New orange "Value" signs may help you spot the best deal in the commissaries.

The signs highlight prices that meet the criteria of the Defense Commissary Agency's "Commissary Value Brand" program. Officials picked 300 products across 33 categories that are competitively priced — equal to or below the price of store brands or private label brands of similar items in commercial supermarkets.

These value brands offer an average of 25 percent savings over commercial retail stores' private label brands, officials said. In some cases, the savings will hit 50 percent. (This is different from price savings over national brands in other retail outlets, where the average commissary savings is about 30 percent.)

That said, some items of nationally known brands are designated as Commissary Value Brands — such as certain Del Monte canned items and ketchup and selected jars of Peter Pan peanut butter. The products are guaranteed to be on the shelves at these low prices for at least six months. The products and prices will be re-evaluated every six months and products will be added or subtracted from the Value Brand program, based on price, sales performance and market changes.

The agency has had value brand programs for about 14 years, but they weren't always obvious to shoppers.

That was highlighted earlier this year in congressional testimony, when a senior defense official and some senior enlisted advisers talked about the need for generics or store brands in commissaries to provide more savings for customers.

That effort seemed to envision having the commissary agency create its own "DeCA" store brands. But retail experts said that would require funding for an infrastructure to develop and manage the program and its associated costs, at a time when DoD is trying to reduce the commissary budget.

By law, the commissary agency can't create its own official store brand like the Wal-Mart stores' "Great Value" brand or the Safeway brands, or the military exchanges' "Exchange Select" brand. But commissaries have long carried other options as part of programs such as "Best Value Item" and even a previous "Commissary Value Brand" program.

These include "control label" brands, which fill the same role as a store brand or private label brand for grocers without their own store brand program. These products are sold under various names in commissaries, such as a private label brand of ibuprofen called Good Sense.

Over the years, the Best Value program splintered into a variety of different forms of savings, according to DeCA officials. This new program is an effort to refocus, reintroduce and more clearly define the program.

Consider the Value signs to be a visual reminder to compare prices. Specials and promotions will go on in commissaries, so you still need to compare unit prices — price per ounce of cereal, price per diaper, etc.

But this new program, officials said, is meant to point you to the consistently lower prices.

Karen has covered military families, quality of life and consumer issues for Military Times for more than 30 years, and is co-author of a chapter on media coverage of military families in the book "A Battle Plan for Supporting Military Families." She previously worked for newspapers in Guam, Norfolk, Jacksonville, Fla., and Athens, Ga.

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