The official site of the Torch, the student-run newspaper at Glenbrook North High School.

Torch

The official site of the Torch, the student-run newspaper at Glenbrook North High School.

Torch

The official site of the Torch, the student-run newspaper at Glenbrook North High School.

Torch

Consumers face battle of brands

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Click to enlarge.

When students buy junk food, they are often faced with a variety of products. They may need to decide if they should purchase the generic brand or the name brand of a particular product.

Freshman Riva Akolawala mostly shops at Costco, Sunset Foods and Trader Joe’s. She said in certain cases, her purchases are affected by whether or not a product is a name brand.

According to food consultant Carolyn Martinelli, who described her occupation as helping “clients with the ‘How to’ of how to eat healthy and follow their nutritional plan,” most consumers are unaware of the lack of differences in ingredients between generic brands and name brands of food. She said awareness depends on the consumer’s level of involvement in studying brands.

“The regular consumer would just say, ‘Oh, okay, this is good and I’ll just buy this if it looks good,’ and then it tastes good and they buy it again,” Martinelli said.

Martinelli said the only difference between most generic brands and name brands of junk food is the cost and the name because generic brands try to emulate exactly what name brands would put in their products.

According to Akolawala, “Sometimes [generic brands are] just as good, and name brands are just more expensive just because of the name brand.”

However, according to JoEllen Kaufman, MS, licensed dietician nutritionist (LDN) and clinical lipid specialist (CLS), a difference between a name brand and a generic brand is that a name brand food product may have better quality control than a generic brand.

Kaufman said a name brand food product would have better reproducibility, meaning that “the product will be the same whether you buy it today, or a year later.”

“Generics may change the manufacturer but [you] still call the product by the same name,” Kaufman said.

Martinelli said one example of this is Trader Joe’s cookies.

“There’s a lot of speculation that a lot of [Trader Joe’s] brands are name brands that are just labeled Trader Joe’s,” said Martinelli. “For example, there’s a gluten-free cookie that is made by Tate’s that tastes exactly the same as the Trader Joe’s gluten-free cookie. People have said that it is [the same], that a lot of their stuff is manufactured in that facility and then just sold to [Trader Joe’s] to put their name on it.”

However, Martinelli said Tate’s cookie is a lot more expensive to purchase than the Trader Joe’s cookie.

Kaufman agrees that cost is a difference between a name brand and a generic brand product.

“The only advantage, usually, but not always, to a generic [brand], is that usually it costs less than a brand name,” said Kaufman. “That’s the biggest saving: cost. But you should still compare the cost and…look at the actual amount of what you’re getting and compare it ounce to ounce because you might be getting a lesser [quality] product.”