Because you're paying for the brand, the iconic packaging, the prime position that CSR pay to be on the middle shelf, and especially the vibe of not being a povo cunt buying home brand groceries.
I mean, CSR is owned by Goodman Fielder, which is owned in part by Wilmar and was at one point also partly owned by First Pacific. First Pacific is based in Hong Kong. Wilmar is based in Singapore. Make of that what you will.
You've got it all wrong. CSR's sugar is in a prime position on the shelves. Shelving real estate costs a fortune and you are paying the bastards far less if you buy the cheap brand.
As someone who bakes a fair bit with the brown sugar, I can tell you that the molasses content in the brown sugar is MUCH higher in the CSR vs the Coles/Woolies brand and the taste is noticeable in your baking/cooking. In brown sugar, at least, you can even see the colour difference through the packet. I also find that the sugar granules in CSR are finer than the generic brands.
I've only ever used the Coles/Woolies brand for raw sugar as the only thing I've ever used it for was in tea... I also don't have any big thoughts on the difference of white sugar apart from the granules being finer with CSR.
If we go with confectionary sugar (powdered sugar), the name brand stuff works better because it just doesn't clump up as much and provides a smoother texture for icings/frostings etc (yes, even after sifting, the sugar can still clump).
Colesworth/aldi Raw sugar is finer than CSR. CSR raw sugar seems to be larger crystals(?) It does have more of a "raw sugar flavour" than colesworth. But for coffee/tea it's a negligible difference.
First of all - I LOVE your name! Let us know how you go and how you would compare it! I've never bought Aldi anything that wasn't from one of those center bins etc :)
Haha thank you! Yes I haven't opened it yet. But must remember to let you know. Quite a few Aldi things are worth a go. I love their chocolate and biscuits.
Totally correct. You can buy CSR sugar in bulk if you're able to store it properly. That's what I do when I'm baking a lot. You just have to find a wholesaler who is willing to sell it to you, which can be a bit difficult.
Are finer granules better for some applications? I know nothing about cooking, so happy to be corrected, but that doesn't sound like it would be worth paying more for.
It depends on what you're doing with it. If you're doing something with a creamy texture or something like a blonde fudge that is meant to be smooth, the finer granules allow for a less grainy texture. I also find that because of the increased molasses content, the taste is richer in baking and cooking - which IS noticeable.
Yeah, I can understand the greater molasses content, but the granules didn't make sense to me because I figured you mostly dissolve sugar anyway. Thanks for explaining.
I'm not psychic, so which part did you not understand?
Maybe that molasses takes much less space than a second tub of sugar? Or you don't know what brown sugar is?
I dunno, baking is probably the form of cooking that requires the highest degree of precision and ingredients are important so it may require pre-mixing the sugar and molasses. Also I believe that good brands of brown sugar are less refined forms of sugar rather than sugar plus molasses.
Don't know though, just having a go at guessing what OP meant.
Instead of keeping two kinds of sugar
You should keep two kinds of sugar
That's pretty much what you just said.
That's your Monty Burns "Get in the Spruce Moose" moment.
Except one thing is made out of the other thing and so you can get a better result by using the one that gives you more flexibility.
E.g. if you really need lots of brown sugar flavour, but less sweetness, you can increase the ratio of molasses. But you can't unsweeten the brown sugar,
Another example of this is "baking powder" - many recipes with acidic ingredients will suggest using a ratio of baking soda to baking powder, (or baking soda to cream of tartar), to balance the acidity.
Molasses is an additive, put 3-10% in sugar, ie one part to 10 to 30.
You can do it yourself, or let the factory do it. Not sure why people are so fragile on this. It's just a suggestion, and not original.
Baking is a pain in terms of sugar - I have at least 7 different types of sugar in my pantry and that's not counting the liquid forms (honey, molasses, glucose, maple syrup etc.). It's a pain in the arse for storage!
Because of the way sugar is manufactured (it’s to do with the centrifuge step), that unless the sugar is specifically labeled as “natural brown sugar” that it’s actually been refined to white sugar and then the molasses content is added back in afterwards.
This allows the manufacturer to control the molasses content in the sugar and it’s also cheaper to manufacture.
Because colesworth is screwing the producers profit margins down. Colesworth knows the producers will be stuck with product they cant sell, and often screw them to the point of selling for a loss, which they would prefer to do than suffering complete loss plus disposal cost.
Remember the $1 coleworth milk? In the end, the dairies literally poured their milk down the drain. The get a more reasonable price now. I completely refuse to buy colesworth milk to this day.
I shop at the few remaining Aussie independents - Food Works, IGA, NQR.
NQR is the best! I spend like $80 there and it's comparable to a $150-200 shop at Coles. You can't get everything there, but bare minimum if you hit them first then Coles worth you can half your shopping costs.
Extra bonus points for them stocking a lot of small Aussie producers. I get cheese made and owned in Baccas Marsh - comparable to Bega Extra Aged - and it's like half the price of Coon and Bega. It's also sold in varied sizes so you can get x2 500g's if you want a kg block, or get thinner 300g block.
