In The Grocery Section, Disappearing Store Brands

[Jim Koepke]

Supply chain issues. We have a Lucky store whose home-brand is 'Signature', which is good stuff.

I recall years ago Lucky's home-brand was Lady Lee. Then Lucky was bought by Albertsons' (if my memory is working) and their "new management dropped a lot of my favorite products. Then Lucky started losing revenue and the workers or someone else bought the chain back.

It has been a long time since I have been close enough to a Lucky store to shop there.

Currently we shop at Fred Meyer which used to have their own label. Now most of the common canned items have a Kroger label.

Sometimes since the pandemic they do run out of store branded products. They also run out of national brand products. Often there are items with brands not normally seen on the west coast.

They must have some good buyers running around. Often when one product isn't available there will be a substitute brand on the shelf. Sometimes I like the alternate brand only to find it is gone the next time we go shopping.

Canned vegetables seem to be the most likely to disappear and then return.

Some brands like S&W disappear from all the grocer's shelves at the same time and then return.

jtk

[Dave Fritz]

It's been going on in the brewing business for some time. Some craft labels don't have a brewery. https://onmilwaukee.com/articles/octopi-brewing

[Brian Elfert]

Walmart discontinued their Great Value foaming soap refill. At $2.22 it was less than half the cost of the Dial foaming soap refill. It may be that they simply couldn't procure the product as the shelf was empty nearly every time I tried to buy a bottle. Walmart's Great Value potato chips are selling like crazy these days. That section of the chip aisle is often nearly empty. I suspect it is because Frito-Lay has increased their prices pretty significantly over the past two years and shoppers are trying to save money. A party sized bag of Great Value chips is $2.37 compared to $4.98 for the Frito-Lay party size. The only bad part is Walmart has decreased the ounces in their chip bags. They were like 15 ounces and now down to 12.5 ounces or something like that. The Great Value chips are actually pretty good unlike some generic potato chips.

Years ago as a teenager I toured one of the Old Dutch potato chip factories. One thing the tour guide said is that they make generic potato chips, but they use a lower quality potato for those chips.

[Curt Harms]

Walmart discontinued their Great Value foaming soap refill. At $2.22 it was less than half the cost of the Dial foaming soap refill. It may be that they simply couldn't procure the product as the shelf was empty nearly every time I tried to buy a bottle. Walmart's Great Value potato chips are selling like crazy these days. That section of the chip aisle is often nearly empty. I suspect it is because Frito-Lay has increased their prices pretty significantly over the past two years and shoppers are trying to save money. A party sized bag of Great Value chips is $2.37 compared to $4.98 for the Frito-Lay party size. The only bad part is Walmart has decreased the ounces in their chip bags. They were like 15 ounces and now down to 12.5 ounces or something like that. The Great Value chips are actually pretty good unlike some generic potato chips.

Years ago as a teenager I toured one of the Old Dutch potato chip factories. One thing the tour guide said is that they make generic potato chips, but they use a lower quality potato for those chips.

In some cases I think there is a difference between name brand and store brand good. A recent example for us is canned asparagus. The store brand sometimes had hard (old I guess) pieces that the national brand didn't have. Of course that is a sample of perhaps a half dozen cans so by no means conclusive. For the most part I cannot tell the difference between national branded and store branded foods.

[Bruce Wrenn]

Walmart discontinued their Great Value foaming soap refill. At $2.22 it was less than half the cost of the Dial foaming soap.

Make your own refill, using body wash from the Dollar Store. One third body wash, rest water. Been doing that for years. Only time I buy foaming soap is to get a new bottle.

[Rob Luter]

I remember in the 70's when they brought out generic food. White cardboard with yellow letters names like "cake mix". A little cheaper I guess. I was not buying food then. Lasted. a year or less.
Bill D.
Found this online.

I got married as a junior in college and we were as poor as church mice. In 1982 generic mac and cheese was a dime a box. Good times.

