The 8 Worst Copycat Food Items You Can Buy At Walmart, According To Customers

Many grocery store chains offer lower-cost store-brand dupes of popular name-brand products to tempt shoppers away. And Walmart's line of privately labeled foods — like Great Value and bettergoods — includes some of the more widely chosen copycats. Here, we stuck to Great Value brand products, which are often positioned as a direct alternative to name-brand items and have a larger assortment of products overall. In fact, in cases like Great Value Frosted Toaster Pastries, a dupe of the quintessential '90s breakfast favorite Pop-Tarts, its house brand has surpassed the original in a surprising number of customer reviews.

Some claim that house brands like Great Value are actually made in the same factories as the OG brands. You might assume the ingredients or proprietary recipes would be where the two diverge, but others say no — the dupes are mirror images. Some grocery store employees on Reddit even go so far as to say the only differences between a brand like Great Value and a big name like Kellanova (formerly Kellogg Company) are quality control, timing, and a new label.

Regardless of their origins, not all Walmart store-brand dupes are created equal. In fact, some are downright flops, if customer reactions are anything to go by. We did a deep dive into reviews across Reddit and Walmart itself to find eight of the worst brand-name food product dupes you can find in stores. So maybe keep the wallet a little closer to your pocket here, because unlike a few surprisingly good Walmart finds, these are the kinds of copycats you'll probably notice, and not in a good way.

Most of us who've tried Pringles remember the jingle — "once you pop, you can't stop" — not just because it's catchy, but also because it's true. And there's science behind it. The crispy snacks are engineered to be delicious and nearly impossible to fill up on. Basically, they hit certain evolutionary buttons in our brains that crave things like crunch and salt but are also so processed that our bodies don't fully notice when the craving is satisfied. So one minute you're popping a few into your mouth, the next you're staring at the bottom of the can, wondering about your life choices.

This only makes Great Value's Snack Attack Potato Crisps, available in various flavors, all the more disappointing. Reviewers who took the time to comment on Walmart's site describe them as bland, stale, and lacking any actual chip flavor. Over on Reddit, the verdict is much the same. Many who've tried them returned to the name brand quickly.

Although Walmart's take on the addictive snack is a dead ringer in appearance, the flavor just ... doesn't pop.

Ritz crackers are weirdly heroic in the pantry. They're like the sidekick that suddenly saves the day or, in many cases, the casserole. If you've ever been mildly meh about one of those classic recipes, from green bean to tuna noodle, a sleeve of Ritz can add that buttery crunch you didn't even know you needed. They can also double as gourmet snacks given the right additions. 

Surely, Walmart was trying to capitalize on these snacks' quiet brilliance with its Great Value Buttery Round Crackers. And although many Walmart reviewers found the crackers good enough to make the switch, hundreds were sorely disappointed. The biggest cited concern was texture and durability. In fact, several reviewers posted images of full sleeves of nothing but pieces and crumbs along with their complaints. "Something is wrong with their ingredients for this to happen, too much or too little of something is making them fall apart," one Walmart review says. 

Once you've steered yourself away from the Buttery Round version and back to the name brand, though, don't assume you're in the clear. Even Ritz has its misses — some flavors are worth stocking up on, others not so much.

If you didn't survive temporarily on Totino Pizza Rolls and ramen in college, did you even go? Joking aside, Totino's famous product is having a moment with Gen Z, thanks in part to an exuberant and unapologetic web and social media presence that leans fully into the chaos of the snack itself — like why no matter how dialed in you have your microwave, you'll inevitably serve yourself unevenly heated, blown out and nearly empty, or just plain lava rolls and probably still eat them. 

Walmart's version of this microwavable, customizable pizza-esque snack was once well-reviewed, but not anymore. In fact, over 200 people on Walmart's site took the time to give them one star, and more than one mentioned their flavor and quality going downhill. Not only has quality seemingly dipped, but more than one Reddit review mentions weird textures and gelatinous mystery substances hiding inside some of the pockets.

Don't be deterred, though, if you're looking for ways to save money on your roll habit. There are simple, tasty ways to make your own pizza rolls using tortillas, and you might actually end up with something that tastes closer to the real thing than this dupe does.

It's hard to go totally wrong with flavored chips. And Ruffles has some truly tasty versions to try, from tangy to creamy to spicy. But when Walmart decided to nudge in on this opportunity with its own take on the beloved cheddar and sour cream flavor, something did indeed go wrong. 

