{"id":114450,"date":"2019-05-30T22:27:38","date_gmt":"2019-05-30T22:27:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/militarytimes\/uncategorized\/2019\/05\/30\/heres-how-commissary-store-brands-stacked-up-in-our-limited-comparison\/"},"modified":"2026-08-08T13:33:26","modified_gmt":"2026-08-08T13:33:26","slug":"heres-how-commissary-store-brands-stacked-up-in-our-limited-comparison","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/militarytimes\/management\/pay-benefits\/2019\/05\/30\/heres-how-commissary-store-brands-stacked-up-in-our-limited-comparison\/","title":{"rendered":"Here\u2019s how commissary store brands stacked up in our limited comparison"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Private label brands are becoming more prevalent on <a href=\"https:\/\/www.militarytimes.com\/pay-benefits\/mil-money\/2018\/06\/06\/heres-how-your-commissary-plans-to-get-back-lost-customers\/\" target=\"_blank\">commissary<\/a> shelves, so Military Times did a quick, unscientific comparison of the prices these <a href=\"https:\/\/www.militarytimes.com\/pay-benefits\/military-benefits\/2017\/05\/04\/new-pricing-program-private-label-goods-part-of-major-commissary-overhaul\/\" target=\"_blank\">store brands<\/a> offer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">We enlisted the help of Tom Gordy, a Navy Reserve commander, regular <a href=\"https:\/\/www.militarytimes.com\/pay-benefits\/2019\/02\/08\/military-stores-launch-effort-to-boost-their-buying-power-and-their-customers-savings\/\" target=\"_blank\">commissary shopper<\/a>, and president of the Armed Forces Marketing Council, an organization representing members of industry that sell products in<a href=\"https:\/\/www.militarytimes.com\/pay-benefits\/2019\/04\/02\/merging-commissary-and-exchange-systems-may-pose-a-threat-to-the-stores-future-advocates-tell-congress\/\" target=\"_blank\"> commissaries and exchanges.<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">At the Fort Belvoir commissary in Virginia, we compared some 44 items in 16 categories, both national brands and store brands. Then we headed out to two discount retailers, Target and Walmart, and two supermarket chains, Harris Teeter and Safeway.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">This unscientific, limited exercise didn\u2019t evaluate the quality of these items. The prices we quote are the shelf prices, and don\u2019t include the 5 percent surcharge the commissary charges at the cash register on all the items in the basket. Nor does it include the sales tax charged at local retail stores, which are going to vary depending on where you live. For example, in Virginia, food items are taxed at 2.5 percent, while other items are taxed at different rates depending on the locality. So take that into consideration as you comparison shop.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The takeaways:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li>Commissary store brands offer savings in comparison to national brands within the store, sometimes as much as half the price of the national brand, depending on the product. That\u2019s generally the case with any grocer\u2019s store brands. But from there, it\u2019s mixed.<\/li><li>Civilian discount grocers\u2019 own store brands, generally speaking, beat commissary store brand prices. Of the 16 categories of products we looked at, the commissary had the best store brand price in five. In the remaining 11 categories, either Walmart or Target store brands beat the commissary brand in 10 of those categories. In the remaining category, a Safeway store brand was the best price on sweet peas because of a sale.<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cEven after two years, the promise of commissary store brands providing better value isn\u2019t materializing,\u201d said Gordy. He cited the example of ibuprofen, where the issue of commissary private labels started during testimony in a congressional hearing several years ago. At that time, the commissary\u2019s Good Sense brand, which was essentially a private label, was the cheapest, at $2.29 for 100 200-milligram tablets.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Now the commissary\u2019s TopCare private label ibuprofen is 8 cents higher, at $2.37. And the TopCare ibuprofen is 16 percent higher than Walmart\u2019s store brand, which has been reduced to $1.98.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">But DoD\u2019s special assistant for commissary operations says it\u2019s difficult to make comparisons between the commissary private label brands and the private labels of other grocers. \u201cThis issue of pricing against the outside market is a difficult thing with private label because it\u2019s hard to get an apples-to-apples comparison,\u201d said retired Navy Rear Adm. Robert Bianchi. \u201cYou don\u2019t know about the quality level. You can have low, medium and high quality.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cWe\u2019ve taken the philosophy and approach that we want all of our private label to be in the mid- to high-quality level,\u201d he said. Thus, the commissary private label price could be higher for the similar item because the commissary private label brand is of higher quality.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Nonetheless, Nielsen\u2019s analysis of data on pricing of private label brands shows commissary prices are indeed competitive, Bianchi said. The commissary\u2019s prices on private labels beat the prices on 75 percent of the overall market in 13 of the top 16 private label categories, Bianchi said. \u201cThat\u2019s a good indicator for us that our pricing is competitive. Are we going to match every private label price with Kroger or Walmart or whatever? Probably not.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cMy philosophy is that we want to provide a value. We want it to be a value proposition for the customer and to give them that lower price point choice,\u201d Bianchi said. He gave a hypothetical example of a can of green beans being priced lower at a discount grocer, than at the commissary. \u201cBut without the quality factor in there, it\u2019s hard to say mine is not a better value.