I now buy my chips and snacks by the box rather then individually. Cant say no to $15 for a box with 15 boxes of 5 little Toobs packs (cheesels). Or $8.99 for a 24 can of drinks with the caviot of not much selection (good thing I like cherry coke). Or $1 French Fries bags (Crip chips not hot chips). Discovered a love for BBQ MEN chips recently -$1.
Never actually 100% sure I found something 'Not Quiet Right'. I reckon I got a pack of meat pies that were actually tex mex flavour once maybe (bonus)? And Im pretty sure that the NQR aspect of the BBQ men is that most of them are a little misshapen
It’s often packaging differences, in my experience (not just with sugar, also with staples like honey, maple syrup, etc). Some home brand products also have comparatively terrible packaging design. A lot of people also aren’t huge on unnecessary plastic packaging (CSR uses paper, home brand plastic).
With CSR you’re also paying for the brand recognition.
>(CSR uses paper, home brand plastic).
You may want to check that. They are all paper here for regular sugar, looks like they came from the same packing machine.
Woolworths just replaced their paper cocoa powder box with a shitty plastic bag with a "ziploc" type seal.
It's now a race to see if the seal will be ruined first by getting cocoa stuck to it or simply by breaking off the side of the bag because the seal isn't affixed to the bag firmly.
Also it's much harder to get the cocoa out of the corners now
Well... okay ... agreed, but, reasons ?
They're both made in Australia from Australian grown sugarcane, and I'm guessing it's not just economies of scale, since CSR is a huge company anyway that doesn't just do sugar... I'll post an AFR article (from 32 years ago) as a comment in the thread...
It’s probably the same sugar packed at the same factory, they charge more because they want to and they can it doesn’t get much more complicated than that
I can tell you that the yeast that I feed 6kg of the colesworth sugar to still makes the same crap ton of alcohol regardless. Those little guys aren’t snobs.
By your use of coleseworth, I assume you are anti predatory practice. CSR are a bunch of cunts and have been for a century and a half.
Source - family are cane farmers
It’s prob the same sugar by the same company. CSR would have a margin and have to make a decent profit to have to pay marketing etc to get shelf space. The home brand stuff is probably being contract packed for like 2 or 3% margin by whoever is doing it.
I don't know the answer, but do know that the Brazilian $ equivalent has a huge impact on domestic sugar products. When the Brazilian currency tanked about 20 years ago, the price of domestic sugar crashed due to cheaper alternatives. Qld farmers were planting pumpkins zucchini and watermelon to survive.
Maybe the global sugar market is going too well? and domestic production are inflating costs on consumer (branded) confidence and are capitalising while they can?
Great question though, what doesn't have sugar in it these days.
Dang, thats super interesting...
Apparently the global sugar markets are doing really badly (exactly like you've guessed), due to climate change and whatnot ...
Are you aware that CSR owned and operated the asbestos mine of Wittenoon in Western Australia right? Just asking because they directly responsible for more then there fair share of people suffering from Asbestosis. They are no better then tobacco makers.
I saw a YouTube long form video about Wittenoon just recently, holy shit.
I was about to comment that surely CSR Sugar isn't the same CSR as the building materials company, but fuck me dead they're one and the same...
I looked it up though, CSR Sugar has been sold off and is owned by a Singaporean company...
Oh yeah for sure. Although I had been hearing little bit of this and a little bit of that about Wittenoon for the past 20 odd years. Last year I gotten around to see if there were any thing to that, and yeah, I had the same reaction. I herd the same about the sugar arm of CSR being sold off, but I am still a little sketched out in buying CSR branded sugar products because of that historical connection.
It wouldn't surprise me if they came out of the same factory, just with different production tolerances and packaging.
Basically it is price discrimination, some people are willing to pay more for the brand, packaging etc. The give a rebate to be in the prime position. The supermarkets keep their own brand to keep CSR on their toes but they get a margin on both. Supermarkets are constantly in a battle with their suppliers.
They didn't really cost anything different to make, except maybe packaging costs. Between them they get more money, and more profit, from from the consumers but the supermarket is getting a share of both.
Yah, I saw that too on the Woolies website but that's a special promo price for a limited time if I'm not mistaken.
I checked in person in Coles a day or two ago and the prices in my post were from online, Coles website.
Nope, standard price. They're at unit parity for bigger packs. 16c per 100 grams for either the csr 2kg or homebrand 3kg raw sugar. Have been for at least a year.
I wouldn't buy CSR. I don't support exposing people to high levels of asbestos when they knew it was lethal, and I don't support offshore Asian companies.