"These used to be fantastic! Better than Lays. But now they are too crunchy with less seasoning than a rock," one review on Walmart's site said. Another claimed the chips were half-broken and many had green or black spots. Yet another review alleged — with photographic evidence — that a piece of melted plastic had somehow found its way into their bag of chips. 

Whether it's the off-putting flavor, spotted appearance, or lack of quality control that lures you back to the name brand, this is one dupe where even opening the bag seems like a gamble that might not be worth it.

Although making your own English muffins is probably worth every extra step, on days when you only have the bandwidth to press a button on your toaster, we know what you'll probably reach for. Thomas' is America's most popular go-to for this breakfast staple. They're fluffy, chewy, and pockmarked with those perfect nooks and crannies to catch all the butter and jam you desire. Why wouldn't Walmart throw its hat in the ring? 

Enter Great Value Original English Muffins. They're described on Walmart's site as "a great and convenient way to create a nutritious and delicious meal," yet reviewers have other things to say.

"I could resole my shoes with them," one customer wrote, describing the tough and rubbery consistency of the product — purchased long before the supposed best-by date. Many others agreed, finding these muffins less pillowy and more cardboard-like in texture.

If English muffins are meant to be light and airy, Walmart certainly seemed to miss the mark on this one. 

Instant oatmeal should be nearly impossible to mess up, right? Add hot water, maybe some kind of sweetener, fruit, nuts, milk — and wait. Quaker had the right idea when it came up with a maple and brown sugar protein version. Why not offer customers all the comforting warmth and wholesome sweetness of oatmeal alongside a dose of get-you-through-the-day protein? 

When Walmart took a stab at the same idea, it only seemed to let customers down. More than one review on Walmart's site describes the product as disgusting, gross, gritty, mushy — as one buyer says, it's even "like eating small pieces of cardboard." 

If these reviews are anything to go by, leave this Great Value copycat on the shelf and go for the name brand. Or, maybe it's time to spice things up and start making your own oatmeal. We have a few outstanding ways to try a new take on this standard breakfast if you so choose.

Hot Pockets are a reliable, can't-be-bothered meal for everyone from tired parents with hangry kids to bleary-eyed college students during finals week. They are not, however, supposed to feel unsafe. 

Walmart's Great Value Ham & Cheese Filled Sandwiches have not only been reviewed poorly for both taste and lack of ham, but more than one review on Walmart's site describes pieces of jagged plastic baked into the product itself. "Little hard white pieces within my hot pocket," one reviewer described. 

In fact, a 2021 recall on Walmart's version of Hot Pockets did include a warning about both plastic and glass shards being found in these products. However, with more than one review citing the same issue in both 2025 and 2026, we're going to go out on a limb here and say it may be wise to steer your cart away from these at the store and return to the tried-and-true brand. Why not pick up a new flavor while you're at it? We sampled and ranked a few Hot Pockets flavors, so you don't have to guess or buy blindly.

Cheez-Its have a fanbase. And for good reason. What's not to love about something perfectly square, crunchy, salty, and cheesy? Cheez-It also isn't afraid to lean into the absurd in its marketing. Or even to pair up with a winemaker and sell a bunch of expensive snack boxes. 

But where Cheez-Its are winning the flavor and personality game, Walmart's attempt to break into the same space with its Great Value White Cheddar Cheese Crackers isn't quite working out, according to reviews. Shoppers on Walmart's site describe them as bland, overly crumbly, and lacking that signature spark of cheesy flavor. 

More than one Reddit reviewer found they tasted more fishy than cheesy, even on a second try. That's a tough sell for a snack that's meant to a no-brainer. You're better off trying any of these 18 Cheez-It flavors we went ahead and ranked for you. You can thank us later.

We looked at customer reviews across Walmart and Reddit, as well as general sentiment on food publications and news sites, to identify Great Value products that closely mimic name-brand items but miss the boat on flavor, quality, or value. Great Value was the focus, as it is the Walmart brand with the largest product catalog in stores, while in-house brands like bettergoods tend to focus more on unique offerings than direct copies.

We especially focused on products that seem to have consistently negative reviews across more than one site and have the clearest one-to-one dupes we could find. We paid particular attention to product defects, lack of quality control, and comments on flavors being off or just plain bad.