I can't reply to the deeper comments, so I'll reply here.
The "store branded" products are also sometimes the exact same stuff, but they pay less (or the premium brands pay a premium) to have "first run" rights. That is, the premium brands are packaged first, right after a cleaning, so you're less likely to have "inclusions" like chunks of tomato goop in your ketchup.
That's not always true. I actually don't know how true it is at all. At least in facilities that I know about, everything was manufactured exactly the same, there was no such thing as "first run after cleaning", as far as I know "first run" premium has more to do with volumes and scheduling (e.g. at a candy factory you'll get priority to get your orders filled before halloween) or if any equipment goes down your orders will always be prioritized
you say it like it's a sort of corporate slut-shaming, but it's not. If you build a factory big enough to make 1/2 the cheese puffs in the world, there's an incentive to make it bigger and make all the cheese puffs in the world. Going from small batch bake/frying to assembly line flow is the 1st step, but once you're over that hurdle, you might as well go big, as long as you can handle the risk of being stuck with the risk of owning the 2nd biggest cheese puff tumbler in the world. That type of cooking is a natural monopoly.
that's the factory, but brands don't come from the factory, they come from the market, and have different reputations, strategies, customers and distribution channels. If you have a giant computer controlled cheese puffery, it's not that big a deal to change the formulation of the cheese, change the logo bags, etc. all on the fly, and it's much cheaper for you to do it than a smaller less sophisticated operation making you more customizable and still the low-cost producer.
did you know that even if you aren't a very big pizzeria or bakery you can order custom-milled flour from King Arthur for your restaurant? Their factory can handle it, and it engenders brand loyalty from fussy chefs.
>did you know that even if you aren't a very big pizzeria or bakery you can order custom-milled flour from King Arthur for your restaurant? Their factory can handle it, and it engenders brand loyalty from fussy chefs.
I didn't. Although I'm not that surprised given I think King Arthur Flour has maybe around 500 employees or so including a cafe, retail shop, and cooking classes and sells a pretty premium product. (Was actually surprised the number is so low. It's also employee-owned.)
> I have no problem with it myself; but the companies/brands certainly do.
actually, the companies don't have a problem with it, the customers do. customers (it's human nature, maslow's hierarchy, etc) cling to their beliefs about themselves and their identification with products that reflect their values. Companies would rather cut costs and sell one-size-fits-all products, but they need to give customers what they want, and different customers want different things.
> Lots of national brands have a "this is not produced in a factory or machine that produces any store brand"
and many people have the need to think that they are "better" than store brands, or more likely on HN, that they "see through" all the marketing, so companies market to you "transparently"... if a brand says "this is not produced X way" and you didn't even mention X, hmmm, do you really think they haven't figured you out?
if you are the cheese puff king, the most expensive thing you can do is not sell everybody exactly what they want, and you probably have redundancy in your manufacturing facilities, so why not segregate which products are on which machines, so long as a market segments aren't too small.
CNBC has a youtube video on the economics of Trader Joe's and the piece that stuck out to me is that they will have essentially a white label option, but have it slightly modified so it is "unique" to them
Ive got family who have worked in food production lines, it's often not the same product, maybe a slightly modified recipe or using different ingredients or ratios.
