Strange, from memory it was the exact opposite. The brand names actually had decent flavor/texture, while the off-brands had humongous amounts of sugar, to the point where you actually taste the sugar rather than it just sweetening the overall flavor.
My guess is that the brand names got stuck from their own popularity. People knew what they tasted like and might have reacted badly if they tried to tweak the recipe, whereas the budget brands were easier to either change or even discontinue and replace with slightly different branding. People were buying them for the price, not the recipe.
And then, after enough experimentation, they were able to figure out something that matched or surpassed the brand names.
In Canada, there’s the PC brand that I always considered a budget brand. Until I worked at an ice cream factory that had their own premium brand but also made some PC flavours. The PC ones looked better than the factory brand ones. The factory did things the old way (where ice cream flavours were still more about the ice cream than extras added) while PC focused more on the extras like cookie dough or chocolate caramel cups. I can only speak for myself, but I’m more into the extras than the ice cream itself, so it felt like PC was more in tune with what I wanted than the premium brand.
Additionally, the premium brand sticking with the less preferred recipe kinda feels pretentious at this point, like they are being ice cream purists or think they know better about what people want, given the higher price.
PC also had their versions of various pop flavours that have colouring on the boxes to make it clear what they were cloning and their Pepsi cola clone was just as good as the real thing but way cheaper.
If true, that was 10 year old me arguing and I do not stand by anything he says 😂
But really, that hasn’t been my experience with some of them, but it would make sense if the off brands stay pretty close to the big brands in recipes or added more sugar to compete that way. I guess I’m trying to find logic in preference. I’m realizing how little I know about cereals.
Strange, from memory it was the exact opposite. The brand names actually had decent flavor/texture, while the off-brands had humongous amounts of sugar, to the point where you actually taste the sugar rather than it just sweetening the overall flavor.
My guess is that the brand names got stuck from their own popularity. People knew what they tasted like and might have reacted badly if they tried to tweak the recipe, whereas the budget brands were easier to either change or even discontinue and replace with slightly different branding. People were buying them for the price, not the recipe.
And then, after enough experimentation, they were able to figure out something that matched or surpassed the brand names.
In Canada, there’s the PC brand that I always considered a budget brand. Until I worked at an ice cream factory that had their own premium brand but also made some PC flavours. The PC ones looked better than the factory brand ones. The factory did things the old way (where ice cream flavours were still more about the ice cream than extras added) while PC focused more on the extras like cookie dough or chocolate caramel cups. I can only speak for myself, but I’m more into the extras than the ice cream itself, so it felt like PC was more in tune with what I wanted than the premium brand.
Additionally, the premium brand sticking with the less preferred recipe kinda feels pretentious at this point, like they are being ice cream purists or think they know better about what people want, given the higher price.
PC also had their versions of various pop flavours that have colouring on the boxes to make it clear what they were cloning and their Pepsi cola clone was just as good as the real thing but way cheaper.
If true, that was 10 year old me arguing and I do not stand by anything he says 😂
But really, that hasn’t been my experience with some of them, but it would make sense if the off brands stay pretty close to the big brands in recipes or added more sugar to compete that way. I guess I’m trying to find logic in preference. I’m realizing how little I know about cereals.