Eating at home can help bring down our food costs but even eating at home is getting more expensive. By taking advantage of house brands, we can bring down the cost of our groceries. While the prices are generally lower, there are certain cases when it makes more sense to purchase the more expensive alternative.
What Are House Brands?
House brands are products that take on a branding owned by the supermarket. Supermarkets usually approach the manufacturer directly to produce the items, skipping the middleman. Sometimes they are produced in the same factories or are even the same as the branded stuff, just with different packaging.
The packaging of house brands is also relatively minimalistic. Marketing is also usually done in-store and can be done together with the store’s marketing efforts. The reduced marketing and lack of middle man allow the house brands to push down their prices. The lower cost of house brands can also be used to attract traffic to then purchase other items that might have higher margins.
However, supermarkets also have the ability to pivot to increase marketing on specific items if necessary. For example, during the lunar new year period, they can place ads on festive products like canned abalone to compete with the other established brands. I saw Golden Chef’s (FairPrice’s house brand) abalone ads at MRT stations and Happy Family’s (Sheng Siong’s house brand) abalone ads on tv.
One reason consumers choose house brands is being able to get an item at a lower cost with comparable or acceptable quality.
List Of Local Grocery And Supermarket House Brands
A couple of years ago, I was doing a survey and they listed a comprehensive list of house brands at local supermarkets. I copied the list and the list sat in my Google Drive until now. I performed additional searches to update the list and here is the list of house brands I have identified. If I missed out on any brands or any of the brands that have been phased out, do let me know.
Cold Storage / Giant
Source: Dairy Farm Group
This is the list of house brands found in Cold Storage and Giant, supermarkets under the Dairy Farm Group.
- Giant (food, drinks, household)
- M Cellars (wines and spirits)
- Meadows (food & drinks)
- Meadows Essentials (household)
- Meadows Home (household)
- Meadows Nature’s Heart (nuts)
- Yu Pin King (food)
There are additional brands in the Meadows line that I suspect are still not available in Singapore yet as I am unable to find them online.
- Pure by meadows (cotton range)
- Pure essentials by meadows (cotton range)
- Meadows Italian (food)
- M Cellars Exclusive Selection (wines and spirits)
FairPrice
Source: FairPrice
FairPrice has over 2,000 products under their various house brands (as of 8 October 2019). This is the list of house brands found in FairPrice.
- FairPrice (multiple categories)
- FairPrice Gold (premium products)
- Golden Chef (canned foods and sauces)
- Harvest Fields (food)
- Homeproud (household disposables)
- Just Wine (wine and spirits)
- Life (drinks)
- Pasar (fresh and dried produce)
- Simply Finest (premium fresh produce)
- SmartChoice (multiple categories)
Redmart
Source: Redmart
Redmart has over 400 products covering 13 of the 15 key categories on RedMart (as of 15 October 2021).
This is the list of house brands found in Redmart.
- Redmart (food, drinks, household)
- World’s Cellar (wine)
- Swee! (food)
Not listed here are collaborations with established brands by Redmart. An example would be Redmart cobranding a line of products with Fishball Story, a well-known eatery serving fishball noodles. Other collaborations with brands include DoDo, London Fat Duck and Sin Mui Heng.
Sheng Siong
Source: Sheng Siong
Sheng Siong has the largest number of house brands compared to the others. They have over 1,500 products spread over 23 house brands (as of 1 July 2022)
This is the list of house brands found in Sheng Siong.
- Bake For You (baked goods, spreads)
- Eggs For You (eggs)
- FooJoo (juice)
- Fruit King (processed fruits)
- Fu Wang (praying essentials)
- Golden Swiss (frozen food)
- Happy Family (food)
- Heritage Farm (food)
- HomeNiks (household)
- Jean Fresh (fresh and frozen produce)
- Le Bao (pork products)
- Madam Lee (dried food)
- Matahari (rice and snacks)
- Nang Rum Thai (rice)
- Power Plus (personal care)
- Pronto (fruit and vegetable)
- Royal golden grain (rice)
- Royal golden mali (rice)
- Sing Food Family (dried food)
- Softess (paper products)
- Springhill (fruit and vegetable)
- Tasty Bites (Food)
- Vepo (drinks)
When Should You Not Choose House Brands?
Although house brands are typically the cheapest, there are scenarios that choosing house brands that might not be the best. This will depend on a combination of your budget, needs and tastes. It is all very subjective between individuals and families where you will need something that every individual can accept. Even if something is the cheapest and best according to you, if someone in the family cannot accept that item, you might need to compromise by getting something else.
Price
There are cases where house brands are not the cheapest. External brands might cost less during promotions or clearance sales. House brands might also have a smaller quantity compared to branded items to make it cheaper. We will look at this at the next point under quality,
Additionally, not all house brands are positioning themselves as economical. For example, Redmart’s cobranding with established brands is to attract consumers that want an item that is not usually available in grocery stores.