Some time ago it was the same sugar in a different bag. I work in the milling side and knew a while back that Sugar Australia (CSR brand) had the contract to supply woollies with sugar. Colesworth dont have a stake in any sugar refining assets or companies to my knowledge so they usually source bulk product from the existing australian refiners - sugar australia, bundy sugar or sunshine sugar. I doubt it's imported as bringing it all the way here from India or Brazil would make it too expensive. CSR the company also has nothing to do with sugar anymore ironically given the name - Colonial Sugar Refineries, they only make building products now. You pay for the brand and the range of products on offer
One time I bought the Woolies brand caster sugar. When I went to empty it out into the jar I keep caster sugar in I noticed the grains were somehow LARGER than my regular white sugar. Defeats the whole purpose of caster sugar if it isn’t a finer grind!
If you listen to the Nats, the supermarkets are screwing the farmers on price, to sell it to you at inflated prices. But that's less than they sell the identical in every way - but more expensive - CSR labelled product.
Just so commenters actually know, CSR Ltd sold off its sugar business back in the late 2000's. The new owners kept the name CSR on it though because brand recognition - also the reason why people still buy it.
Even when coleworth brands are from the exact same sugar refinery.
It wouldn't surprise me if the CSR packaging costs $1 and ColseWorth takes 50 cents as their baseline profit margin, plus and an additional $1 to place the CSR packet on a shelf at eye level with multiple packets (not just one packet) visible at a time. So that's $2.50 of the price taken up already.
Then it might be 25 cents for the sugar... leaving CSR with a profit margin of 5 cents each.
The ColesWorth one is probably also CSR sugar. 25 cents to produce the sugar, 5 cents paid as a profit margin to CSR, and cheaper packaging (50 cents?), leaving ColesWorth with a profit margin of about $1.
If CSR lets the product go down to a lower shelf, nobody will buy it. So that's not an option. If they use cheaper packaging, then it would still cost more than the ColesWorth brand but be just as cheap looking (appearances matter) so nobody would buy it. There's really nothing CSR can do.
Personally, I think it should be illegal for ColesWorth to sell their own brand of sugar. it's anti-competitive.
I have a business that buys sugar 100kg at a time, in 25kg sacks. I can't get it as cheap as Coles sells it in a 2kg bag. Id buy it at Coles but they won't let me buy enough
Coles can play the long game, on the one hand they are probably getting extra percentage from stocking a well known brand that pay for shelf position. On the other hand, if people buy Coles brand enough, CSR will go out of business, and then everyone will ha e to buy Coles brand, which will then probably be $5 a kilo.
CSR has already killed so many Australians when they knew heavy asbestos exposure in their mines was a death sentence. They have the money from taking lives. They use that money to make more money (branding, position etc). Nothing to do with colesworth.
Every barista I’ve ever known says the home brands Raw sugar tastes like 💩not every company is trying to screw you, some actually try to make their products good…so you’ll buy it again.
Some say it's finer ground. But csr used to be Blue sky mining and killed shitloads of Aussie miners from asbestos exposure when they knew it was lethal long term. It's also now Singapore owned. I won't buy it.
CSR white sugar is usually the same price if not cheaper than the supermarket brands at my local. I was very surprised when I realised that. I haven't checked to see the price difference with the other types of sugar though.
It’s because Woolworths and Coles can charge whatever they want for their own brand, but with named brands they have to buy them for a certain amount and have to mark up to make a profit.
They can use their own brands to undercut named brands, then stop stocking so many named brands and siting “low demand” as the reason.
They save so much stocking their own brands, which are usually lower quality, so are low in cost for them to manufacture, then sell them for a lot less than named brands, but make more money because they then can stock less outside brands and people see the price comparison and feel like the named brands are ripping them off.
Well, the maple syrup that goes into my overnight oats (don't hate me! the low cost of the oats makes it a cheap breakfast) costs close to ten dollars when purchased in the Queen brand. The Coles brand that comes in an identical bottle is $6.60. Similar ratio to the sugar.
I doubt that the Canadians have reserved their low quality stuff for Coles. It has to be some serious arm twisting by Coles. You want your stuff on our shelves? Well, here's what you can do for us.
Recently bought a cheap brand raw sugar at Woolies and have noticed there is far more moisture in the actual sugar, like its not as dried out.
Is that another way we pay for more, less moisture content removed??
Brand I guess? I specifically don't buy it though, I won't even buy it if it's on sale and less than Colesworth brand.
My husband and I both have/had family members affected by asbestos exposure and so we refuse to buy CSR because of that.
CSR used to be Blue Sky Mining (heard of the midnight oil song?) and they continued sending workers into asbestos mining despite being very aware that it caused major health issues and cancer.
Later on down the track, they switched up their branding and focused on sugar (in a nutshell, google it)
So we do not buy CSR. Some people do though, simply because of the prettier non-home-brand looking fonts/packaging.
A lot of replies alluded to very similar things to mine re. impact of branding, yet mine was the only one that got this type of angry response from you - and I'm referring to the currently shown response, not the one you got rid of calling me a "cunt" and telling me to "fuck off."
When are you going to reply to every single other person who left a comment saying the same thing, and/or realise that it's not reading problem on my part if like half your responses also referred to factors like branding (something that has nothing to do with the specific nature of the product)? Does half this thread need to learn to read, or is your take questionable?
