Generic vs Name Brand Foods

Name Brand vs. Generic Foods Abstract

This year, my family and I have started shopping and buying our groceries at ALDI. At ALDI, they mostly sell knock-off or generic food brands. I wanted to discover if generic and name brand foods really taste different. Is name brand food really worth our money? My hypothesis was no, people wouldn’t be able to tell the difference between name brand and generic foods because they are made with similar ingredients.

One Saturday, I texted my friends and talked to most of my family and I got together seven friends and family members. I went to two stores: ALDI to get my generic items and Shoprite to get my name brand items. I got two brands of each food: chocolate creme cookies, pretzels, nacho cheese chips, baked cheese crackers, lemonade, oat cereal, and potato chips. I brought out 6 paper plates and a few different cups. I labeled each plate either “name brand” or “generic”. I put a handful of each different type of food on each plate. Then, I experimented one person at a time. For every subject, I blindfolded them and handed them one plate (or cup) at a time. After tasting both brands, I asked them to rate each snack, guess if they were name brand or generic and choose which one they preferred. I then recorded my data.

All but one of the people I tested on had trouble guessing whether the foods were name brand or generic. My subjects got an average of five guesses right and two guesses wrong. Every person I tested on favored most of the name brand snacks. About 28% preferred 4 of the name brand snacks. Approximately 14% enjoyed 6 of the name brand. Roughly 28% of my subjects liked all of the name brand snacks. The generic snack my subjects’ liked the best were the baked cheese crackers, chocolate creme cookies, and potato chips.

I learned through this project that although generic foods are cheaper, they don’t have the same taste as popular, name brand snacks. My hypothesis was incorrect because my subjects could tell the difference between name and generic brands. Ironically, 57% of my test subjects could tell the difference between four snacks. 28% of my subjects could tell the difference between six snacks and 14% of my subjects could tell the difference between all seven snacks. I think my experiment could be more accurate because I tested different people who like different foods more than others. For example, if I tested someone who really likes chocolate creme cookies, they might be able to tell the difference between name brand and generic brand cookies. I could improve my experiment by testing on more subjects and trying out different, harder to identify foods.

Graphs

Test Subject 1 4 right

Test Subject 2 7 right

Test Subject 3 6 right

Test Subject 4 4 right

Test Subject 5 6 right

Test Subject 6 4 right

Test Subject 7 4 right

Data