I agree with you on the fig newtons, they used to be pretty incredible but now the fruit filling is too sweet and the cake is devoid of flavor and crumbles away too quickly, it reminds me of saw dust.

I remember Chips Ahoy being better a long time ago like you said, but designing a slightly inferior cookie that includes more chocolate chips is a compromise I can live with.

Chips Ahoy used to be a little thinner, crunchier, and just tasted better despite there not being as many chocolate chips. That's what I recall from the mid to late eighties anyway. There's one generic brand local that makes them more like that. Another generic brand totally fails at this though.. the cookies taste stale when you first open the package!

Fig newtons too don't taste the same but the generic are fine if they aren't all dry and stale.

I find that yeah most flavored sodas are just fine if generic with one big exception: "Cola". I don't care if you are a Pepsi guy or a Coke guy but that shit tastes like neither.

Wegmans has been slowly taking over their shelve space with their own brand of groceries. It's getting to the annoying point now. There used to be three or four major brands of stuff, now there's maybe one major brand and one Wegman's brand and that's it. By chance we did some shopping at another grocery store and I did a double take at all the varieties of foods that aren't offered at big W anymore. We stopped buying store brand because of the proliferation, it's like Danny Wegman is shoving his stuff at us. I don't appreciate that.

I don't have any off-brands that I like better than 'teh majors' unless you count craft beers (which really don't count)

THE
LABEL MAKER
AARDVARK

I actually can't think of anything. I buy generic all the time, but just because it's cheaper. I can't think of one that's better than brand-name.

Sorry, I have nothing to add here.

Sorry, guys.

Butter cookies, the kind that come in 4 rows of about 50 cookies each. Royal Dansk have a better flavor but the texture on some of them get really sandy and they also add that disgusting coarse sugar on top to some as well and pepperidge farm's chessmen have too bold of a flavor profile. Generic butter cookies have the ideal combination of pleasant texture and unobtrusive taste.

Also, keebler is wack, but saying something is better than chips ahoy is impressive.

Orange soda. Sunkist tastes weird and fanta has an odd shaped bottle. Just give me store brand.

Seltzer. Vintage is like 75 fucking cents a liter.

Giant of Maryland makes an excellent Mountain Dew alternative, and it's 89c in the 2-liter size. Aldi has its own, sold in 12-pk cans, and is clear like 7up; they're the only Mtn. Dew clone that isn't the color of antifreeze.

Beyond basic things like salt, sugar, etc.. What "generic" or non-main-brand thing do you not only accept, but enjoy better?

I'll start with fudge stripe and chocolate chip cookies. The local store brand is cheaper and tastes better (like I remember the big brand product in the 80s) than chips ahoy or Keebler fudge stripes.

Crackers are a big exception. For some reason these off brand companies can't make an acceptable saltine.