What Products Are Identical to Big Brands?

Budget supermarkets have been bringing out copies of big branded names, and have got better at making them look similar to well known trolley staples.

There’s often big savings to be made as well, as own brand products are generally a lot cheaper, and contain more product.

Latest Deals found five own brand products that are similar, or in some cases, literally identical, to big brands.

Poundland Chocolate vs Branded

Poundland hit headlines over Christmas when it release a Toblerone copycat bar, called Twin Peaks, which has 20% more chocolate.

With other brands falling victim to shrinkflation, Poundland’s products are still at great bargain prices.

The Twin Peaks bar isn’t the only copycat chocolate product sold there, they also sell dupes of M&Ms (Choccers), peanut M&Ms (Nutters), Minstrels (Chocolate Miracles) and Mini Eggs (Mini Chocolate Eggs).

These all cost just £1, and contain more chocolate than the originals, so are much better value, as the originals retail at around £1.60, depending on supermarket.

One member of the Latest Deals community even spotted Poundland un-branded white chocolate buttons being passed off as Milky Bar Buttons.

He said, “Poundland white chocolate buttons and Milky Bar white chocolate buttons are the same.

“I found Poundland un-branded packets in Milky Bar boxes, so bought both, and they’re exactly the same.”

Primark vs KKW Makeup

Primark recently released a new line of makeup, the Nudes collection, which is virtually identical to Kim Kardashian’s makeup range, KKW.

The Nudes collection has the same products as the best selling KKW range, such as contour palettes, eyeshadows, and highlighters, but for just a fraction of the price.

Primark’s contour palette will cost you just £8, while the KKW one is £34, saving you £26.

The Primark versions of the products have also had great reviews.

One shopper said, “I purchased all of the KKW makeup when she released it. When Primark released the dupes I bought the lot to compare, and there’s literally zero difference between them, I’ll be sticking to Primark in the future.”

Aldi Crisps vs Hula Hoops

Bargain supermarket Aldi sells crisps that are actually made by KP Snacks, the company that makes Hula Hoops.

Although being made in the same factory doesn’t necessarily mean they’ll taste the same, one Aldi customer found a pack of Hula Hoops in a ten bag multipack of Aldi’s Snackrite Hoops.

As well as this, the ingredients on the crisps and the nutritional information was the same, showing that they’re virtually identical products.

One big difference, however, between the products, is the price.

A ten-bag multipack of Snackrite Hoops will cost you just 99p, costing just under 10p each.

But Hula Hoops cost £1.60 for a seven-bag multipack, making each pack almost 23p each, over double the price of Aldi’s crisps.

KP Snacks has confirmed that Hula Hoops and Snackrite are made at the same factory, and a spokesman said, “This looks like an unfortunate error at the packaging stage which we are investigating.”

If you’re a Hula Hoops fan, buying the Aldi versions may be an even better way to save money, as KP Snacks confirmed it will be increasing the price of the crisps this year.

Own Brand Medicines vs Branded

Pharmacies, even high street ones like Boots and Superdrug, will have versions of well known branded products for much cheaper.

You can ask the pharmacist, or check the active ingredients to see if they match the brands, both the name and the amount.

If the pharmacist isn’t there, then you can just check the boxes for it too.

One example of this is Calpol, which costs £3.50 for an 80ml bottle, whereas a Boots own brand version with the same active ingredients, costs £2.99 for 100ml.

Aldi vs Muller

Recently, one shopper spotted that one of their ‘Brooklea’, which is Aldi’s own brand yoghurts, was in a Muller tub.

Even though the lid was labelled as Brooklea, the pot clearly had the Muller label on it, revealing the as being the same product.

A pack of four Brooklea yoghurts costs just £1, whereas four Muller versions is £2.50 in supermarkets.

Muller has since confirmed that it does make the yoghurts for the budget brand supermarket, and has said that the packaging was just a mix up, and they do actually have different recipes.

One important thing to remember though, is just because a branded company makes products for an own brand, this does not necessarily mean that they will have the same recipe or same quality of ingredients in both.

If a product says the brand’s name, it will be produced to the brand’s standards using that recipe.

There will be exceptions to this, as shown in the Hula Hoops vs Aldi crisps scenario, but in general there will be a difference between the products.