for anyone that doesn't have 45 minutes to waste, the brands are made in the same place but the recipe is slightly different

So they basically admit it's not actually the same thing, it's a different recipe that is cheaper and therefore lower quality, they just happen to come from the same factory.

My wife used to work at a mushroom farm near Selby. They supplied mushrooms to all of the supermarkets. They were all exactly the same mushrooms but had different packaging.

I worked in a food factory some years ago via an agency. The packaging varied between supermarkets but was simply wrapped around the very same pies and ready meals coming off the conveyor belt.

This program feels like a supermarket ad for own brands. Besides taste and price, it would be more meaningful if it scientifically compared things like the percentage of tomatoes in ketchup, the percentage of meat in sausages, the percentage of pork in luncheon meat, the percentage of glycerin in skin care products, dissolve rate of paracetamol, weight per toilet roll, nutritional value, and the amount of preservatives. Comparing the quality and grade of raw ingredients would be ideal.

I worked in a cheese warehouse in wythenshawe, they make huge blocks of cheese cut it into smaller package sizes and slap different brands on them. From Co-op, Aldi to M&S.

I was a Brand Name Snob until I stopped work, with approximately half the money coming in every month sensible choices had to be made. I was prepared to have to suck it up and bear it but was very pleasantly surprised at how good many unbranded/lesser known brands are. I would not switch back to the big brands, paying extra for fancy packaging and a well known name nah not for me.

As to Anchor, may also be worth noting that their own label standard size has been cut from 250g to 200g without fanfare. Shrinkflation is much more accessible if you have a range of butters produced by the same manufacturer.

I have bought Own Brands forever.  Never been a food snob.  I appreciate a good value shop,  no brainer 😊

It's very simple.
Give the own brand a try.
If it's not to your tase, move on.
If it is, save.

The toilet paper segment (around 38:00 ) highlights how "ingredients" are actually important, and how this video is not putting enough attention to this factor. The factory owner says that all toilet paper is the same but does not say how some is actually cheaper than other. Toilet paper, and we all know this, can be 1, 2, or 3 ply (layers) and can be quilted or not, which changes the way the layers stick onto eachother. Also, rolls have different "density" given by how tightly around the core they are rolled and that dictates how many sheets there are in a roll. So, a cheap roll will have fewer sheets and fewer ply and feel "softer" when squeezed through the packaging, while a better roll will have a sturdier appearance because the roll is done up tightly around the core. Aside from the personal preference about the ply, the number of sheets is very important because it will dictate how long a roll will last, meaning how good is the value for money in that product.
The same thing applies to all other products. Extremely basic ranges have slightly less sweetened cakes, slightly more watery chopped tomatoes, lower alcohol spirits (meaning that they have added water to them) etc... There is nothing wrong with buying basic, but customers must be smart enough to understand when a product is watered down and the 2p they save per pack are essentially just buying water or even just air.

I stopped buying branded goods when I worked in a factory making jams and marmalade as a teenager and saw that they just swapped the jar shape and labels between a market leader marmalade and a supermarket own brand. The contents were exactly the same, made in the same batch, but the brand name was three times the price.

You can literally taste the difference in 90% of  these . I work as an engineer in a food factory and I can tell you we make stuff for multiple chains and restaurants and they all vary in quality of ingredients used !

Ive worked as a contractor in several food manufacturing factories in the UK and can confirm the same product goes into different packaging for different supermarkets.

Not just foodstuffs. I work in the DIY sector and can tell you that many of the own brand products there are made by the brand leaders. And with a lot of chemical based products you can't really change the 'recipe' so to speak so they really are the same thing. And it makes sense, really. Who else has the expertise and the production facilities available to make such products if not the people who already produce such items.

I think the real swindle is that they have upgraded their own branded packaging. It used to be plain, now it's fancier but the price has gone up to compensate for that + inflation. That's the real con!

I'm not food brand loyal - I've been benefiting from Aldi for the last 10 years for pretty much everything. I've probably saved thousands....

I remember sainsburys would actually tell you on the pack why it was cheaper. The sultana bran would say that it just had fewer sultanas and the pizza that it had a little less cheese. Often it was in a little rhyme on the back of the pack but I appreciated the honesty and hadn't seen other supermarkets use the same approach.

I havent shopped there for years now, I shop at Asda for the convenience of delivery, (£6 a month for as many deliveries as you want for free,) or Lidl/Aldi.

I always wondered how these supermarkets escaped copyright lawsuits

I'm 70. This has been going on for decades and is no secret. More bloody fool those with more money than sense.