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When did generic grocery brands get so good looking?
- RcouF1uZ4gsC 6y agoI am surprised that the article did not mention Costco's Kirkland brand. In my mind, that is the inhouse brand to beat in terms of high quality and good value. And it is definitely driven by consumer data, since Costco has information on what every member bought and returned.
- AtlasBarfed 6y agoThere's a few websites that try to track what Kirkland rebadges. Walmart may be soul-sucking to shop at, but their Dr. Thunder and clone colas are really good and 67 cents a 2 liter. Their yogurt is basically as good as yoplait (orange is great), and their generic salt and vinegar kettle chips and life cereal are all great. Supermarket clones are still pretty bad, which is surprising given what Walmart and Costco have been able to do with their market strength.
- jasonv 6y agoThe Good Mythical Morning show often pits store brands against the name brand originals.. results vary a lot, but Kroger, for instance, tends to rank higher (for them) then Whole Foods or Trader Joe’s brand knock-offs.
- jwagenet 6y agoThe article is about branding, not quality/value. The Kirkland brand logo and label design haven’t changed in a while and aren’t particularly modern.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- lurquer 6y agoI miss the old old generic food packaging... It had its own special aisle. Big cans with white labels that merely said “BEANS” or “CORN” in fat black letters. Of course, it was embarrassing to have a cart full of that stuff as everyone would know you were poor.
- flukus 6y ago> Of course, it was embarrassing to have a cart full of that stuff as everyone would know you were poor. I don't mean this to pick on you personally, but this sentence sums up so many problems with consumerism, advertising and it's ability to make us overpay. You don't look poor because you get the white label, you look financially responsible, unwilling to pay a branding premium for essentially the same product. Especially with things like corn where no one could differentiate between the white label and name brands. These days the off brand labels have there own special stores like ALDI, which is even better because you don't have to fight the distraction of a dozen brands of the same thing.
- lurquer 6y agoI don’t know what the odds are, but this generic-food thing has come up before on HN. I made a comment and, if I recall, was downvoted... but, I’m going to say it again. ; Namely, when I was a kid, my sister and I were terrified to go into that aisle because our mother told us that food was for albinos... that’s why the labels lacked color. It truly scared the crap out of me. Haha! Anyway, I will now sit back and wait for HN’s albino members to downvote me for offending people of [non]color.
- Majestic121 6y agoTo give you some feedback (and I'm not an albino) : - Mentioning downvotes is a sure way to get them, and there's even a mention in the guidelines[1] saying to avoid to do that : "Please don't comment about the voting on comments. It never does any good, and it makes boring reading. " - Other than this, I don't know about the last time, but here your comment feels like a fun anecdote more than an actual discussion point. While this kind of comment goes well in a lot of communities (typically very well with Reddit), it tends to get less traction on HN, as HN is very much directed towards discussion and argumentation [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- mimikatz 6y agoWhen they started being huge money makers for the stores. Warren Buffett talks about how Kraft wasn't as good of in investment because private labels at into market share and profits of their non-superstar brands.
- nilsbunger 6y agoTrader Joe’s is fascinating. Their own products are unique and you develop a craving for them. That creates serious retention. And over time they’ve designed out more and more third party stuff, replacing it with their own (instead of selling both alongside each other). I’ve never read a business case about them but it seems like a killer strategy
- distances 6y agoTrader Joe's is Aldi's chain, right? Do you have Aldi too in addition?
- saithound 6y agoAldi was split into two groups in 1960, along geographical lines (Nord and Süd, serving resp. the North and the South of West Germany). Aldi Nord operates as Trader Joe's in the U.S., while Aldi Süd operates as Aldi.
- twalla 6y agoSome more background on this because I find it really interesting: Aldi was formed by 2 brothers and then split after a disagreement about whether or not to stock alcohol. The reason I find it interesting is actually because Aldi isn't the first big brand formed by two German brothers to split into two (big, recognizable) brands. That honor would go to Adidas and Puma.
- frosted-flakes 6y agoAdidas and Puma are direct competitors though, but Aldi seems to have divvied up the countries between them so they don't compete with each other, with the exception of the USA.
- chromaton 6y agoThere are also 2 Mercks: the original in Germany, and the USA Merck which was split by the government due to WWI.
