Is This Big-Name Brand Behind Walmart's Great Value Trash Bags And Food Storage Bags?

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If you knew you could buy Hefty trash and food storage bags at America's most trusted grocery store under its Great Value brand and save a few bucks, you would probably at least consider it. Companies that manufacture private-label versions of their products often go to great lengths to keep those arrangements confidential, especially when retailers are selling similar products for less under store brands. But there are occasional clues that reveal who is making what, just as we occasionally discover an unexpected brand rumored to be behind Great Value cleaning products, food offerings, and more. In Walmart's case, it seems that Reynolds — owner of Hefty and other food and trash bag brands, and a manufacturer tied to Costco's Kirkland Signature aluminum foil – makes at least some Great Value bags.

Private-label products have improved steadily over the years. According to consumer research from First Insight, 84% of shoppers trust store brands as much as their brand-name counterparts. Walmart has worked to improve Great Value products by testing them against competing name brands and periodically reformulating existing items or even introducing new ones. Technically, reformulation moves those Great Value products into the realm of contract manufacturing, but the result is the same: Great Value products now offer quality levels similar to national brands. But is Reynolds the company behind Walmart's well-reviewed Great Value trash and food storage bags?

There's no easy way to know for sure whether Reynolds is the only company manufacturing bags for Walmart, and neither company is likely to offer up that information. Still, we do know that Reynolds does private labeling for retailers, accounting for 37 of its revenue, and that Walmart accounted for almost a third of Reynolds' net revenue in 2018, 2019, and 2020, according to SEC filings. 

And when it comes to trash bags, we know one other thing: Reynolds and Walmart were co-defendants in a few recent lawsuits that suggest the former made waste-disposal bags for the latter. The issue arose when the Minnesota attorney general sued the two companies because their semi-transparent blue bags were marketed by both Hefty and Great Value as useful for recycling, even though they were not recyclable in many local recycling systems. The complaint itself never claimed that Reynolds manufactured the bags for Walmart, but it's a reasonable inference because two companies can only be specified in a single lawsuit if (among other things) the need for legal relief arises from the same transactions.

Additional lawsuits followed, and while the media assumed the bags were made by the same manufacturer, a class-action settlement in Illinois included a stipulation that Reynolds was the maker of certain Great Value recycling bags. (A similar Arizona lawsuit didn't involve Walmart at all.)

The lawsuits only establish that Reynolds manufactured at least one type of recycling bag for Walmart.  Current offerings from Great Value and the various Reynolds brands don't overlap much in terms of design and features. For example, Hefty 13-gallon tall kitchen drawstring bags differ from comparable Great Value bags in terms of dimensions and thickness, and Reynolds-owned Presto and Diamond do not have the same dimensions as their Great Value counterparts.

After comparing many bags with few similarities, we found stronger evidence that suggests Reynolds is making bags — food storage bags, at least — for the Great Value brand. Minor similarities, like Presto's "Color Grip Openings" having the same color scheme as Great Value's or Great Value slider freezer bags having a similar slider design to Reynolds' Diamond brand bags, didn't prove much. Then we happened upon the dead giveaway — trademarks.

Great Value storage bags with pleated bottoms use the name "Stand 'N Store," which is also a trademark owned by Reynolds Presto Products Inc. and used on Presto-branded bags. And while Presto describes its closures as "Click 'N Lock," Great Value uses "Snap 'N Click" — another registered trademark of Reynolds. It would be highly unusual for Walmart to use Reynolds-owned trademarks on bags made by an unrelated manufacturer. And while that doesn't prove that all Great Value bags are currently made by Reynolds, a significant number of them appear to be.