Walmart's Great Value Vs Marie Callender's: Who Makes The Better Frozen Key Lime Pie?

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.

One little-known fact about Marie Callender's is that its history with pies dates back to a time founder Marie Callender's son Don ran deliveries by bicycle around their home in Orange County, California. Now, the passion that drove that local operation persists in grocery store freezer aisles nationwide, with products ranging from the fluffy Marie Callender's peanut butter cream pie, to one of the four best grocery store Key lime pies money can buy.

The prices of a pies at smaller bakeries can be considerable. While those prices are often justified and worth paying, Marie Callender's provides an affordable alternative — as a uniquely large pie brand, it's seemingly able to keep costs down without sacrificing too much quality. One company with the capability to rival Marie Callender's in that department, due to its sheer size, is Walmart. 

Alongside just a couple other frozen pies, Walmart produces an affordable Key lime pie under its Great Value label. I picked up both the Marie Callender's and Great Value Key lime pies from Albertsons and Walmart stores near my home in the suburbs of Las Vegas. Ahead is a rundown of each item, before my thoughts on how the Great Value Key lime pie holds up against its competition from Marie Callender's.

My first impression of Walmart's Great Value Key lime pie was that it tasted just like a Key lime pie should. It was equally tart and sweet, with what could have been an almost mouth-puckering sourness tempered by a heaping quantity of sugar. There's a reason Key lime pie is the most popular dessert in the state of Florida — even the budget-friendly Walmart version of sour lime and sugary sweetness is pretty great.

Texturally, my Great Value Key lime pie was firm, even after it had ample time to thaw in my refrigerator. While that was a positive quality in the body of the pie, that firmness was a bit of a detractor to both its crust and whipped cream topping. The former lacked any sort of graham cracker or generally sweet flavor, merely contributing textural crunch and little else. In other words, the crust seemed a bit artificial, as if its structural integrity was more important than taste. 

The whipped cream, meanwhile, was just sugary, lacking identifiable dairy content. While it provided a contrasting texture to the rest of the pie, its relative lack of substance meant that bites without the whipped cream were better than bites in which the whipped cream's blandness dulled the competing tart element. Ultimately, those were relatively minor weaknesses in what was otherwise a pretty tasty Key lime pie.

Trying my Marie Callender's Key lime pie for the first time made me realize just how different two Key lime pies can be. While the Great Value pie seemed pretty straightforwardly good when I tasted it with no point of comparison, its flavor became so much more artificial to me once I had its Marie Callender's counterpart.

Key limes are different from the regular variety for their pronounced tartness. Accordingly, I noticed that Marie Callender's pie contains Key lime, whereas the Great Value dupe simply lists lime in its ingredients list. I actually found that the Marie Callender's pie to be a little less sour, but its flavor was smoother and more robust. Its sweet and tart elements would start out pretty mild, only to deepen over time. Texturally, the body of my Marie Callender's pie was soft to the point it was almost pudding-like. While I preferred the Walmart pie's firmness, the softer approach used by Marie Callender's likewise contributed to the sense it was more natural. 

Meanwhile, its crust tasted like graham cracker and its whipped cream like actual cream — two qualities that were conspicuously absent from the Great Value pie. For what it's worth, its crust was pretty crumbly, but its superior flavor was more to my liking compared to the structurally sound but comparatively bland Walmart crust.

Walmart and and Marie Callender's both make a good frozen Key lime pie. In fact, if I had tried the Great Value Key lime pie solo, I probably would have had nothing but good things to say about it. However, trying the Walmart dupe back-to-back with Marie Callender's, it was abundantly clear to me that the specialty pie brand makes the superior product.

The two advantages Great Value holds over Marie Callender's are its firmer consistency and a more sour flavor. Anyone with an aversion to a pudding-like texture for whatever reason, or an affinity for the most tart pie possible, then, might prefer the Walmart dupe. Nevertheless, Marie Callender's Key lime pie tastes more natural and more complex — whereas the Walmart pie lands more in the realm of lime-flavored dessert. 

What it really boils down to is that Marie Callender's is defined by the unique flavor of Key lime. When I compared Walmart's Great Value Mountain Lighting to Mountain Dew, the Walmart product was kind of strange and unsatisfying. In this case, Walmart made an admirable Key lime pie, but it fell short once it went up against its name-brand competition, merely delivering on the premise of a legitimate Key lime pie to an lesser extent.

At my local Walmart Supercenter, located near Las Vegas' Harry Reid International Airport, a Great Value Key lime pie costs $5.87. At that same Walmart, a Marie Callender's Key lime pie goes for $5.97. That said, my Walmart happened to be out of stock when I visited, so I picked up my Marie Callender's pie from a nearby Albertsons. There, it was $9.99. So while the two products' prices are comparable, that parity is contingent on Walmart carrying the Marie Callender's product.

Nutritionally, a 113-gram slice of Great Value Key lime pie totals 310 calories, 9 grams of fat, 4.5 grams of which is saturated fat, 25 milligrams of cholesterol, 150 milligrams of sodium, 53 grams of carbs, less than 1 gram of fiber, 39 grams of sugar, and 5 grams of protein. Meanwhile, a 108-gram slice of Marie Callender's Key lime pie equals 360 calories, 14 grams of fat, 9 grams of which is saturated fat, 20 milligrams of cholesterol, 200 milligrams of sodium, 53 grams of carbs, less than 1 gram of fiber, 41 grams of sugar, and 5 grams of protein. Technically, then, the Walmart pie is superior by a couple of metrics, but — especially as indulgent, special-occasion desserts — the two products are pretty comparable in practice.

I picked up my Great Value Key lime pie from a Walmart Supercenter located near my home in the suburbs of Las Vegas, followed by the Marie Callender's Key lime pie from a nearby Albertsons. Both stayed in my freezer overnight, before I tried them the next day. I followed the instructions on each box to thaw a single slice, the former spending 40 minutes in my refrigerator while the latter thawed for 45 minutes.

First, I had a few bites of the Great Value pie while noting down my initial thoughts. Then I did the same for the Marie Callender's pie. After that, I alternated bites to finish each slice, paying particular attention at that point to how the products compared to one another, as well as how each component tasted in isolation. Over the course of the next couple days I had a couple more slices of each pie, primarily for my own enjoyment, while still keeping comparisons between them in mind as I ate. My assessments are based entirely on this experience, and not any past thoughts I may have had on the featured products or brands.