[Curt Harms]

Walmart discontinued their Great Value foaming soap refill. At $2.22 it was less than half the cost of the Dial foaming soap refill. It may be that they simply couldn't procure the product as the shelf was empty nearly every time I tried to buy a bottle. Walmart's Great Value potato chips are selling like crazy these days. That section of the chip aisle is often nearly empty. I suspect it is because Frito-Lay has increased their prices pretty significantly over the past two years and shoppers are trying to save money. A party sized bag of Great Value chips is $2.37 compared to $4.98 for the Frito-Lay party size. The only bad part is Walmart has decreased the ounces in their chip bags. They were like 15 ounces and now down to 12.5 ounces or something like that. The Great Value chips are actually pretty good unlike some generic potato chips.

Years ago as a teenager I toured one of the Old Dutch potato chip factories. One thing the tour guide said is that they make generic potato chips, but they use a lower quality potato for those chips.

Keep a watch on Walmart's web site. SWMBO like their coffee creamer stuff. During the height of the 'great disappearance' we thought sure it was discontinued, it was hard to find the name brand stuff for over $1/bottle more. A few weeks ago the store brand stuff reappeared.

[Jim Koepke]

In some cases I think there is a difference between name brand and store brand good.

Often it is from the same cannery. Sometimes there are multiple canneries and some items may be significantly cheaper from a second tier cannery.

Speaking of Generic these were maybe just a joke:

Screen Shot 2022-08-08 at 8.23.31 AM.jpg

The blocked out line below said, "For cheap #!%&*@$."

jtk

[Lee DeRaud]

I remember in the 70's when they brought out generic food. White cardboard with yellow letters names like "cake mix". A little cheaper I guess. I was not buying food then. Lasted. a year or less.

I recall an Emilio Estevez film, either 'Repo Man' or 'Men At Work', that featured yellow cans with the word "FOOD" in black letters.

[Brian Elfert]

Vick's Nyquil bottles specifically state on them that they do not make store brand versions of their product.

[Bill Dufour]

At the cannery the good brands required that a USDA inspector was on duty at the canning line when their product was canned. AFAIK All Japanese orders were the same way.
There was. a Rabbi who came some days and only when he was there could the food be marked K for kosher. U is a different Kosher mark that he was not affiliated with. I have no idea what he did on his off days. For all I know he came from Rabbies R us. I understand that kosher also means it is approved for Islam. I know they have their own rules but they overlap a lot. For kosher it was automatic approval with no special requirements. No meat or dairy in a fruit cannery, steam clean or boiling water to sanitize between switching products.
Bill D

[Alex Zeller]

I was under the impression that store brands were made by name brand companies that had extra capacity. With the capacity problems we have right now I would suspect that store brands are going to suffer.

[Jim Becker]

I was under the impression that store brands were made by name brand companies that had extra capacity. With the capacity problems we have right now I would suspect that store brands are going to suffer.

That does happen. There are also manufacturers the specialize in "store brands".

Another interesting thing about store brands is that there are "store brands" that are specific to a particular market name/chain and there are "store brands" that are sold to smaller players where funding a truly unique brand might be cost prohibitive. The small local, but upsale, supermarket organization that our older daughter works for carries a "general" store brand for canned and dry goods called "Essentials" that is not specific to their stores. Wegmans, on the other hand, is large enough that they have their own Wegman's branded products available throughout the store. In both cases, however, the products are actually pretty darn good.

[Howard Garner]

I was under the impression that store brands were made by name brand companies that had extra capacity. With the capacity problems we have right now I would suspect that store brands are going to suffer.

True. Many canneries would process product without labels and then just pull from inventory and label them when they got an order.
Same product, many different labels.

Howard Garner

[Mel Fulks]

I don’t buy the “same product” different label thing . My Dad was really thrifty and sometimes tried cheaper brands , but most of the time
he found them lacking . Sure ,the cheaper product might be made in same factory ….but I think that stuff always gets carefully measured
“too much salt,”the overly ripe tomatoes and …perhaps a small bug.