- theamk 6y agoUnrelated to actual content: if you visit the site with ad-blocker on, it does not load. Instead, you just have this icon of the eye looking at you and blinking. And the eye will just blink until you turn ad-blocker off. I know the site is called "eye on design", but the associations of user tracking via ads and this blinking eye were amusing to me. Imagine having a blinking eye in the corner of each website for each tracker it has :)
- maest 6y agoIs that what's going on? Regardless of your stance on ad blockers, simply showing a mysterious eye without telling you you should stop your ad blocker sounds like awful design.
- portmanteaufu 6y ago"Inspect element" shows that the eye belongs to: <div class="loader"></div> I think it's meant to be a placeholder animation that goes away when the content is available rather than a cryptic visual for users with an ad blocker. It's definitely a weird net effect.
- gruez 6y agoWhitelisting licdn.com fixes it. If dig deeper and check the ublock origin logger, it looks like it's trying to load https://snap.licdn.com/li.lms-analytics/insight.min.js https://snap.licdn.com/li.lms-analytics/insight.min.js, and if it's blocked the page never loads.
- jjoonathan 6y agoCompletely in line with modern design philosophy, though. Why use words when you can use a mysterious hieroglyph?
- SilasX 6y agoEspecially since it breaks alt-left-arrow for "back".
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- melomal 6y agoIt pains me to go shopping where there are "well-known" brands on display. All that I see is their brand tax slapped onto each product whereas I go to Lidl/Aldi and I have no qualms in buying the knock off products. Same product, different labelling.
- LargoLasskhyfv 6y agoI have a slightly different approach. While I concur in parts with yours, there are products from established brands which I prefer because I like their taste and/or tolerate them better. This isn't even organic vs. processed/industrial food. There is just no outlet which has it all, so I have to shop around in different locations. Just Aldilidl would be too limiting for my tastes and needs.
- lotsofpulp 6y agoSome brands do offer a better product than generics. Just like there’s different quality of silicon chips that result in different quality electronics, I can imagine the same exists for food. Whether or not the price different is worth it is obviously up to the buyer. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Product_binning https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Product_binning
- melomal 6y agoI'm desperately trying to find the source but discounters like Lidl/Aldi just use well known brands, signed with NDAs on both sides. Imagine knowing that a discount chain is about to make a regular purchase of 300,000 tins of beans. You will happily rebrand, keep it hushed up and take the repeat large orders. It makes me wonder what the margins are on a single tin of Heinz beans.
- lotsofpulp 6y agoUsing the same manufacturers as well known brands might not mean it’s the same product. It’s possible the ingredients are of higher quality resulting in a higher quality product. It’s also possible it’s the same thing, or the quality isn’t worth the extra price. I remember there was a whole thing a few years ago about fake olive oil and fake grated Parmesan cheese (or what was mostly wood pulp which was allowable per legal definition). I think Kirkland was one of the real olive oil products, but the point is there were differences and some of the expensive brands were real and some were fake.
- nexthash 6y agoWebsite is broken on Firefox: I was stuck on a blinking eye icon and could not advance to the article.
- 4ggr0 6y agoIt's because you have an ad blocker.
- anilakar 6y agoA red herring. Reloading the page fixes it, which is what happens anyway after your disable the ad blocker. The next reload breaks it again.
- twic 6y agoI reloaded a few times with an ad-blocker on, with javascript on and off, and got the eye every time. It was only on disabling the ad blocker that i got the article.
- Clewza313 6y agoInterestingly, in Australia, major supermarket chain Woolworths used to have two parallel home brands: the bargain-basement Homebrand in stark black & white packaging, and the slightly better but still "designed in the DDR in the 1970s" Essentials. They had to ditch Homebrand, because it looked too cheap and was driving people to discount grocer Aldi, where you could get similar goods in packaging you wouldn't be ashamed to show friends. https://www.businessinsider.com.au/woolworths-is-killing-off-homebrand-to-fight-aldi-2016-3 https://www.businessinsider.com.au/woolworths-is-killing-off... https://www.woolworths.com.au/shop/discover/our-brands/essentials https://www.woolworths.com.au/shop/discover/our-brands/essen...
- dazc 6y agoTesco, in the UK, did this too but only recently. They used to have a 'basics' range with labelling that said nothing but 'cheap'! Instead, they now have these wholesome-sounding brands such as Redmere Farms, Nightingale Farms, etc which imply you're buying from some twee family business instead.
