House brands

House brands of common food and household items are a boon for the budget conscious.
This is mainly in the realm of hypermarkets such as Tesco, Giant and Carrefour. With their huge bargaining power and marketing channels, they are able to extract good deals from producers. The lower price is then passed on to the consumer.

House brands with lower prices generally do not equate lower quality, though the imported items do tend to be superior. There are probably people who fight shy of house brands; do not want to be caught dead in possession of such items for fear of being labelled cheapskates. Such are pitiful souls who don't know how to stretch their ringgit.

My personal exposure to house brands is mostly limited to that of Tesco's. No, I am not paid by them to plug their house brand. A large proportion of the range is actually imported from the UK, and end up selling for substantially less than the equivalent locally made item. How is this possible? Buying power, economies of scale and efficient logistics; remember Tesco has a worldwide presence. Producers would much rather make less per unit and much more overall thru supplying a huge volume of goods; the bigger cake-small slice rationale.

Which brings to mind; how are our local producers able to survive? Given the choice between imported and local with the former having better quality and a lower price to boot, most people would plumb for the imported - halal status not withstanding. Are local producers just plain inefficient or they just greedy in trying to get a bigger margin? Trying to take local consumers for a ride? Or just not aggressive enough. The mediocre quality of their goods hardly puts them in a position to penetrate oversea markets? What about hushed up 'arrangements' between competitors to fix the market?

Think on.............