Most "major brand" sauerkraut is not very good.

As I recall Claussen's is pretty decent, but not at the indecent price they want these days - no way do I pay nearly $4 for $0.10 worth of rotted cabbage.

Meter's Wisconsin Kraut is pretty good for all cooking purposes and my all time preference for sauerkraut soup.

Right now I'm using Steinfeld's "Quality since 1922" from Oregon because Sunland Produce got in a few pallets of 2 litre (almost 6# net)and is selling cheap, so I bought a bunch of them. It's pretty good general purpose kraut.

I don't know who's buying it (their clientel is heavily Near Eastern, Mexican and India) - but a few pallets of kraut sure doesn't last long at Sunland.

Some of the expensive deli krauts are good, and some are not. I tried Trader Joe's hyped and expensive kraut and found it rather poor - and so did the Los Angeles Times, rating it dead last. They didn't rate Claussen's, I guess nearly $4 for a jar was too much for them too.

One of the very best for just plain eating right out of the jar (except it came in cans) was Kuhne "Sauerkraut with Rhine Wine" direct from Krautland itself. Sunland had a few pallets of 28oz cans but they only lasted about 2 weeks and I don't expect to see any more.

Sunland's been getting an endless supply of a Polish brand, Smak, and it's OK (definitely better than the "major brands"), but I'm not really that impressed.

Of course, the local Korean markets (3 within 2 miles here) have massive sauerkraut supplies, but theirs is probably not something you want to cook you pork in, it's more for eating as a side with.