Cheez-It Original Vs Walmart Great Value: Which Is Better?

Welcome to Dupe Detective, a column where I'll be reviewing a name brand food product's competitor product to find out how well it compares to, or even beats, the original.

Just like Oreo, which once featured a dill pickle-flavored Oreo that divided even pickle lovers, the varieties of Cheez-It crackers on store shelves have become practically overwhelming in number. Nevertheless, in The Takeout's ranking of 12 Cheez-It flavors, the baseline Cheez-It Original earned a spot among the very best the brand has to offer at the number-three spot.

Since standard Cheez-Its remain so beloved, even compared to many of the specialty flavors that have arrived in their wake, it's no surprise that original flavor has inspired plenty of grocery store dupes. One company with its own take on the classic snack is Walmart, which produces a box of Cheddar Cheese Crackers under its Great Value brand. I picked up boxes of both the Cheddar Cheese Crackers and Cheez-It Original from my closest Walmart Superstore in the suburbs of Las Vegas to find out for myself how Walmart's dupe holds up against its name-brand inspiration. Ahead are my impressions after trying both products, before my thoughts on whether or not Great Value Cheddar Cheese Crackers are any better than original Cheez-Its.

Walmart's Great Value Cheddar Cheese Crackers are not really a great approximation of Cheez-It Original crackers. Nevertheless, a food dupe can fail to replicate the product that inspired it and still come out ahead — when I compared Walmart's Great Value Luncheon Meat to Spam, for example, I thought the Walmart product was superior thanks largely to qualities that differentiated it from its competition.

Where Walmart's Cheez-It dupe fell short was a complete lack of cheese flavor. I tried plenty of Great Value crackers with the explicit intent of identifying some sort of cheddar component and found them lacking entirely in that department every time. Instead, I thought they were indulgently salty, to the extent they more closely resembled Saltine crackers than Cheez-Its. Walmart's product did, in fact, mimic the simultaneously puffy and crunchy consistency of Cheez-Its, but that seemed negligible relative to their flavor. 

I like Saltines, so these certainly weren't bad in a vacuum. That said, I couldn't help but feel like if I had bought a box of Great Value Cheddar Cheese Crackers expecting something resembling Cheez-Its, I would have found them disappointing. There are at least 10 Walmart Great Value food items that don't taste like they used to, so it's entirely possible the Cheddar Cheese Crackers once tasted like cheddar, only to lose their advertised flavor over time.

When I grabbed a few Cheez-It Originals, my first thought was that they were somehow deficient in flavor compared to Walmart's dupe. Whereas the big, bold saltiness of the Great Value Cheddar Cheese Crackers hit my tongue with immediacy, the Cheez-It Original crackers started out a little plain. However, that first impression soon gave way to the cheddar flavor that was missing entirely from the Walmart dupe.

Even if it took a moment for the cheddar in my Original Cheez-Its to emerge, once it registered on my palate, it became their defining characteristic. Complementing the cheese component was a lightly yeasty breadiness. I noticed some salt on my Cheez-Its too, but only after I had eaten quite a few of them and was looking to dive deeper into their flavor. The more Cheez-Its I had, the more their cheddar flavor started to compound, leaving a pleasant aftertaste that kept me wanting even more. Befitting their position at the top of Takeout's list of cheese crackers ranked from worst to best, I found that my Cheez-It Originals delivered pretty excellently on the promise of cheddar cheese-flavored crackers.

As I was comparing my Great Value Cheddar Cheese Crackers to Cheez-It Originals, there were moments I liked Walmart's product better. Thinking about why that was, I realized it was because I generally prefer a Saltine to a Cheez-It. Putting that personal preference for a separate product aside, the Great Value Cheddar Cheese Crackers really couldn't hold a candle to name-brand Cheez-Its.

Of course, the deciding factor behind Cheez-It's victory was that my Cheez-It crackers genuinely tasted like cheddar cheese, whereas Walmart's crackers just tasted like salt. For what it's worth, I would argue that the Walmart product is inferior to Saltines too — Saltines can be used in place of graham crackers in a pie crust, for example, whereas that would be a strange context for Walmart's Cheez-It dupe. 

Even though the two products' ingredients are similar, I figured that something about their quality must be different. To test that theory, I ate two of each cracker in one bite, and found that the Walmart dupe's saltiness considerably diminished the Cheez-Its' cheddar flavor. For whatever reason, Walmart's salt dominates any and all other elements, leading to a salty cracker that tastes alright on its own terms, but fails to compare to the real thing.

At my local Walmart Superstore, located near Las Vegas' Harry Reid International Airport, a 12.4-ounce "pantry size" box of Cheez-It Original crackers costs $3.87. Beside it were 7-ounce boxes at a $2.87 price point. Meanwhile, Walmart's Great Value Cheddar Cheese Crackers are $2.57 for a 12.4-ounce box, equivalent to the larger size of Cheez-Its.

Nutritionally, a 30-gram serving of Great Value Cheddar Cheese Crackers totals 160 calories, 8 grams of fat, 1.5 grams of which is saturated fat, 230 milligrams of sodium, 19 grams of carbs, just under 1 gram of fiber, and 2 grams of protein. That same 30-gram quantity of Cheez-It Original crackers equals 150 calories, 8 grams of fat, 1.5 grams of which is saturated fat, 200 milligrams of sodium, 18 grams of carbs, 1 gram of fiber, and 2 grams of protein. The slightly healthier product, then, is Cheez-It Original, but by a margin slim enough to lack any practical impact.

I bought both my box of Great Value Cheddar Cheese Crackers and box of Cheez-It Original crackers from the same Walmart Superstore near my home in the suburbs of Las Vegas. I tried them a few days later, opening them for the first time at the same time.

First, I had a few Great Value crackers individually, noting down my initial thoughts. Then I switched to larger pinch-fulls of maybe five or six crackers, since that's how I would eat them on my own. Once I had ample observations written down about the Walmart crackers, I completed the same process for Cheez-It Original. Then I alternated bites of both products to see how my observations held up, and to compare them more directly to one another. My assessments are based entirely on this experience, and not any prior thoughts I may have had on the featured products or brands.