So, today I was in the grocery store and the end-aisle promo was DelMonte canned veggies. They were $0.79 a can, so picked up a couple corn & green beans wondering, is this a better deal than at the "Stock Up Store"?
Always having wondered if the vegetables sold at ALDI were a better or worse value for the dollar, than the more expensive, brand-name veggies, I decided to do a direct comparison. I had some Happy Harvest corn in the pantry (exp date Sept 2011), and I bought a can of DelMonte corn today for the purpose of comparison.
I figured that the cheaper, other-brand canned corn would have less actual corn in the can (& more water) to make it cheaper to purchase, and therefore NOT a good value.
I did a test to see.
Their stated can weights were the same but the nutrition info was different per serving, even though the serving size was exactly the same. Interesting that the calorie content of the same serving differed by 20!!! (Aldi's, 80. DelMonte, 60).
So, I thought, what are the ingredients--did the cheap stuff have fillers or wierd carbohydrate stabilizers added? No, the only Ingredients: Corn, Water, (& salt--the Aldi brand had salt but not the DelMonte).
The Contenders: Note can lining in the Aldi brand! Wonder why...
The Setup: 10 minutes timed passive draining, then weighed the corn & juices, in grams to be more accurate.
The Results: DelMonte: Juice, 284 gm; Corn, 277 gm.
The Results: HappyHarvest: Juice, 286 gm; Corn, 266 gm.
Bottom-line Costs:
DelMonte (@ $0.99): 0.357 cents per ounce of corn pieces
________(@ $0.79): 0.285 cents per ounce of corn pieces
HappyHarvest (@ $0.79): 0.296 cents per ounce of corn pieces
Conclusion: Was pleasantly surprised.
If you want brand-name corn, get it on sale (and it is 79 cents/can right now at Meijer in Greenwood anyway).
Otherwise, the HappyHarvest corn is the better deal.
You might ask, "Pamcake what did you do with all that corn, then?"
I might answer, "I cooked them the same and we ate them".
You might ask, "well, which one tasted better to your husband?"
I might answer, "the corn that had the salt in it".
Of note, the older can of inexpensive corn had an ever-so-slight dingy grey color to it, and today's corn was brighter. This was not evident until they were side-by-side on a pure white corelle plate, however. I do not have any older, brand-name corn to compare colors fairly, so I am unable to really draw any conclusion about that aspect.
Always having wondered if the vegetables sold at ALDI were a better or worse value for the dollar, than the more expensive, brand-name veggies, I decided to do a direct comparison. I had some Happy Harvest corn in the pantry (exp date Sept 2011), and I bought a can of DelMonte corn today for the purpose of comparison.
I figured that the cheaper, other-brand canned corn would have less actual corn in the can (& more water) to make it cheaper to purchase, and therefore NOT a good value.
I did a test to see.
Their stated can weights were the same but the nutrition info was different per serving, even though the serving size was exactly the same. Interesting that the calorie content of the same serving differed by 20!!! (Aldi's, 80. DelMonte, 60).
So, I thought, what are the ingredients--did the cheap stuff have fillers or wierd carbohydrate stabilizers added? No, the only Ingredients: Corn, Water, (& salt--the Aldi brand had salt but not the DelMonte).
The Contenders: Note can lining in the Aldi brand! Wonder why...
The Setup: 10 minutes timed passive draining, then weighed the corn & juices, in grams to be more accurate.
The Results: DelMonte: Juice, 284 gm; Corn, 277 gm.
The Results: HappyHarvest: Juice, 286 gm; Corn, 266 gm.
Bottom-line Costs:
DelMonte (@ $0.99): 0.357 cents per ounce of corn pieces
________(@ $0.79): 0.285 cents per ounce of corn pieces
HappyHarvest (@ $0.79): 0.296 cents per ounce of corn pieces
Conclusion: Was pleasantly surprised.
If you want brand-name corn, get it on sale (and it is 79 cents/can right now at Meijer in Greenwood anyway).
Otherwise, the HappyHarvest corn is the better deal.
You might ask, "Pamcake what did you do with all that corn, then?"
I might answer, "I cooked them the same and we ate them".
You might ask, "well, which one tasted better to your husband?"
I might answer, "the corn that had the salt in it".
Of note, the older can of inexpensive corn had an ever-so-slight dingy grey color to it, and today's corn was brighter. This was not evident until they were side-by-side on a pure white corelle plate, however. I do not have any older, brand-name corn to compare colors fairly, so I am unable to really draw any conclusion about that aspect.