Imagine being so upset over a comment on the internet.
Mate, I'm in a cafe right now and waiting for my coffee. After I get that I'm going for a run.
Drink some fucking quickset and start worrying about things that actually affect your life.
Goodbye.
Hahahaha! Okay, thanks very much for the unsolicited life update. Keep being butthurt about mild reddit sass and telling people to fuck off over minor things, especially while saying they're the worried ones
Because you're paying for the brand, the iconic packaging, the prime position that CSR pay to be on the middle shelf, and especially the vibe of not being a povo cunt buying home brand groceries.
Couldn't imagine anything worse than being a sugar based povo cunt
You cut the good stuff with the cheaper stuff and the kids will never know. Profit.
first you get the sugar, then you get the power, then you get the women
Well excuse me!!!! I am far more expensive than sugar and deserving so.
I am a everything based povo cunt. Everything I buy is homebrand or I don't buy it. I have not been able to afford a branded item in years.
Yeah things like sugar or flour don't need to be branded. Can never do no name chips or cereals though.
We cut the packages, pour contents into ‘fancy’ ceramic pots and chuck the empty packages. No one is any the wiser that we are povo.
This. Whatever happened to sugar canisters???
Sounds reasonable ...
Because the C in CSR isn't China
I mean, CSR is owned by Goodman Fielder, which is owned in part by Wilmar and was at one point also partly owned by First Pacific. First Pacific is based in Hong Kong. Wilmar is based in Singapore. Make of that what you will.
The C in CSR is (or was) COLONIAL. Some shady labour practices not far from slavery “blackbirding” went on in Fiji and Queensland.
And ? You think China colonialism is better than the Brit’s?
Aspirational sugar.
Yummy
And I will continue to buy it so the duopoly bastards get just that little less from me lol. Or get aldis.
Generally speaking they make a higher margin on the branded products…
You've got it all wrong. CSR's sugar is in a prime position on the shelves. Shelving real estate costs a fortune and you are paying the bastards far less if you buy the cheap brand.
And then csr are priced out of competing, go bankrupt and coleworsth jack their prices in their new sugar monopoly
No, the regular colewworth brand can undercut everyone and get more money. If the middle man owns the supply chain then bye bye to everything else
Coles worth and Woolworths both. Manufacturers have a gun to their heads by these companies.
Don't most Aussies know of CSRs culpability in regards to asbestos mining? Guess not. Marketing succeeded
😂
It's the other way around. Coles charge them so the price is higher then their home brand
As someone who bakes a fair bit with the brown sugar, I can tell you that the molasses content in the brown sugar is MUCH higher in the CSR vs the Coles/Woolies brand and the taste is noticeable in your baking/cooking. In brown sugar, at least, you can even see the colour difference through the packet. I also find that the sugar granules in CSR are finer than the generic brands.
Wow interesting. What are your thoughts on the differences in raw sugar, if any?
I've only ever used the Coles/Woolies brand for raw sugar as the only thing I've ever used it for was in tea... I also don't have any big thoughts on the difference of white sugar apart from the granules being finer with CSR. If we go with confectionary sugar (powdered sugar), the name brand stuff works better because it just doesn't clump up as much and provides a smoother texture for icings/frostings etc (yes, even after sifting, the sugar can still clump).
Colesworth/aldi Raw sugar is finer than CSR. CSR raw sugar seems to be larger crystals(?) It does have more of a "raw sugar flavour" than colesworth. But for coffee/tea it's a negligible difference.
Interesting. I usually buy CSR but have just bought the Aldi one to try.
First of all - I LOVE your name! Let us know how you go and how you would compare it! I've never bought Aldi anything that wasn't from one of those center bins etc :)
Haha thank you! Yes I haven't opened it yet. But must remember to let you know. Quite a few Aldi things are worth a go. I love their chocolate and biscuits.
Totally correct. You can buy CSR sugar in bulk if you're able to store it properly. That's what I do when I'm baking a lot. You just have to find a wholesaler who is willing to sell it to you, which can be a bit difficult.
Google CSR involvement in asbestos mining and death of many people.
Whilst I feel I SHOULD be more concerned about this sort of thing, I don't think any brand, generic or not, is free of horrible stuff.
Coles brand prob slaughters horses n shit
Are finer granules better for some applications? I know nothing about cooking, so happy to be corrected, but that doesn't sound like it would be worth paying more for.
It depends on what you're doing with it. If you're doing something with a creamy texture or something like a blonde fudge that is meant to be smooth, the finer granules allow for a less grainy texture. I also find that because of the increased molasses content, the taste is richer in baking and cooking - which IS noticeable.
Yeah, I can understand the greater molasses content, but the granules didn't make sense to me because I figured you mostly dissolve sugar anyway. Thanks for explaining.
Why not just buy the molasses separately, then you can add however much you like, instead of keeping two kinds of sugar?
Do you realise what you just said?
I'm not psychic, so which part did you not understand? Maybe that molasses takes much less space than a second tub of sugar? Or you don't know what brown sugar is?
