SNOB APPEAL OF BRAND NAMES

Press, Volume CX, Issue 32396, 8 September 1970, Page 3

SNOB APPEAL OF BRAND NAMES

•By CAROLE LYDERSI LONDON. Snobbery is not just alive and well in England: it is positively thriving. The other day the country’s leading tea manufacturer put up the price of tea by 2d a quarter pound—in England tea is packed in Jib packets—and the other market leaders promptly followed suit.

Why? Not because they had to increase the charges, but simply that they did not want ■to give their tea a “cheap” image. With the cost of food rising almost daily, one would think that housewives would swoop on low-priced food with heartfelt relief. Not a bit of it. Many consumers equate “cheap” with “nasty,” pay higher prices and grumble about the steadily rising cost of living. And costs are going to become even higher. Coffee is about ■ to have its third increase this year. At present an Boz jar costs about 9s 7d for a popular brand. Yet the big supermarket chains sell coffee for Is 6d a jar less under their own labels.

The coffee is just as good. It is produced by a firm which is exporting it to the United States, but British housewives prefer the snob appeal of the brand name. In fact, seven out of 10 housewives choose brandname goods in preference to “own-label” when it comes to buying any of 200 items from baked beans to butter. The Consumer Council is. doing its best to persuade shoppers to try the cheaper foods. But most housewives i still prefer to buy a leg of I lamb at around 6s 6d a lb or' a joint of beef at between; 8s to 10s a lb than the much' cheaper chicken and turkey. Chicken ranges from 2s lOd a lb and turkey from 4s a lb. Though perhaps as far as chicken is concerned, housewives may have a point, as a chicken weighing under 311 b is decidedly tasteless. The British are traditionally ultra-conservative about what they eat Meat, with two vegetables is still the mainstay of the family and everything else is served with soggy, tasteless chips. Even though an increasing number of Britons are off to the Costa Brava each year, they do not bring back new ideas in food —quite the reverse. The Continentals are dropping their own dishes for English stodge.