- twic 6y ago'Basics' was Sainsbury's, Tesco had 'Value', with its incredibly bold branding: https://logos.fandom.com/wiki/Tesco_Everyday_Value https://logos.fandom.com/wiki/Tesco_Everyday_Value They also have "Stockwell & Co" for the things which don't come from British farms, like jam and baked beans. That at least is a nod to history, because Tesco started out selling tea packaged by T. E. Stockwell. They are entirely upfront about their brands: https://www.tesco.com/groceries/en-GB/zone/exclusively-at-tesco https://www.tesco.com/groceries/en-GB/zone/exclusively-at-te... It amuses me that their dairy brand is 'Creamfields', both because that's too obvious, and also a house music festival: https://creamfields.com/ https://creamfields.com/
- dazc 6y agoThanks for the correction. The branding obviously works since I would have never dreamed of buying 'basics' or 'value' in their original branding but do sometimes buy the 'farm-brand' veg and 'Stockwell' products. Wairtrose also have an 'Essentials' range although the labelling is very similar to regular priced products. I buy these without a second thought.
- jariel 6y agoIt's not so much tech as understanding. 25 years ago Grocery CEO's may not have realized the power of brand to the same extent. Price/Quality product is it. With the internet, photoshop, diversity in packaging, explosion of available artists and designers, better printers for test and packaging, more savvy PM's it's a natural progression. They still are not that good frankly, there's a ways to go to improve.
- skunkworker 6y agoI'm surprised no one has mentioned H-E-B, living in Austin I quickly grew to love the grocery store and they had some of the best generic items, often times better than the name brand competitor. After moving out west for a couple of years I miss that store.
- drone 6y agoRight! They have 11 house-brands at the moment, probably a few more they haven't bothered to update the website with. I don't recall any of it ever looking generic, but then again, it could've have years ago - but my buffers have flushed a few times since then. https://www.heb.com/static-page/Our-Family-of-Brands https://www.heb.com/static-page/Our-Family-of-Brands
- Rebelgecko 6y agoI'd love to see what they think of the Aldi knockoffs of popular products. For example their cereal section has something like "Green Wizard with Marshmallows", "Fruit Rounds", and "Crispy Rices". Their inhouse brand name is something blatant like "Colonel Mills"
- Semaphor 6y agoOne of our largest chains here in Germany (REWE) has 4 house brands with many overlapping products in each. "ja!" (yes!) is the cheapest and looks cheap. Next is "Beste Wahl" (best choice) which is more expensive and followed by "Bio" (Organic), again slightly more expensive and obviously organic. Finally, there is "Feine Welt" (Fine/Tasty World) which has the highest prices and more specialty items. The designs of "Beste Wahl" and "Bio" look about equal, "ja!" clearly looks cheap and "Feine Welt" looks fancy: https://i.imgur.com/YA9VTyZ.png https://i.imgur.com/YA9VTyZ.png edit: And before REWE bought them, we had a chain called SKY. When they introduced a new, very cheap, house brand the internal name was "Aldinative Produkte", a portmanteau of our discounter "Aldi" and "alternative" ;)
- donw 6y agoI honestly love the “ja!” brand, though. It looks basic, but not shameful, and with the bonus that I can go to REWE and buy myself a liter and a half of “YES!” (with or without bubbles!)
- Semaphor 6y agoI pretty much mix and match ;) For example the ja! cream cheese and "Beste Wahl" soy sauce are the products with the lowest sugar & carb count of their type.
- jansan 6y agoIn Germany we have a generic brand called "ja!". The Products are simply named "ja!" with the descriptive product name, for example "ja! Sugar", "ja! Milk" etc. The design of these products is not exactly good looking, but very recognizable. One designer applied this brand image to a whole appartment with a "ja! living room" and "ja! armchair", which I find hilarious. http://www.danieldilger.de/portfolio/ja-wohnung/ http://www.danieldilger.de/portfolio/ja-wohnung/ Look at that "ja! disco ball" and the "ja! beer vending machine", isn't that just awesome?
- luplex 6y agoThe basics brand of Swedish supermarket ICA also looks minimal and honest. The packaging has a title and a description on the front, and it's unashamed to tell you "these beans are our cheapest" https://www.ica.se/handla/sok/B%C3%B6nor/produkt/vita-bonor-i-tomatsas-420g-ica-basic-id_p_7318690082545/?s=ica-supermarket-kvarnen-id_01346 https://www.ica.se/handla/sok/B%C3%B6nor/produkt/vita-bonor-...
