Everytime we go grocery shopping, we’re faced with a tough decision. Buy the name brand, or save 30 cents and get the off-brand. Tonight I had a craving for some pizza rolls. Conveniently I was at Meijer (an overpriced version of Wal-Mart found here in the Midwest), so buying some wasn’t a difficult task. However, in going to the frozen food section of the store, I was faced with the common decision. Totino’s or Meijer brand. After my friend stood there calculating price / oz. for a few seconds in his head, we decided to give the Meijer brand a shot (they were on sale of couse). To the check out. To the oven.
Believe it or not the Meijer brand were actually really good. In fact, I want to say-for the record-that they were actually better than the more expensive name-brand competitor. Now let me beg the question. What edge does Totino’s have over my pizza roll purchases in the future? If I have become to trust Meijer as much as the great Italian cuisine of Totino/Jeno, why should I pay more? What happens to a name brand company when they are being undercut by generic-ism, generic-ism that is, in fact, meeting their quality of product? May seem like a silly point to make, but you can see why this could be an important subject to Betty Crocker.