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2.2 TAKE A NEW LOOK AT STORE BRANDS, PRIVATE LABEL PRODUCTS AND GENERICS AT THE SUPERMARKET

Most large stores now offer a full line of in-house brands. Thrift Drug, for example, advertises that it carries over 1500 of its own products. Supermarkets may even carry several different lines: an expensive and an economy brand. Today you can find just about anything: from soda to video tape, from cosmetics to garbage bags, from cold medicine to coffee.

Several store products are consistently judged the best of any brand tested in independent testing. Employees may be able to steer you to the best in-house products. For example, a checkout woman at the A&P told me she preferred the A&P spaghetti sauce.

Stores generally stand behind their own brands because, unlike a national or famous name brand, you can only buy a specific store brand at that particular business. The store wants to carry quality products that you will keep coming back to buy.

In the last few years, store brands have become much more sophisticated. They can copy just about any popular product and package it so that it looks similar to the national brand rival. They also have variety. For example, you can buy a private label non-aspirin pain reliever in easy open or child-resistant bottles with a choice of caplets, gelatin caplets or geltabs.

Store brands even go on sale! Be sure to stock up when this happens.

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