sarah bennett wrote:

> OTOH, I know many many people who will not buy store brands, citing
> quality as the reason. In my experience (and I *can* tell the difference
> between quality products and crap), most store brand ingredients that
> are not highly processed (i.e. canned tomatoes, eggs, kraft-level
> cheddar cheese, pasta) taste no different from the low-to mid priced
> national brands that most people purchase.

There may have been a bigger difference between brands when there were more
different companies in the game. There used to be a lot more canneries in this
area than there are now, each canning under their own label. Now there are two
canneries. One day they will be canning and sticking one company's label on the
cans and the next day they will be canning the same crop and sticking another
company's label on the cans.