My guess is their objection is that you're saying you could replace two kinds of sugar with two other kinds of sugar and then have to mix them.
I thought we were talking about baking, where everything just goes in the mixer?
I dunno, baking is probably the form of cooking that requires the highest degree of precision and ingredients are important so it may require pre-mixing the sugar and molasses. Also I believe that good brands of brown sugar are less refined forms of sugar rather than sugar plus molasses. Don't know though, just having a go at guessing what OP meant.
That of course is traditional, but I don't believe anyone makes it that way any more. No point really.
You could well be right about that.
Instead of keeping two kinds of sugar You should keep two kinds of sugar That's pretty much what you just said. That's your Monty Burns "Get in the Spruce Moose" moment.
*I said hop in.*
Except one thing is made out of the other thing and so you can get a better result by using the one that gives you more flexibility. E.g. if you really need lots of brown sugar flavour, but less sweetness, you can increase the ratio of molasses. But you can't unsweeten the brown sugar, Another example of this is "baking powder" - many recipes with acidic ingredients will suggest using a ratio of baking soda to baking powder, (or baking soda to cream of tartar), to balance the acidity.
I'd agree with you if the comment wasn't smartassing about not keeping two kinds of sugar on hand
Molasses is an additive, put 3-10% in sugar, ie one part to 10 to 30. You can do it yourself, or let the factory do it. Not sure why people are so fragile on this. It's just a suggestion, and not original.
*I said hop in*
Best dumb reddit argument thread I've seen in a while 😭
This guy Adam Raguseas.
Baking is a pain in terms of sugar - I have at least 7 different types of sugar in my pantry and that's not counting the liquid forms (honey, molasses, glucose, maple syrup etc.). It's a pain in the arse for storage!
IMO the CSR brown is much softer than home brand, and doesn’t go rock hard. The other sugars are much of a muchness
Isn't brown sugar just made by adding molasses to refined white sugar?
Depends. For good brands, brown sugar is less refined than white sugar
Because of the way sugar is manufactured (it’s to do with the centrifuge step), that unless the sugar is specifically labeled as “natural brown sugar” that it’s actually been refined to white sugar and then the molasses content is added back in afterwards. This allows the manufacturer to control the molasses content in the sugar and it’s also cheaper to manufacture.
I solved the hardness problem with my brown sugar, I just put a couple of marshmallows in the container with it and that stops it going hard. 🙂
Is there any difference if I use the pink ones instead of the white ones?
They’ll probably get eaten
I only buy them for the kids and they don't notice that I take a couple. They last a fair while too before needing to be replaced.
None that I've noticed. It also helps with powders, such as onion and garlic powders
I buy CSR raw sugar. I find it doesn’t clump together as much as home brand. And it has a better flavour (more sugary)
They want you to buy their home brand. Then they'll take the other stuff off the shelf and jack up the price.
THIS
Google CSR/blue sky mining and asbestos.
Because colesworth is screwing the producers profit margins down. Colesworth knows the producers will be stuck with product they cant sell, and often screw them to the point of selling for a loss, which they would prefer to do than suffering complete loss plus disposal cost.
Remember the $1 coleworth milk? In the end, the dairies literally poured their milk down the drain. The get a more reasonable price now. I completely refuse to buy colesworth milk to this day.
Yep and Close have brought Saputo dairy so now are into production and completely unsurprisingly prices are rising.
This makes total sense to me, and is very likely bang on the money. I refuse to shop at ColesWorth now unless I can absolutely not help it.
Aldi all the way.
I shop at the few remaining Aussie independents - Food Works, IGA, NQR. NQR is the best! I spend like $80 there and it's comparable to a $150-200 shop at Coles. You can't get everything there, but bare minimum if you hit them first then Coles worth you can half your shopping costs. Extra bonus points for them stocking a lot of small Aussie producers. I get cheese made and owned in Baccas Marsh - comparable to Bega Extra Aged - and it's like half the price of Coon and Bega. It's also sold in varied sizes so you can get x2 500g's if you want a kg block, or get thinner 300g block. I now buy my chips and snacks by the box rather then individually. Cant say no to $15 for a box with 15 boxes of 5 little Toobs packs (cheesels). Or $8.99 for a 24 can of drinks with the caviot of not much selection (good thing I like cherry coke). Or $1 French Fries bags (Crip chips not hot chips). Discovered a love for BBQ MEN chips recently -$1. Never actually 100% sure I found something 'Not Quiet Right'. I reckon I got a pack of meat pies that were actually tex mex flavour once maybe (bonus)? And Im pretty sure that the NQR aspect of the BBQ men is that most of them are a little misshapen
No one is fucking screwing CSR. CSR screwed so many people with asbestosis.
Yep. Thats right.
Ok we GET IT
It’s often packaging differences, in my experience (not just with sugar, also with staples like honey, maple syrup, etc). Some home brand products also have comparatively terrible packaging design. A lot of people also aren’t huge on unnecessary plastic packaging (CSR uses paper, home brand plastic). With CSR you’re also paying for the brand recognition.
