Savvy shoppers in Spain scrap the big brands for these supermarket own options, how you can cash in on weekly shop savings

With the expense of day to day life putting a strain on most peoples wallets, many look to the weekly shop to make their savings. More often than not, its habit that keeps us going for the big brand names, when a lot of the time supermarket own products are just as good if not better, and a whole lot cheaper. Here are just a few to get to you started on saving those extra few euros.

Laundry aisle verdict favours the humble own-brand bottle

Bosque Verde, Mercadona’s household range, has topped a Spanish Consumer and User Organisation (OCU) comparison of 63 liquid laundry detergents, scoring 76 out of 100 and earning the coveted “compra maestra” (master buy) badge for tackling grease, pigment and oxidised stains effectively. Ariel’s Actilift Alpine liquid trailed with 66 points, priced from €11.90 against roughly €2.95 for a 30-wash Mercadona bottle. Work out the cost per load and the gap widens further: Bosque Verde comes in at around seven cents a wash, against roughly 24 cents for Ariel Total liquid, more than triple the price. Lidl’s own-label cleaning products performed just as well, with W5 dishwasher tablets also picking up master buy status.

Dairy staples deliver quality without the price tag

Hacendado’s semi-skimmed milk claimed top spot among 38 brands tested by the OCU, scoring 78 points and praised for its creaminess and flavour intensity, all for around 84 cents a litre. Pascual’s equivalent scored eight points lower, and according to Spanish consumer group FACUA, its whole milk has sold for between €1.29 and €1.35 a litre over the past couple of years. Lidl’s Milbona, made at an Iberleche plant in Pontedeume, and Carrefour’s own milk followed a similar pattern, both regularly undercutting Pascual. OCU figures put private-label groceries at roughly 21 percent cheaper than manufacturer brands on average, a gap that has held even as prices across the board have crept upward.

Beer, olive oil and tinned tuna join the winners’ list

Mercadona’s Steinburg lager, brewed largely by Damm subsidiary Font Salem, was crowned the world’s best lager at the 2019 World Beer Awards and matched Dia’s Ramblers as joint top scorer in blind tastings, beating the very popular Mahou 5 Estrellas outright. Extra virgin olive oil, usually a very expensive item, under supermarket labels fared just as well: five of the ten best-rated oils in a 23-product study carried a private-label badge, priced on average €1.50 per litre below household names such as Carbonell and La Española. Tinned tuna told a similar story, with Aldi’s Sal de Plata (86 points) and Mercadona’s Hacendado (85) outscoring Calvo and Isabel, while considerably pricier Conservas Ortiz finished last of all, penalised for excess salt.

Nappies, shampoo and coffee round off the household savings

Parents watching their budgets will welcome the nappy testing results, in which Mercadona’s Deliplus range scored 82 points against Dodot Activity’s 78, at roughly half the price per nappy, a saving that can add up to more than €1,000 over two and a half years of nappy changes. Lidl’s Cien shampoo matched Pantene’s Pro-V Repara y Protege score exactly, at under half the cost, while Carrefour’s ground coffee earned master buy status ahead of pricier Marcilla and Saimaza. Figures from Kantar Worldpanel show own-brand groceries now account for 44.5 percent of everyday shopping in Spain. Time to make some switches.