8 Store-Bought Grape Jelly Brands Ranked Worst To Best

When you think of grape jelly, you probably think of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. While these are a beloved American treat, this is far from the only way you can use grape jelly. For example, you could smear a bit on toast, plop a spoonful into your morning oatmeal, or even inject it into homemade donuts to create a delicious filling. Regardless of how you plan to use up that jelly jar in your refrigerator, the only way to guarantee nearly perfect results is to purchase the best product available to you. But how do you know which store-bought grape jelly brands are going to provide the best experience, and which ones will leave you feeling disappointed?

I went on a food tasting journey to discover the answer to that question so you don't have to. Using my food industry background and culinary experience, I judged a lineup of eight store-bought jelly brands based primarily on their taste and texture, with a little help from customer reviews. You can find my full methodology at the end of this article, if you're interested. Now, ready to see which grape jellies deserve a spot in your refrigerator, and which should be avoided at all costs? Let's get into it.

From what I could find, the Price Rite Grape Jelly is the only offering from this brand. It's a brand I wasn't familiar with until very recently, and between the two experiences I've had, I'm not overly impressed. Not only did it rank dead last in my ranking of store-bought mustard brands, but the brand's grape jelly was also my least favorite in this ranking. The flavor profile was overly sweet, with moderate fruity tones that were barely identifiable as grape, and unappealingly strong artificial notes. The consistency was also too runny — it went past "easily spreadable" and jumped straight into "basically lumpy grape juice" territory.

One tablespoon of this grape jelly contains 50 calories and 9 grams of total sugars. Ingredients include water, grape juice concentrate, high fructose corn syrup, citric acid, fruit pectin, and sodium citrate.

I wouldn't buy Price Rite Grape Jelly again, nor could you tempt me to eat it again by offering it to me. Based on my poor experience, I felt confident placing this brand in last place.

I found two grape jelly offerings from Market Pantry that seemed different, at first, based on the labeling alone — Concord Grape Jelly, and Grape Jelly. However, upon closer inspection, both products contain exactly the same ingredients, with one available in a squeezable bottle. As a result, I discounted the second option and based this solely on my own experience, which wasn't great, by the way. This contained the same overbearing sweetness and artificial tones as the Price Rite option. In fact, the two were largely identical, except that Market Pantry was slightly less runny.

Market Pantry Concord Grape Jelly contains 50 calories and 9 total sugars per tablespoon serving. Ingredients include water, concord grape juice concentrate, corn syrup, high fructose corn syrup, fruit pectin, citric acid, and sodium citrate.

Although the texture was slightly better than the last ranked option, I was far from impressed with Market Pantry's attempt at grape jelly. I wouldn't buy this again, nor could I be tempted to eat it again. Since this is the only unique option offered by the brand, placing it in seventh place was an easy decision for me to make.

As in my ranking of canned kidney beans, Great Value fell short when compared to other grape jelly brands. The brand offered two types of grape jelly, which appeared identical at first glance, but turned out to contain different amounts of sugar. Both grape jellies had mild artificial notes that, while less than lower-ranking options, were enough to ruin my eating experience. The jarred concord grape jelly option was thicker and sweeter than the squeezable option, with a slightly stronger grape flavor. However, both options mostly tasted like fake grape flavoring, which I'm not a fan of at all.

Per tablespoon, Great Value Concord Grape Jelly contains 50 calories and 10 grams of sugar. The recipe includes concord grapes, corn syrup, high fructose corn syrup, pectin, citric acid, and sodium nitrate. By comparison, the Great Value Squeezable Grape Jelly contains 50 calories with 8 grams of sugar per tablespoon. The ingredients list includes concord grape juice, corn syrup, high fructose corn syrup, fruit pectin, citric acid, and sodium citrate.

The artificial tones in both Great Value products were a bit less than in the lower-ranking options, but I still wouldn't buy this again. I might consider eating it again if offered to me by someone else, but I'd certainly hesitate. Still, because that's a slight improvement, so I felt confident placing the brand in sixth place.

Berryhill Concord Grape Jelly is the only offering of its type from this brand, and here, we finally reach the portion of the ranking where the artificial tones have disappeared, which is great. But even so, I found the grape flavor to be very muted in Berryhill's offering, and the sweetness was still overwhelming instead of pleasant. There were none of the tart or earthy tones of higher quality jellies, either, which left this flavor profile feeling very flat. Texturally, this was almost the thickness I was looking for, but not quite — I was thankful it wasn't like the lumpy juice of other options, though.

Each tablespoon serving of this grape jelly contains 50 calories and 9 grams of sugar. Ingredients include water, concord grape juice concentrate, corn syrup, high fructose corn syrup, fruit pectin, citric acid, and sodium citrate.

I wouldn't buy this again, but I would probably eat it if offered to me by someone else. As it stands, it wasn't the worst grape jelly on this list, but nor was it anywhere near the best. Fifth place felt like the right spot for Berryhill.