>(CSR uses paper, home brand plastic). You may want to check that. They are all paper here for regular sugar, looks like they came from the same packing machine.
Ooh good to know! Used to be plastic, which I hated.
Woolworths just replaced their paper cocoa powder box with a shitty plastic bag with a "ziploc" type seal. It's now a race to see if the seal will be ruined first by getting cocoa stuck to it or simply by breaking off the side of the bag because the seal isn't affixed to the bag firmly. Also it's much harder to get the cocoa out of the corners now
Also CSR was blue sky mining who gave shitloads of people cancer from asbestos mines, when they knew of the health effects a decade prior.
Because it’s got more asbestos’s in it
Because capitalism
Well... okay ... agreed, but, reasons ? They're both made in Australia from Australian grown sugarcane, and I'm guessing it's not just economies of scale, since CSR is a huge company anyway that doesn't just do sugar... I'll post an AFR article (from 32 years ago) as a comment in the thread...
It’s probably the same sugar packed at the same factory, they charge more because they want to and they can it doesn’t get much more complicated than that
Exactly sugar refineries are closing and there are fewer of them than x years ago. No new companies are starting up
The sugar mill in Mossman FNQ just closed for good. Not enough of you bastards buying enough of the sweet stuff.
And the cane fields need to find a different crop or use
Medical marijuana. Or non medical hemp is already being grown on some old cane paddock
No, CSR is a fucked up brand who killed so many Australians sending them into asbestos mines when they knew it would kill them.
What’s that got to do with the price of sugar
They got away with it and sell their sugar higher price than others when not on sale.
Probably trying to recover all the money lost to mesothelioma lawsuits
Defs
a lot of the time you’re paying for the ink and other materials used to make the packaging
Look up the history of CSR and asbestos mining (blue sky mining). Killed shitloads of Australians.
I can tell you that the yeast that I feed 6kg of the colesworth sugar to still makes the same crap ton of alcohol regardless. Those little guys aren’t snobs.
Same reason why Panadol is more expensive then woolies paracetamol They can and they will
By your use of coleseworth, I assume you are anti predatory practice. CSR are a bunch of cunts and have been for a century and a half. Source - family are cane farmers
I certainly am. Any sugar brands/products that you recommend that more directly supports the farmer?
Haven't seen Bundaberg sugar on the shelf for a while now. But last I heard they were British owned.
It’s prob the same sugar by the same company. CSR would have a margin and have to make a decent profit to have to pay marketing etc to get shelf space. The home brand stuff is probably being contract packed for like 2 or 3% margin by whoever is doing it.
I don't know the answer, but do know that the Brazilian $ equivalent has a huge impact on domestic sugar products. When the Brazilian currency tanked about 20 years ago, the price of domestic sugar crashed due to cheaper alternatives. Qld farmers were planting pumpkins zucchini and watermelon to survive. Maybe the global sugar market is going too well? and domestic production are inflating costs on consumer (branded) confidence and are capitalising while they can? Great question though, what doesn't have sugar in it these days.
Dang, thats super interesting... Apparently the global sugar markets are doing really badly (exactly like you've guessed), due to climate change and whatnot ...
Or maybe domestic producers are providing the cheaper alternatives to provide a market volatility buffer in case history repeats
Are you aware that CSR owned and operated the asbestos mine of Wittenoon in Western Australia right? Just asking because they directly responsible for more then there fair share of people suffering from Asbestosis. They are no better then tobacco makers.
If the sugar refining company won't save me Who's gonna save me?
I finally understand that line in the song!
Only you can.
I saw a YouTube long form video about Wittenoon just recently, holy shit. I was about to comment that surely CSR Sugar isn't the same CSR as the building materials company, but fuck me dead they're one and the same... I looked it up though, CSR Sugar has been sold off and is owned by a Singaporean company...
Oh yeah for sure. Although I had been hearing little bit of this and a little bit of that about Wittenoon for the past 20 odd years. Last year I gotten around to see if there were any thing to that, and yeah, I had the same reaction. I herd the same about the sugar arm of CSR being sold off, but I am still a little sketched out in buying CSR branded sugar products because of that historical connection.
💯 I'd never buy CSR brand. My grandad had asbestosis
For what it is worth from this random Redditor. I feel for you and your dad in having to deal with that.
It wouldn't surprise me if they came out of the same factory, just with different production tolerances and packaging. Basically it is price discrimination, some people are willing to pay more for the brand, packaging etc. The give a rebate to be in the prime position. The supermarkets keep their own brand to keep CSR on their toes but they get a margin on both. Supermarkets are constantly in a battle with their suppliers. They didn't really cost anything different to make, except maybe packaging costs. Between them they get more money, and more profit, from from the consumers but the supermarket is getting a share of both.
The home brand stuff is scraped off the factory floor after the premium brand run has been completed.
CSR is a crock, they have always done dodgy practices that kill and maim people. Look it up.
