to using delivery; we changed before COVID), I picked milk by expiration date, not price…and avoided the store brand, which we had had some experience with going bad early.
I mostly only drink it in coffee, but also keep it on hand for cooking.
You heard wrong. It claims to be processed differently and come from different cows. Independent testing shows different ratios of fatty acids (which is an indicator of how much the cow grazed vs. how much grain it ate) and different ratios of some proteins. Different brands taste different. Different brands have different expected shelf life.
I drink a lot of milk. I care about the brand, and can pretty much rank my preferences of the brands at all the shops i go to.
(And for heavy cream there’s a surprising difference in the percent butterfat from brand to brand. Sometimes i buy the one with the most butterfat, but if i don’t use it quickly, a lot of the fat collects in buttery clumps at the top of the container, despite it claiming to be homogenized.)
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I read that it’s not just milk but a bunch of other products too. Like bags cereal medicine etc. Often the store brand is the same exact item as the name brand but using different ink on the package.
Also glasses are from one big company
I’ve heard these claims too, and mostly think they’re bunk. I can tell the difference between Cheerios or Kraft macaroni & cheese and their generic equivalents.
The one where I’ve noticed the least variation is frozen veggies. I don’t see a lot of difference in frozen green beans from one brand to another. Though I do for frozen peas.
But the store brand of frozen broccoli will be almost all stalk and barely any florets unless it specifies “frozen broccoli florets”. So I could also see maybe those coming from the same place as Green Giant and Birdseye but the store brand and other cheap generics like HyVee but they funnel the stalks to the cheap brand and the florets to the more expensive packages.
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That one is true. Almost all frames come from “luxxotica”, i think it’s called.
The lenses come from a wider variety of places.
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It’s true that the same factory often makes the name brand and the store brand. It’s unusual for them to have exactly the same recipe. Usually, if you buy both, you can see as well as taste the difference. Sometimes the store brand is better than the name brand. But they are rarely identical.
It’s Luxottica and nearly all premium frames are from there. I think some of the cheap ones aren’t.
Luxottica brands include:
Giorgio Armani
Brooks Brothers
Bulgari
Burberry
Chanel
Coach
Dolce & Gabbana
Donna Karan
Michael Kors
Miu Miu
Oakley
Prada
Ralph Lauren
Ray-Ban
Scuderia Ferrari
Starck Biotech Paris
Tiffany & Co.
Tory Burch
Valentino
Versace
Vogue
scans list
I dont see my brand, Barton Pereira on it. They were not cheap…
Kraft mac & cheese or gtfo. Generic is crap.
I buy store brand milk tho.
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I put whipped cream in coffee and also on snacks. it serves several purposes.
it used to be because i didn’t drink enough coffee at home to use up milk, but just kept that up with covid. now i probably do.
This is the good shit:
http://www.ronnybrook.com/
Sorry, if you’re not in NY, you’re not gonna get it.
It’s very lovely.
The thing I want explained – why anybody buys skim milk.
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Skim milk helps reduce my “bad” fat intake to keep my cholesterol low. 
I still eat butter on occasion. 
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They hate their lives imo