IstherereallyadifferencebetweenStore

brandandNameBrandFoods?
Astatisticsprojectwhichseekstofindoutwhetherpeopleareabletosignificantly
distinguishbetweenStoreBrandandNamebrandfoods.Followupquestions
regardingasignificantpreferencewillalsobeanswered.

NishanthKalavakolanu
Statistics3A
5/15/16

 TableOfContents
1. CoverPage
2. TableofContents
3. Intro
3-4.BodyParagraphs
4-5.Conclusion
5.Rcode
6-7.OriginalData
8.WorksCited
 As many people are walking through the grocery store, aisles on their left and right. They

feel a little growl in their stomach and realize that they need a quick snack. Maybe some doritos

and crackers. They head to the snack aisle and a variety of brands catch their eye. They see the

obvious Frito Lay and Ritz brand products, but the local store brand also lies next to them. They

face a conundrum, buy the pricier name brand products for their supposed quality and reputation,

or take a chance with the cheaper more dully packaged store brand. There have been studies

conducted on this very problem, but they are usually very poorly run with little to no care given

for statistical significance. For example, an AOL study had one person taste store brand and

name brand foods with no blinding and had them either pick one better or a tie. Consumer

reports also did a similar taste testing method and did not reveal any of their statistics. Hopefully

a real experiment can be used to to answer this question, and come to a conclusion that is

statistically significant, not just a flashy headline.

For this experiment 24 students from the LASA senior class were randomly sampled. The

samples was blocked by gender and there were 12 males and 12 females just in case one Gender

was better at tasting than the other. The sample of seniors was used because it would be a lot

easier to contact all the seniors sampled reducing non-response bias. However this sample limits

the scope of any conclusions of this experiment to that of just LASA seniors and not of the rest

of the country. The sample was collected by running the sampling code in rstudio to pull the

names of 12 girls and 12 boys in the senior class.

The subjects were randomly given either the name brand or store brand item without

telling knowing which is which. The food was given out randomly so the order in which it is

received is not a confounding variable. The foods in question were Ritz Crackers, Doritos, and
Chips Ahoy cookies along with their HEB brand counterparts. The subject then eats one item,

drinks some water, and eats the other complimentary item. The subject is then asked which one

they preferred and then which one they thought was the store brand and which one they thought

was the name brand. After the results of the experiment were compiled, a prop test will be used

to determine significance. If there was no difference between the name brand and store brand

then the subjects would correctly identify the right food 50% of the time, using that value as the

null proportion tests will be run on every food item in order to see which if any have a significant

difference in taste.Then another prop test will be run to see if there is a significant preference for

the name brand.

The conditions that were not always fully met in the prop tests. For example, for all of

the identification prop tests there failed to be at least 10 failures. The conditions of N>10n and

simple random sample were met for all of the prop tests however. The only test that met all of

the conditions was the prop test for dorito preference. Because the conditions were not met for

all prop tests any conclusions must be wearily drawn.

Finally in regards to see if the subjects could really taste the difference, all tests run were

significant with p values of .03, .003, and .01 for the cookie, cracker and dorito respectively.

However, when running the tests for preference none came back significant with p values of .93,

.5, and .15 for the cracker cookie and dorito respectively. This means that although our evidence

points to a rejection of the initial null hypothesis that the subjects cannot distinguish between the

two brands, just because they could taste the difference doesnt mean that the name brand was

better. There was no significance in preference for the brand name in any of the three items

tested. This means it may be wise for customers to save their money and go generic.
 After taking the fact that not all the conditions were met on all the proportion tests there

can be a few conclusions to be made from this study. The biggest takeaway is that the LASA

senior is able to tell the difference between generic and name brand crackers, doritos, and

cookies. With this information any LASA senior reading this may be tempted to go and only buy

name brand snacks next time they find themselves in a grocery store. However, the next

takeaway to be made by the data is that there is no significant preference between the two foods.

So it may still be wise for LASA seniors to go out and go for the generic variety to save a quick

buck as although it may taste different, it doesnt taste worse or better.

Appendix A: R code
sample(seniorgirls$Student.Name, 12)
sample(seniorboys$Student.Name, 12)
#17 people correctly identified the cookie
prop.test(17,24,.5,alternative ="greater")
p-value = 0.0331

#19 people correctly identified the cracker

prop.test(19,24,.5,alternative ="greater")
p-value = 0.003982

#18 people correctly identified the dorito

prop.test(18,24,.5,alternative ="greater")
p-value = 0.01237

#8 people preferred the brand name Ritz Cracker

prop.test(8,24,.5,alternative ="greater")
p-value = 0.9235

#12 people preferred the brand name Chips Ahoy Cookie

prop.test(12,24,.5,alternative ="greater")
p-value = 0.5

#15 people preferred the brand name Dorito chip

prop.test(15,24,.5,alternative ="greater")
p-value = 0.1537
 Appendix B: Original Data

This is the original data collection sheet. The circle with a vertical line represents the brand
name, and the circle with a horizontal line represents the store brand foods.
 Appendix C: Works Cited

DailyFinance. "Generic Vs. Brand Name Products." AOL.com. AOL, 16 Sept. 2016. Web. 12

Apr. 2017.

<https://www.aol.com/article/2016/05/25/generic-vs-brand-name-products/21383788/>.

"Store-brand vs. Name-brand Taste-off." Store-Brand vs. Name-Brand Taste-Off - Consumer

Reports. Consumer Reports Magazine, Oct. 2012. Web. 12 Apr. 2017.

<http://www.consumerreports.org/cro/magazine/2012/10/store-brand-vs-name-brand-taste-

off/index.htm>.

Wang, Jim. "Generic vs. Brand Name: Is There Really a Difference?" CBS News. CBS

Interactive, 25 Nov. 2014. Web. 12 Apr. 2017.

<http://www.cbsnews.com/news/generic-vs-brand-name-is-there-really-a-difference/>.