10 Popular Brands Hiding Behind Walmart's Great Value Products

Since the 1990s, many customers have relied on Walmart's private label, Great Value, for budget-friendly, reliable staples. The line is huge and spans pretty much every category you could think of. Need frozen meals? What about lightbulbs? Low on bottled drinking water? You'll find them all sold under the Great Value name.

But you might be surprised to learn that Walmart doesn't actually produce all of these products on its own. It turns out, it has a fair bit of help from popular brand names. This is good news for budget-hunting shoppers, as sometimes the more expensive branded products on the shelves are made in the same factory using the same processes as the cheaper versions. This, of course, begs the question: Why pay more?

If you're intrigued, we've got the lowdown on a few popular brands behind Walmart's Great Value products below. We won't give away too much before we start, but here's a little spoiler: You might reconsider splashing out on pricier versions of ice cream and butter after you've finished reading.

If you've got a tub of Walmart's Great Value ice cream chilling in your freezer right now, you're not alone. The chain's own-brand ice cream is consistently a hit with customers, and people often rave about the quality, the flavor, and the velvety texture. One popular criticism? It's too easy to eat an entire tub in one go.

The biggest pull of the Great Value range, of course, is the price, which is considerably cheaper than name brands on the market. At the time of writing, a 48-ounce tub of Great Value Sea Salt Caramel Ice Cream is less than $3, for example, while a mere pint of Halo Top and a 46-ounce tub of Blue Bunny are closer to $5. But you'll get a similar level of quality with all of these brands, because they're all produced by the same company: Wells.

In fact, Wells, which is the largest privately held, family-owned ice cream manufacturer in the U.S., is actually the original creator of Blue Bunny ice cream. Back in the 1930s, Fred H. Wells Jr started the beloved ice cream brand with his brother, Harry, in Le Mars, Iowa. Over the decades, the company grew into a major ice cream manufacturer, and Wells has been producing Great Value ice cream for decades. It's also the company behind Blue Ribbon and Bomb Pop products.

Great Value bread might be among the lowest-priced options on the shelf, but it doesn't skimp on quality. The products in this range consistently rack up thousands of positive reviews, and people praise how soft and fresh they taste. In fact, some Redditors who have swapped from pricier brands like Sara Lee have expressed how impressed they are with the quality of Walmart's budget-friendly offering. And actually, that's not that surprising, because, you guessed it, it seems they're made by the same manufacturer.

It's not always easy to find out which brands are hiding behind grocery store private-label products, but sometimes there are clues. And back in 2015, this clue came in the form of a broken light bulb. Yep, really. Back in 2015, Bimbo Bakeries (the world's largest bread maker) had to issue a recall of some of its products because a light bulb had smashed in one of its factories. There were concerns that broken glass may have contaminated some of the bread, which included products sold under the Bimbo brand, as well as Sara Lee and Great Value. And that's not all; Nature's Harvest, L'Oven Fresh, and Kroger breads were also implicated in the recall. 

In the end, no injuries were reported due to the broken light bulb. But the recall has another happy consequence: We now know that if you buy most grocery store private-label breads, you might also be getting name-brand quality.

It's hard to believe that Conagra Brands started out as a flour mill, because now, it is a multi-billion-dollar juggernaut that owns some of the most in-demand brands in the U.S. Birds Eye, Reddi Whip, and Marie Callender's are just a few examples of the popular companies in its portfolio. But actually, Conagra is hiding behind even more brands than it lets on, including Walmart's Great Value. 

How do we know this? Yep, it's recalls again. In 2023, Conagra Brands issued a recall for more than 2.5 million cans of meat and poultry products due to potential packaging defects. Most of those products were sold under the potted meat brand Armour. This isn't too surprising; Conagra bought Armour in the 1980s, before selling it to Smithfield in 2006, but clearly, it still manufactures some of the company's products. But the recall also revealed that Conagra is behind Great Value Vienna Sausages, as well as Kroger's own-brand Vienna Sausages.

So this means that regardless of whether you buy your Vienna sausages from Armour, Kroger private label, or Great Value, you're basically buying the same thing. And that's not all; the recall also revealed that Conagra produces Vienna sausages for Goya, Prairie Belt, Hargis House, and Grace, too.

Recalls aren't the only way to figure out which brand name is behind a Great Value product. Sometimes, you need only look to social media to figure out the answers.

In April 2025, for example, a video of a TikToker unboxing packets of Land O' Lakes butter caught the attention of hundreds of thousands of people. At first, that doesn't sound very interesting, but the boxes revealed something fascinating: Inside, there were sticks of butter with Great Value packaging. They weren't alone. Several social media users started posting similar discoveries online, and it seemed that a simple packaging mix-up had probably revealed that Land O' Lakes and Great Value butter sticks are identical.

According to some factory workers on social media, this might have happened due to an error at the butter factory. Workers are supposed to turn off the machine and change the packaging when they swap brands, but it seems like on this occasion, the Great Value packaging slipped into the Land O' Lakes boxes without detection.