Signature Select offers several different sizes of its jelly, but all are variations of the Signature Select Concord Grape Jelly. Like the brand's store-bought queso dip in a previous ranking, this grape jelly was a solid middle-of-the-road option. I wouldn't say it was mediocre, but perhaps only slightly better than that. However, it had a nice consistency that was thick enough not to make the bread soggy, but thin enough to spread easily. My taste test offered a grape jelly with a faint but clearly grape fruitiness and a sweetness bordering on too much, but not quite crossing that line.

Each tablespoon serving of this jelly provides 50 calories, with 9 grams of sugar. The recipe includes water, concord grape juice concentrate, corn syrup, high fructose corn syrup, citric acid, fruit pectin, and sodium citrate.

Although I wouldn't buy it again, because there are options I prefer more, I would definitely eat Signature Select's grape jelly again. Since its grape jelly was a strong just-above-average product, it made perfect sense for me to place this brand in the top middle of this ranking.

The Bowl and Basket Concord Grape Jelly is the only such option offered by this brand, although it's offered in different sizes. While I've had many disappointments from Shoprite's private label (like its apple cider vinegar brand), the grape jelly left me pleasantly surprised. In fact, this jelly wasn't only tolerable, but quite good. The robust sweetness was paired with moderate fruity notes that tasted more like real grapes than artificial flavoring, although it wasn't identical. Through these were light tangy notes and an earthiness so faint you'd miss it if you weren't looking for it. Texturally, this was appropriately thick, while pleasantly spreadable.

Each tablespoon of this jelly has 50 calories and 9 grams of sugar. The ingredients list includes water, concord grape juice concentrate, corn syrup, high fructose corn syrup, citric acid, fruit pectin, and sodium citrate.

I would definitely eat this jelly again, and might even purchase it if my top options weren't available. If you're looking for a solid budget jelly, Bowl and Basket is going to be your best option.

Although it makes a wide range of similar products (like jams and fruit spreads), Smucker's only has two grape jellies — a standard and a low-sugar option — and I had the opportunity to try the Smucker's Grape Jelly in squeezable format. Texturally, this jelly was fantastic, offering the perfect balance between thickness and spreadability. The flavor profile also offered all the complexity I was looking for. A balanced sweet and fruity base was accented by a moderate tang and faint earthy notes. The lower sugar option was highly rated on Amazon, with one pleased customer saying, "You give up sugar, not taste."

A tablespoon of Smucker's Grape Jelly contains 50 calories and 12 grams of sugar. Ingredients include grape juice, high fructose corn syrup, corn syrup, pectin, citric acid, and sodium citrate. By contrast, a tablespoon of Smucker's Low Sugar Grape Jelly has 25 calories and 5 grams of sugar. Ingredients include concord grape juice, sugar, water, fruit pectin, citric acid, locust bean gum, and calcium chloride.

I would definitely buy this again if my top option wasn't available in my grocery store. My recommendation would be to pair it with a top-ranking peanut butter, or smear it on toast with a bit of butter.

Like the previous brand, Welch's has a standard grape jelly and a reduced sugar option. When I tried the standard option, I was surprised to find I liked it better than Smucker's, which was previously my go-to option — although it was admittedly quite a close call. Welch's offered a complex but balanced flavor profile built on sweet, fruity notes. This was punctuated by a pleasing, moderate tang, and mild earthy tones that were slightly more pronounced than with Smucker's. Texturally, this was perfect. Welch's reduced sugar option came highly rated on the Target website, with an astonishing 72% five-star ratings, where one customer said, "It is every bit as good as the original, with a little less sugar."

Per tablespoon serving, the Welch's Concord Grape Jelly has 50 calories and 10 grams of sugar. Ingredients include concord grapes, corn syrup, high fructose corn syrup, fruit pectin, citric acid, and sodium citrate. However, Welch's Low Sugar Concord Grape Jelly only has 20 calories and just 5 grams of sugar per tablespoon. The ingredients label lists concord grapes, water, fruit pectin, citric acid, sodium citrate, locust bean gum, and calcium chloride.

If you're looking for the best grape jelly brand, Welch's is exactly what you're looking for. I highly recommend grabbing a bottle of their standard or reduced sugar options (depending on your dietary needs). Once you do, you'll have zero questions about why it claimed the top spot.

I chose grape jelly brands for inclusion in my ranking based on their availability near me in the Vineland, New Jersey, area, purchasing national brands and private label options from the nearest Shoprite, Walmart, Aldi, Target, and Acme Markets. When I was able to try a product myself, I tasted it alone to best assess the flavor profile and texture. For any I wasn't able to try myself, I relied on other customer reviews from reliable sources, to get a solid understanding of the jelly's quality. To rank the brand as a whole, I considered all of their products and averaged them.

More than 15 years of food industry experience was the primary reason I felt confident to make these judgements. During that time, I extensively used jelly in varying flavors in my baking. Prior work for Daily Meal also contributed to my ability to make my ranking decisions, including articles like my ranking of Aldi frozen appetizers and my recommendations of 13 ways to upgrade store-bought queso. Although personal preference played a role in this ranking, I aimed to be as unbiased about product quality as possible.