Recipes

[kismet]

I am so disappointed in the Sun-Maid golden raisins this year.  I have been using these for fruitcake forever and this year i have found leaves, sticks and seeds in the raisins.  Can anyone recommend a different brand of golden raisins.  It's sad when something that was so good has gone downhill.  There are a lot of dark raisins in it too and I need one lb for the cakes.  I went through 3/4 of a lb and had just had it.   Took so much longer than I had planned.  Has anyone else found these raisins to be a problem.  By the way the outside of the box says sticks, leaves, stems could be in the box.  I expect the stems cause there have always been some but never saw so many leaves and sticks. 

[CelticCrafter]

I don't think I've ever seen any other brands of raisins in the supermarket except for Sun-Maid and the store brand.

Same thing for cranberry sauce, it's either Ocean Spray or store brand.

[Sweet_Serenity]

  

Amazon if not in your supermarket.

[kismet]

Thanks for telling me about Trader Joes.  I use to go there all the time but haven't in years.  I don't go by there anymore so never think of going.  I do like a lot of things from there but being retired just don't go out as much.  I'm glad that the raisins are in clear plastic bags cause I would like to see the colors too.  All the grocery stores in my area only carry the Sun-Maid.

[CinNC]

You didn't purchase them at Walmart, did you? Brother of a friend used to do government inspections at vegetable processing plants. She jokingly complained to him about the plant debris found in a bag of frozen vegetables from Walmart. He told her that even though the bag looked the same as what was in the grocery stores, the quality standards were lower for those packaged for Walmart. 

[January121]

Thanks for letting us know .... I suggest you call Sun Maid customer service (the # should be on the box) & let them know what you found ..... if you don’t complain they will never know & nothing will improve. 😄

[novamc1]

Not a raisin-lover or user myself, but my husband buys Sun Maid  dark raisins at Costco and uses them in his cereal.  We're not regular Aldi shoppers, but he recently tried out raisins from  the nearby Aldi's and says he is disappointed in the quality.  Aldi's raisins come  in a container that looks almost like the Sun Maid label. 

Aldi's is owned by Trader Joe's, and perhaps both get the raisins from the same source.

Weather has been crazy in many agricultural areas and might have affected raisin quality.  No excuse for selling raisins with stems or other junk in them, however.  I would complain to the company.

[CelticCrafter]

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@novamc1 wrote:

Not a raisin-lover or user myself, but my husband buys Sun Maid  dark raisins at Costco and uses them in his cereal.  We're not regular Aldi shoppers, but he recently tried out raisins from  the nearby Aldi's and says he is disappointed in the quality.  Aldi's raisins come  in a container that looks almost like the Sun Maid label. 

Aldi's is owned by Trader Joe's, and perhaps both get the raisins from the same source.

Weather has been crazy in many agricultural areas and might have affected raisin quality.  No excuse for selling raisins with stems or other junk in them, however.  I would complain to the company.

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All of Aldi's products are packaged to look like the national name brand.

[deepwaterdotter]

I have successfully baked with the "Champion" brand of golden raisins.  I buy them at my local grocery in the produce department.

[Sooner]

We used 2 packages yesterday that were fine and they were from a large local grocery store (five BIG stores in our area) chain.  No problem there.

I do know for a fact that a lot of food processors package foods like canned foods for many stores, slapping different labels on the different cans.  However, they do process batches of different qualities, so some brands have different standards.

Your peas may be different sizes or the dried beans you buy bagged may have more splits in them for the cheaper brands.  They may have lots of irregular cuts or sizes in the green beans.  Some may still have a stem attached, etc.

If you look carefully (especially in dried beans, rice, etc. sometimes) you will see differences you might not have noticed before.

If things are cheaper, there is usually a reason.  May or may not matter to you.