When you think of The J.M. Smucker Co, chances are you think of Smucker's — its namesake brand that produces popular peanut butters and fruity spreads — or Smucker's Uncrustables, the popular frozen PB&J sandwiches. But actually, this company owns several popular brands that are separate from the Smucker's name, including Jif, Hostess, and even Dunkin's retail coffee line. And on top of this, it seems it also has time to produce products for Walmart's Great Value line, too. Or at least, it did in 2024.

Once again, the reveal came in the form of a recall. Two years ago, The J.M. Smucker Co called back more than 40,000 bakery items, including Danish and cinnamon rolls, due to fears they might have been contaminated with plastic. The twist? The bakery items weren't sold under any of The J.M Smucker Co's brands, but instead, they were sold under Walmart's Great Value brand in Ohio.

If you browse the chicken section at Walmart, chances are you'll see quite a few Perdue Farms products. The company is one of the biggest meat suppliers in the U.S., after all.

It's pretty easy to spot a Perdue product. For the most part, its range of fresh and frozen chicken is covered in the Perdue name and branding. But not always. Perdue Farms is also the supplier behind other popular brands, like Coleman Natural Foods, Draper Valley Farms, and Yummy, too. And in 2010, a recall revealed that Perdue might also be the name behind Walmart's Great Value chicken. 

The recall in question concerned more than 91,800 pounds of frozen chicken nuggets. The primary issue? They might have been contaminated with small pieces of blue plastic. In fact, customers had actually found the plastic inside some products and then complained to the company. But the products they were finding the suspicious bits of blue plastic in weren't marked with Perdue branding. Nope, every single one was sold under the name Great Value Fully Chicken Nuggets.

Back in the 1930s, a baker named Rose Charters developed Krusteaz for the first time. It was the perfect name for the perfect product: a pie crust that was super easy to prepare. An easy crust — a Krusteaz. That product, which was basically a prepared mix that could be combined with water, would go on to inspire many other similar products, like pancake and waffle mixes. And not just mixes sold under the Krusteaz name, but also private label versions, too.

You guessed it: There is evidence to suggest that Krusteaz is the maker of Walmart's Great Value pancake and waffle mixes. And you guessed it again: That evidence is yet another recall.

In 2022, when Krusteaz-owner The Krusteaz Company was operating as Continental Mills, the company issued a recall for pancakes and waffle mixes that had potentially been contaminated with fragments of broken cable. Only the mixes weren't sold as Krusteaz products, but as Great Value Buttermilk Pancake & Waffle Mix. Cue the dramatic music.

Fisher Nuts is one of those household names that everyone knows. It's been around for more than 100 years, and its products still dominate grocery store shelves. Whether you're in the mood for chopped pecans, walnut halves, or sliced almonds, the chances are you'll find them sold under the Fisher Nuts name.

Fisher Nuts isn't an independent brand. It's owned by another nut giant, John B. Sanfilippo & Son, Inc (JBSS), which also owns other popular nut brands, like Orchard Valley Harvest, Squirrel Nuts, and Southern Style Nuts. And, as you've likely sussed out already, JBSS is also the hidden provider of yet another brand of nuts on the shelves: Great Value. At least, it has been in the past. 

Guess how we know? Yep, it's another recall. In 2024, JBSS issued a recall for Great Value Honey Roasted Cashews from Walmart stores in 30 states. This time, the issue was undeclared allergens on the packaging. Fortunately, no allergies were reported as a result of the error. But the recall did give us some interesting information: Fisher Nuts and Great Value nuts might just be one and the same. Who knew?

If you're a fan of Italian cheese, you've probably come across Frigo. The brand specializes in Parmesan and Italian cheese blends, as well as other Mediterranean favorites like goat's cheese, feta, and mozzarella. Frigo is also the name behind a slightly less sophisticated, yet widely loved cheese product, an American-style string cheese called Frigo Cheese Heads.

Frigo doesn't operate alone. It's owned by Saputo Cheese USA, which also owns Saputo cheese (of course), as well as brands like Black Creek, Treasure Cave, Stella, and Montchevre. And, it's dramatic music time again; it seems that Saputo Cheese also produces cheese for Walmart's Great Value line. Once again, the smoking gun was a recall.

In February 2026, Saputo Cheese USA issued a recall for Great Value Cottage Cheese from Walmart in 24 states due to a potential lack of pasteurization. Fortunately, no illnesses were reported. And the recall did give us some interesting information: The same company that produces for Frigo and all of those other cheese brands, also makes Great Value Fat-Free Small Curd Cottage Cheese, Great Value Lowfat Small Curd Cottage Cheese, and Great Value Small Curd Cottage Cheese.

Need a new trash can? What about freezer bags? Maybe storage bins? You'll find plenty at Walmart, of course, and many of them are sold by the household product brand Hefty. But if you've found yourself in the trash bag section, caught between opting for the Hefty name or sticking with Great Value, we've got news for you: They're actually probably pretty similar, because they're both produced by the same company. 

This time, the big reveal wasn't the result of a recall but a lawsuit. In 2023, Hefty's parent company, Reynolds Consumer Products, settled a lawsuit for $3 million after it was accused of misleading consumers into believing its trash bags were recyclable when they weren't. The trash bags in question? They were both produced by Reynolds Consumer Products, but they were sold under the Hefty and Great Value brand names. In case you're interested, other brands owned by Reynold Consumer Products include Diamond, Presto, and Fresh-Lock.