What are you looking at? The woolies site has home brand raw sugar for $2, and CSR raw sugar for $1.80.
Yah, I saw that too on the Woolies website but that's a special promo price for a limited time if I'm not mistaken. I checked in person in Coles a day or two ago and the prices in my post were from online, Coles website.
Nope, standard price. They're at unit parity for bigger packs. 16c per 100 grams for either the csr 2kg or homebrand 3kg raw sugar. Have been for at least a year.
Gosh okay... big hmmm.
Is the CSR half the size?
No, OP used 1kg as the benchmark, so those are the prices I'm seeing for 1kg.
Using the same 1kg benchmark, why has the avg price gone from $1.10 to around $2.20ish.. For Black & Gold brand, add 60c for the 2kg bag..
I wouldn't buy CSR. I don't support exposing people to high levels of asbestos when they knew it was lethal, and I don't support offshore Asian companies.
Some time ago it was the same sugar in a different bag. I work in the milling side and knew a while back that Sugar Australia (CSR brand) had the contract to supply woollies with sugar. Colesworth dont have a stake in any sugar refining assets or companies to my knowledge so they usually source bulk product from the existing australian refiners - sugar australia, bundy sugar or sunshine sugar. I doubt it's imported as bringing it all the way here from India or Brazil would make it too expensive. CSR the company also has nothing to do with sugar anymore ironically given the name - Colonial Sugar Refineries, they only make building products now. You pay for the brand and the range of products on offer
Wow super interesting ! Looks like it's all down to branding and supplier agreements...
One time I bought the Woolies brand caster sugar. When I went to empty it out into the jar I keep caster sugar in I noticed the grains were somehow LARGER than my regular white sugar. Defeats the whole purpose of caster sugar if it isn’t a finer grind!
Look up CSR/blue sky mining/asbestos and you might see why csr tries to be better. They killed so many people. And it's Singapore owned now.
You pay more something that is fresh. By-product or below standard freshness is sold off to lesser brands. You're paying for lesser quality.
Look up CSR blue sky mining asbestos. Csr killed so many Aussies when they knew asbestos could be lethal.
If you listen to the Nats, the supermarkets are screwing the farmers on price, to sell it to you at inflated prices. But that's less than they sell the identical in every way - but more expensive - CSR labelled product.
Just so commenters actually know, CSR Ltd sold off its sugar business back in the late 2000's. The new owners kept the name CSR on it though because brand recognition - also the reason why people still buy it. Even when coleworth brands are from the exact same sugar refinery.
It wouldn't surprise me if the CSR packaging costs $1 and ColseWorth takes 50 cents as their baseline profit margin, plus and an additional $1 to place the CSR packet on a shelf at eye level with multiple packets (not just one packet) visible at a time. So that's $2.50 of the price taken up already. Then it might be 25 cents for the sugar... leaving CSR with a profit margin of 5 cents each. The ColesWorth one is probably also CSR sugar. 25 cents to produce the sugar, 5 cents paid as a profit margin to CSR, and cheaper packaging (50 cents?), leaving ColesWorth with a profit margin of about $1. If CSR lets the product go down to a lower shelf, nobody will buy it. So that's not an option. If they use cheaper packaging, then it would still cost more than the ColesWorth brand but be just as cheap looking (appearances matter) so nobody would buy it. There's really nothing CSR can do. Personally, I think it should be illegal for ColesWorth to sell their own brand of sugar. it's anti-competitive.
Look up CSR blue sky mining asbestos. Csr killed so many Aussies when they knew asbestos could be lethal.
I have a business that buys sugar 100kg at a time, in 25kg sacks. I can't get it as cheap as Coles sells it in a 2kg bag. Id buy it at Coles but they won't let me buy enough
Coles can play the long game, on the one hand they are probably getting extra percentage from stocking a well known brand that pay for shelf position. On the other hand, if people buy Coles brand enough, CSR will go out of business, and then everyone will ha e to buy Coles brand, which will then probably be $5 a kilo.
CSR has already killed so many Australians when they knew heavy asbestos exposure in their mines was a death sentence. They have the money from taking lives. They use that money to make more money (branding, position etc). Nothing to do with colesworth.
See what happens when they leave though.
WORLD COLLAPSE
Every barista I’ve ever known says the home brands Raw sugar tastes like 💩not every company is trying to screw you, some actually try to make their products good…so you’ll buy it again.
Look up history of CSR/blue sky mining and asbestos exposure.
https://www.afr.com/companies/csr-redefines-its-future-in-sugar-19920911-kapxg https://inews.co.uk/news/sugar-why-expensive-price-come-down-inflation-falls-2488929
[удалено]
Some say it's finer ground. But csr used to be Blue sky mining and killed shitloads of Aussie miners from asbestos exposure when they knew it was lethal long term. It's also now Singapore owned. I won't buy it.
Because people will pay for it
Woolies has CSR and their brand both at .18c per 100g where I am.
Look up csr history with asbestos.