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- tt433 6y agoThe No Name brand is one of my favorite parts of visiting Canada. Excessive branding and flashy packaging gets on my nerves
- fortran77 6y agoI remember Pathmark no-name generic beer in NY in the 70s. http://www.billsbeercans.com/~billsbee/canstore/images/IMG_1811.JPG http://www.billsbeercans.com/~billsbee/canstore/images/IMG_1...
- patwolf 6y agoThe regional grocery chain I regularly shop at has two generic grocery brands. One is the traditional cheap generic in bland packaging and a funny name, e.g. "Crisp 6" cereal instead of Crispix. The other is an upscale brand. I actually prefer it over most brand-name products. Over time I've become accustom to always seek out the store brand because it's such good quality, even if it's not always cheaper.
- rahimnathwani 6y agoIn the UK, until recently, supermarkets had three levels of own brand: Tesco: - Value - Tesco - Finest Sainsburys: - Basics - Sainsburys - Taste the Difference The packaging for the lowest tier was simple and used minimal colour (I think deliberately). The packaging for the highest tier was fancy (e.g. more saturated colours, use of metallic lettering). If you have one own-label brand, you want to make it attractive. If you have several own-label brands, you want them to look distinct, so that shoppers self-select into the higher tier (higher margin) brand when they care, rather than always defaulting to the cheapest. You have to make the cheapest one 'worse' in some way.
- breakfastduck 6y agoNotably Tesco started selling under the brand 'Stockwell & Co' for their super value items. I was curious myself when I saw it and it is indeed a 'Tesco exclusive' manufacturer that essentially sells everything that would previously have gone under the 'value' brand.
- antihero 6y agoYeah it seems like a bunch of the supermarkets have rebranded their economy stuff as "made-up" brands. Interested to figure out the reason for this.
- rob74 6y agoThat's taking a page from the discounters' book: they (mostly) only have own brands, so to keep things from becoming boring they merrily make up brands all over the place. ALDI for example has 23 listed here (https://www.aldi-sued.de/de/produkte/marken-bei-aldi-sued/eigenmarken.html https://www.aldi-sued.de/de/produkte/marken-bei-aldi-sued/ei...), but I'm not sure if that's really all...
- rob74 6y agoNot only in the UK... in Germany, REWE (just an example) has eight (!) own brands for food (plus some others for non-food), some "niche", some general (https://www.rewe.de/marken/ https://www.rewe.de/marken/): - "ja!" is the cheapest of the bunch, with very simple design (until quite recently the packaging was mostly white with blue and red print, no colour photos or other fancy design elements) - "REWE Beste Wahl" ("Best Choice") is the "classier" own brand, with nicer design - "REWE Regional" for regional products - "REWE Bio" for organic foods - "REWE Feine Welt" ("Delicious World") for own-brand delicacies - "REWE to go" for "convenience" products - "REWE frei von" ("free of") for lactose- and gluten-free products - "Wilhelm Brandenburg" for meat products
- Cthulhu_ 6y agoI'm fairly sure (not an economist or insider etc) that the generic / own brand products actually have the highest profit margins for the shop, because there's not a big external brand like Unilever that wants their share of things.
- TorKlingberg 6y agoI have heard the opposite: that the higher price of name brand goods means more profit for everyone. It would be good to know what the truth is.
- bkav 6y agoWhere I work, store brand gives us a huge margin, even at a low sale price. There’s not a single middleman trying to extract a profit.
- gumby 6y agoSo why is the store brand not in the prime spot rather than the bottom shelf. Is the major brand paying for placement?
- anomaloustho 6y agoYes, it’s called a slotting fee. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slotting_fee https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slotting_fee
- gumby 6y agoClasic economics would say therefore the lower profit margin + slotting fee should equal the higher margin of the house brands. I wonder if that's roughly true? I could imagine both yes and no. Classic economics, sort of by definition, can't take real world edge effects into account.
- sct202 6y agoI think it's 2 conflicting things going on. An owned brand/private label has higher % gross profit, but a name brand will often have a higher $ gross profit per unit. There's a balance for total profit between the whole set of products, because some people are brand loyal and others will switch depending on the price difference and options.
- jerf 6y agoI expect one aspect of this is that fancy printing has gotten dirt cheap. You're not saving much money anymore slapping the black CORN on a white can vs. a full color full spread. It's a lot easier for an attractive design to pay for itself since it's cheaper to print.
