It's not often that I find myself smiling with delight on a supermarket trip, but today, on a visit to our local Safeway, I did just that. For back on the shelves, after an absence of at least a year, is Mon tomato sauce, made in Echuca, Vic., and, IMO, the best tomato sauce in the world.

Like many other great products, it disappeared as the dreaded supermarket brands started creeping onto Australian shelves (a trend I'd seen in the UK years earlier). Safeway's this, Coles' that ...  Goodbye relatively expensive but good quality home-produced goods, hello cheap crap made God knows where.

But today, as I looked among the tomato sauces for something reasonable, there it was ... Mon. I made my delight known to one of the workers at the supermarket, who intimated there had been some surprise by management at how much shoppers missed their life-long favourites.

Of course, the cynic in me says it's funny how the once-popular brands are returning to our local Safeway just as Aldi have been given a permit to open just opposite. But who cares why Mon is back? I'm just happy it is and hope this is the beginning of the end for the supermarket brands here in Australia.