Dollar Store vs Name Brand: Snacks

We are continuing our taste tests of Dollar Store vs Name brand. This time, it was snacks! Snacks like potato chips, popcorn, crackers, and more.

Can the Dollar store surprise us like in the last video: Desserts? Find out below, as we continue our 52 video series.

Dollar Store vs Name Brand: Snacks Video Transcript

Welcome to the second Dollar Store versus Brand Name! We have snacks this time: Five! Five snacks: popcorn pretzels potato chips crackers and cheese puffs.

White Cheddar Popcorn

Let’s get started with popcorn. We have white cheddar popcorn, we have Smartfood and Brims? Brims. So I already did these with my friend on super bowl sunday. That’s why there’s not a ton in the bag. I love this stuff. That tastes like white cheddar popcorn to me. Also, dollar store brand 24 cents an ounce; name brand, 49 cents an ounce. So double. All right what’s our favorite? Three, two, one, This. Yeah. However, I don’t think it’s double the price worth better. Like this is still fine. Yeah. It’s great popcorn. I think all of them, because we ate a lot when we did the taste test, they there’s an aftertaste and everything.

Honey Braid (Honey Wheat) Pretzels

All right so these are the honey wheat braided pretzels. If you’ve not had honey wheat braided pretzels all of them are good. So I’m used to those… oh they’re much smaller than the normal one.

15 cents an ounce[Brims]; 28 cents an ounce[Snyder’s]. Check out our… we [taste tested] regular pretzel sticks on thefoodshowdown.com. Snyder’s did well, you’ll have to you have to go see which won.

Those are so much better. These are a lot better. But these aren’t bad. These are good pretzels, I think. Yeah, they have more of a pretzel taste where these are more of just strictly honeybraid taste.

Potato Chips

Another previously done taste test was potato chips. Oh yeah. And Lay’s won far and beyond, I think. But these weren’t in the [test] were they? I think I had gone to the dollar store but I can’t remember if it was this brand. But if like these you have to do a few. So the difference: for Lays, for the dollar store. Yeah. I mean that’s maybe not a fair comparison. So the price of pretzels was 15 cents per ounce to 28 cents per ounce. So almost double the price again. Sweet girl that’s not fair to you. Again I still don’t know if it’s double as good. Okay the Lays are all, look inside, they’re all uniform and beautiful and thin and like consistent. And those are not as consistent and some of them look burnt.

Lay’s is better. Lay’s is 31 cents per ounce; the other chips, the home style select dollar brand, is 25 cents per ounce. Those have an aftertaste. I don’t know what it is, but there’s an aftertaste. But just so you know these are gluten-free. Oh, not gluten-free. Yeah it’s probably gluten-free because they’re potatoes. Right, but you know if they add something. So yeah I would say that they are definitely worth the, the extra price on these. I think so, but if you gave me a bowl of dip and the dollar store ones I’d probably not notice. That’s true.

Crackers

These, Eric! I don’t even want… I don’t want to taste these again. Ritz vs Snack Time. Oh well thanks for tainting my… No I don’t think I have to taint anything. Let’s just do a visual comparison: these are very holy. Bigger holes… tiny holes. Yeah, you can barely see through these holes.

Okay those [Ritz] are good.

I need to cleanse my palate. These, let’s talk about the price: dollar store 10 cents an ounce, ritz 25 cents an ounce. Another one that’s double. These are these are like fake butter. Yeah. It’s like a fake, buttery, uegh. More cardboard-y. Oh it’s bad. I just, no thank you. The price might be worth that on the Ritz. The Ritz is just so good. The Ritz are good and they’re like nostalgic.

Cheese Puffs

Okay this is our last one, cheesepuffs. What are yours called? Cheese puffs… Brims, cheese puffs. Made with… okay they call them cheese puffs. These don’t say cheese puffs, just puffs. Well, baked cheese flavored snack. This is flavored. Made with real cheese, somehow. Does this have real cheese? In the 20 ingredients… Yeah, this is real cheese. I mean what percentage? Took me a while to get down the ingredient list.

I hate that I like these so much.

Comparing like visually so dollar store… Oh yeah, Cheetos! Did I get the wrong…. but like those are so much puffier, airy. The orange isn’t much different. No but it looks like the way they’re processed is a little different.

It’s a richer texture. It’s much better ‘mouth feel’ is the technical term. But those have a weird aftertaste to me too. And I’m also not sure if… I don’t know if I could tell in a taste test, but these are better. Things are again double: 44 cents per ounce versus 21 cents per ounce. So uh… I’m gonna sit here. Okay, well there’s the verdict.

Dollar Store vs Name Brand Summary

So the previous ones [Taste tests]… Basically, if you’re gonna buy this stuff, I’m sorry, I interrupted you. I was going to say the previous one the snacks the name brands generally won out. ALL. On all of them… but there was one that was really close. No, I mean on all of these. Oh on all of these… If you’re gonna buy this just splurge for the name brand. It’s not that much more expensive. Well in some cases it is more expensive, but it’s like, if you’re going to buy cheese puffs. Just buy… Buy the good cheese puffs. Right, like you’re not buying this all the time, right?

Yeah if I’m going to buy cheese puffs, I’m gonna buy some Cheetos. Okay. If you’re gonna buy Snyder’s pretzels you’re gonna buy, I mean honey wheat, you’re gonna buy Snyder’s. Right. If you’re gonna buy potato chips… Buy Lays. Yeah. Because they’ve won on multiple taste tests. All right, there we got drinks coming, we’ve got candy coming, some breakfast foods coming. So subscribe, thanks for watching. We’ll see you in the next video. Cheetos!