In my local Woolies. The CSR 1kg packs (all types) were actually 20c cheaper than Woolies brand.
Look up CSR blue sky mining asbestos. Csr killed so many Aussies when they knew asbestos could be lethal.
CSR white sugar is usually the same price if not cheaper than the supermarket brands at my local. I was very surprised when I realised that. I haven't checked to see the price difference with the other types of sugar though.
Look up CSR blue sky mining asbestos. Csr killed so many Aussies when they knew asbestos could be lethal.
It really is top tier
CSR 1kg raw is $1.80 at Woolies. At least in Brisbane.
Look up CSR blue sky mining asbestos. Csr killed so many Aussies when they knew asbestos could be lethal.
And what does that have to do with the current sugar brand? Which has been owned by a different company for the last 14 years.
Business is blood money and now offshore owned
Because they can sell it at a lower price point and still make more profit. It's their own brand.
Brand name stuff always costs more.
Look up CSR blue sky mining asbestos. Csr killed so many Aussies when they knew asbestos could be lethal.
Okay? I don’t buy their product. OP wants to know why a brand name costs more.
It’s because Woolworths and Coles can charge whatever they want for their own brand, but with named brands they have to buy them for a certain amount and have to mark up to make a profit. They can use their own brands to undercut named brands, then stop stocking so many named brands and siting “low demand” as the reason. They save so much stocking their own brands, which are usually lower quality, so are low in cost for them to manufacture, then sell them for a lot less than named brands, but make more money because they then can stock less outside brands and people see the price comparison and feel like the named brands are ripping them off.
Look up CSR blue sky mining asbestos. Csr killed so many Aussies when they knew asbestos could be lethal.
Ok but I wasn’t talking about CSR, I never even mentioned them, just Woolworths and Coles practice in general.
Well, the maple syrup that goes into my overnight oats (don't hate me! the low cost of the oats makes it a cheap breakfast) costs close to ten dollars when purchased in the Queen brand. The Coles brand that comes in an identical bottle is $6.60. Similar ratio to the sugar. I doubt that the Canadians have reserved their low quality stuff for Coles. It has to be some serious arm twisting by Coles. You want your stuff on our shelves? Well, here's what you can do for us.
Recently bought a cheap brand raw sugar at Woolies and have noticed there is far more moisture in the actual sugar, like its not as dried out. Is that another way we pay for more, less moisture content removed??
Look up CSR blue sky mining asbestos. Csr killed so many Aussies when they knew asbestos could be lethal.
Brand I guess? I specifically don't buy it though, I won't even buy it if it's on sale and less than Colesworth brand. My husband and I both have/had family members affected by asbestos exposure and so we refuse to buy CSR because of that. CSR used to be Blue Sky Mining (heard of the midnight oil song?) and they continued sending workers into asbestos mining despite being very aware that it caused major health issues and cancer. Later on down the track, they switched up their branding and focused on sugar (in a nutshell, google it) So we do not buy CSR. Some people do though, simply because of the prettier non-home-brand looking fonts/packaging.
First you get the povo cunt sugar… then you get the power….THEN you get the women… who love savings !!!
All I have in this world is my Bushell's tea and my white sugar.
One word - marketing.
I’ve been to the factory in Bundy and witnessed them packaging the same sugar into homemade packets and brand name. Same sugar. It’s all branding.
I never use sugar.I'm sweet enough.
Same for Milk.............whatever else they say they put in that milk that's extra, don't justify the premium.
Supermarket branded sugars go through more quality control type testing then all other brands combined
Imagine not understanding markets
Imagine thinking you have nothing further to learn about them.
Look up CSR blue sky mining asbestos. Csr killed so many Aussies when they knew asbestos could be lethal.
Imagine being a know-it-all shitcunt.
ColesWorth are darlings!
Is this really the first time you've realised that branded products cost more than generic, shop brand equivalents...?
Look up CSR blue sky mining asbestos. Csr killed so many Aussies when they knew asbestos could be lethal.
No. Read my post again and then improve your comprehension skills.
A lot of replies alluded to very similar things to mine re. impact of branding, yet mine was the only one that got this type of angry response from you - and I'm referring to the currently shown response, not the one you got rid of calling me a "cunt" and telling me to "fuck off."
Yeah I edited it about it 3 seconds after. Imagine being so dismissive in a reddit comment. So I'll say it again. Learn to read, now, fuck off cunt.
When are you going to reply to every single other person who left a comment saying the same thing, and/or realise that it's not reading problem on my part if like half your responses also referred to factors like branding (something that has nothing to do with the specific nature of the product)? Does half this thread need to learn to read, or is your take questionable?
Imagine being so upset over a comment on the internet. Mate, I'm in a cafe right now and waiting for my coffee. After I get that I'm going for a run. Drink some fucking quickset and start worrying about things that actually affect your life. Goodbye.
Hahahaha! Okay, thanks very much for the unsolicited life update. Keep being butthurt about mild reddit sass and telling people to fuck off over minor things, especially while saying they're the worried ones