Quality
Besides price, quality is also important. Specifically, we will look at the macros. For example, let’s look at a comparison between Nutrisoy’s and FairPrice’s Unsweetened Soy Milk.
| Brand | NutriSoy | FairPrice |
| Volume | 1000ml | 950ml (5% less) |
| Price | 2 for S$4.20
(S$2.10 per carton) |
2 for S$3.15
(S$1.575 per carton) (25% cheaper) |
| Price/100ml | S$0.21 | S$0.166 (21% cheaper) |
| Protein/100ml | 4 g | 3.1 g (22.5% less) |
| Protein/S$1 | 19 g | 18.7 g (1.8% less) |
| Dietary Fibre/100ml | 0.1 g | 0.7 g (600% more) |
| Dietary Fibre/S$1 | 0.48 g | 4.2 g (765% more) |
| Calories/100ml | 41 kcal | 37 kcal (9.7% less) |
| Calories/S$1 | 195 kcal | 223 kcal (14.3% more) |
FairPrice is hands down cheaper per 100ml. However, their soy milk has lesser and more expensive protein content. If you are looking for lower-calorie and higher-protein soy milk, NutriSoy is actually cheaper. However, if you are looking for soy milk with higher amounts of calories with more dietary fibre, FairPrice is cheaper.
Experience Using The Product
Experience while using the product is also an important factor in our decision-making.
Can you accept the experience of the lower-priced product or is there no difference for you?
For example, does a house brand laundry detergent fulfil your needs (e.g.smell, cleanliness) or will you need something different?
In another example, does a house brand loaf of bread fulfil your needs (e.g. taste) and whether spending more for a branded loaf of bread brings you a better experience?
Previously, I bought the cheapest rice from FairPrice (S$5+/5kg) and the texture really doesn’t cut it. I spent S$2 – S$3 more to get rice with a more acceptable standard. If you look at the more premium brands, the prices of rice can go up to S$13+/5kg.
Stacking Additional Discounts On On Top Of House Brands
By combining the various discount schemes and promotions with house brands, we will be able to enjoy even bigger savings. For the latest full list of various promotions including credit card discounts, do visit the respective websites of the supermarkets.
Giant
Lower Prices That Last
There are hundreds of essential groceries that Giant promised long-term price reductions on to help stave off inflation. We just have to look out for a sign with a “korean heart finger sign”.
yuu Rewards Club
Earn points when you shop at Giant and other yuu Partners. yuu points can be used to redeem rewards, cash vouchers or to offset purchases instantly.
Senior Discounts
| Monday – Friday | Senior Citizens Special – 3%
Eligible for all Singapore Citizen and PR aged 60 years old and above. Present ID for verification |
Cold Storage
yuu Rewards Club
Similar to Giant, you can also earn points when you shop at Cold Storage.
Senior Discount
| Wednesday | Senior Citizens Special – 3%
Eligible for all Singapore Citizen and PR aged 60 years old and above. Present ID for verification |
FairPrice
Everyday Low Price
FairPrice also have its own version of keeping the price of a list of daily essentials low. Additionally, they are adding on a 1% discount to help cover the increase in GST.
NTUC Union, Link and FairPrice Members
If you join them as a member, you will be able to earn points, which can be used to knock off your overall bill.
Senior & CHAS Discounts
| Monday | Pioneer Discount Scheme* – 3%
Pioneer Generation cardholder must be present to show Pioneer Generation card |
| Tuesday | Senior Discount Scheme* – 2%
Senior shoppers (aged 60 years and above) must be present to show NRIC |
| Wednesday | Pioneer & Merdeka Discount Scheme* – 3%
Pioneer or Merdeka Generation cardholder must be present to show Pioneer or Merdeka Generation card |
| Thursday | CHAS Blue cardholders – 3%
CHAS cardholder must be present to show the CHAS card at checkout. Valid only at FairPrice & Unity stores. |
*Discount is capped at S$200 purchase
Sheng Siong
1% Counter Inflation Discount
Sheng Siong plans to absorb the 1% increase in GST for all items except a selected few like alcohol, tobacco and vouchers.
Senior Discount
| Tuesday – Wednesday | Senior Citizen Discount – 4%
Eligible for all Singapore Citizen and PR aged 60 years old and above. Present ID, Pioneer Card or Merdeka Card for verification |
*Discount is capped at S$200 purchase
TL, DR
House brands can give us savings as supermarkets cut out the middleman and save on marketing. We can enjoy comparable products at a lower price. Besides price, we should also look at other factors like quality and the experience of using the products. If we stack other discount schemes with house brands, we can enjoy even larger discounts.
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