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Store brands in the commissary include Freedom\u2019s Choice for food items; HomeBase for nonfood items such as paper products and other household items. Under the TopCare name, you\u2019ll find products such as over-the-counter medications, vitamins, first aid supplies and beauty care items. Under Tippy-Toes labels you\u2019ll find baby and child care items.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cPrivate label is a major component, not just in the grocery industry, but all the retail industry. It\u2019s a fact of life. If they\u2019re not getting [private label] from us, they\u2019ll go somewhere else,\u201d Bianchi said. \u201cThe idea was to introduce another price point.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\t<aside class=\"smg-interstitial-link wp-block-smg-interstitial-link\">\n\t\t<a href=\"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/militarytimes\/management\/pay-benefits\/2019\/02\/08\/military-stores-launch-effort-to-boost-their-buying-power-and-their-customers-savings\/\" class=\"smg-interstitial-link__inner\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"smg-interstitial-link__media\">\n\t\t\t\t\t<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"300\" height=\"157\" src=\"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/PX-and-commissary.jpg.jpg?w=300\" class=\"smg-interstitial-link__image wp-post-image\" alt=\"\" \/>\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"smg-interstitial-link__content\">\n\t\t\t\t<span class=\"smg-interstitial-link__kicker\">Related<\/span>\n\t\t\t\t<h3 class=\"smg-interstitial-link__title\">Military stores launch effort to boost their buying power \u2014 and their customers\u2019 savings<\/h3>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<p class=\"smg-interstitial-link__excerpt\">Health and beauty items and electronics are the aisles where you&#039;ll see the results first.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/a>\n\t<\/aside>\n\t\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cThere\u2019s been a lot of growth in private label over the years, and supermarkets are upping their game in variety and quality,\u201d said Laura Strange, spokesman for the National Grocers Association, a national trade association representing independent retail and wholesale grocers. These supermarkets are family owned or privately controlled retail companies operating in a variety of formats. \u201cPrice is an important factor, but the quality of private label products has improved, and with it an improved perception from consumers about private label quality,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Bottled water is one category where private label brands generate more than 25 percent of sales overall in stores in the U.S., according to Nielsen.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">In the commissary, the store brand bottled water \u2014 Freedom\u2019s Choice \u2014 beat out the shelf prices for other store brands, by 11 percent for spring water, and 27 percent for the purified water. Freedom\u2019s Choice was also less than half of the regular price of the same size of national brands in the store. Of note, those national brands were all on sale the day we shopped at the commissary, but the lowest price was still $1.55 higher than the Freedom\u2019s Choice.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li>National brands in commissaries did well in our survey. In the 44 comparisons, the commissary had the best price on 24 items, compared to the other four stores. Of those, the savings in the commissary on the national brand was at least 20 percent in eight of those brands, compared to the same product in the other four stores. The commissary pricing system has changed on national brands; they\u2019re no longer sold at cost from the vendor. Commissary officials can mark up or mark down the national brand prices, so that price isn\u2019t necessarily what the vendor charged the commissary.<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">National brands are the commissary\u2019s strong suit, Bianchi said, and they\u2019re always going to be the majority of items in commissaries. \u201cEven if I get to the point where we have all the private label items we projected, over the next couple of years or so, it\u2019s probably not going to be more than about 10 percent of the store.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The savings we found varies by category and item. Commissary prices generally compared favorably in the frozen vegetables we analyzed, both in national brands and store brands. In the canned vegetables aisles, the national brands fared well in the commissary, but Walmart\u2019s store brand beat out the commissary store brands, as well as the others.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">What does this limited experiment mean for you, the shopper, looking solely at price? It depends on how you shop, Gordy said. If you\u2019re buying most or all store brands, the commissary may not have the best price compared to discount retailers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">But if you\u2019re buying mostly national brands, the commissary generally provides the best price.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">From Bianchi\u2019s perspective, it\u2019s the overall savings that matter, and commissaries are still exceeding their requirements for customer savings. &#8220;While it\u2019s important we keep a sharp eye on individual prices of every item, and we always want to remain competitive with the outside market, it\u2019s going to be inevitable they\u2019re running some special or whatever.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cIn the aggregate, it\u2019s whether that military family is leaving the commissary with a basket where they\u2019re overall saving money.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><i>What\u2019s your experience with store brands in commissaries? Contact senior reporter Karen Jowers at kjowers@militarytimes.com.<\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Our comparison had mixed results with prices, but quality may be your deciding 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