- pstuart 6y agoAs documented in Repo Man: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d9k09WPpNeo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d9k09WPpNeo
- jjeaff 6y agoIt hasn't been much more expensive for a long time. I think it has more to do with the marketing idea that if it looks more plain, you will feel like it must be a good deal and good value since they didn't waste money on fancy colors.
- rob74 6y agoWait a minute... "Good & Gather"?! I feel there's some wordplay/pun I'm missing here...
- rtrdea 6y agoThere's a great episode of the podcast 99% Invisible about generic products
- vondur 6y agoI don't think Target is promoting their brand as a Generic version, but as a more higher end alternative to what people typically think of as Generic.
- nneonneo 6y agoHeh, up here in Canada the Loblaws grocery chain still sells the No Name generic brand. No Name products are about as simply presented as possible: black text on a yellow package, sometimes with a simple photo of the product. And yet they’re wildly popular (and, of course, cheap). Their website gives a pretty good indication of what their products look like: https://www.noname.ca/en_ca/ https://www.noname.ca/en_ca/ They actually experimented for a while in 2000-2008 with slightly nicer/fancier packaging, only to do a redesign in 2009 back to the simpler design. I think they might just be the brand that best epitomizes the xkcd comic (https://xkcd.com/993/ https://xkcd.com/993/), and their yellow packages probably stand out even more than white in a supermarket environment.
- monkeybutton 6y agoWalking into a No Frills is like walking into the grocery store in Repo Man except everything is yellow.
- mikewhy 6y agoTheir twitter (https://twitter.com/NoNameBrands https://twitter.com/NoNameBrands) is also great. https://twitter.com/NoNameBrands/status/1233358062116855808 https://twitter.com/NoNameBrands/status/1233358062116855808 https://twitter.com/NoNameBrands/status/1235917629669494784 https://twitter.com/NoNameBrands/status/1235917629669494784
- ogre_codes 6y agoThis article puts quite a bit of focus on packaging, but I think there is a much bigger picture here. We started using store brand products more and more when the store brand products got better. Not long ago, most store brand foods were very mediocre. It’s only when companies like Costco started creating their own good house brands that my wife and I started going with store brand stuff. With true “generic” product, a company doesn’t need to invest in good food quality. There is no brand to protect. “Kirkland”, is a decent respected brand on it’s own. You can only buy it at Costco, but you know it’s going to be decent. Trader Joe’s is similar. It’s not “generic”, it’s Trader Joe’s Brand. It’s a pretty significant difference, particularly at places like Trader Joe’s where a big portion of what they sell is their house brand. The other significant piece of this is the ubiquity of branded stores. 30 years ago, when you went grocery shopping, you had 5 different regional supermarkets. Those supermarkets couldn’t afford to front their own brand so they went with generics as their cheap product. Now, we have so many country or even world-wide retailers that those retailers can afford their own brands. Some of them even have multiple “store brands” for their higher quality products. The packaging is just the end-result of all of this, to have a brand, you need an identity.
- beart 6y agoThe in-store brands are just repackaged name brand products at a reduce price. "Kirkland" is a brand, but they don't really produce anything as far as I know. Most of the time, the actual name brand product is on the same shelf as the in-store branded product, so you can directly compare the ingredients and nutrition labels to see they are identical.
- lotsofpulp 6y agoNot necessarily. Costco specifically guarantees Kirkland products are of the same quality as name brand products, and people trust Costco to do the quality control to ensure that statement is true. Although, I have noticed Kirkland marinara sauce is inferior to Rao’s marinara. I would not think the same of a regular grocery store and generic products.
- ogre_codes 6y ago
- nahikoa 6y agoAnyone remember the black and white generics of the 80s? http://gbnfgroceries.blogspot.com/2014/01/from-misc-foods-aisle-generic-brands.html?m=1 http://gbnfgroceries.blogspot.com/2014/01/from-misc-foods-ai...
- CivBase 6y agoLocal supermarket chains reign supreme here in Iowa. There is nary a Trader Joe's or Whole Foods to be found. The generic brands offered by our local stores usually offer a greater variety of fresher food at a lower price compared to name brands. I also tend to like our supermarkets' generic packaging better. They use quality, color packaging, but the designs are usually understated and no-nonsense. It's like they're trying to say "this is a quality product, but we didn't overspend on flashy marketing and cartoon mascots". Even if it's not true, some of the Good&Gather packaging in the article makes me feel like I could have saved a little more if they didn't spend extra on cartoon animals. But maybe I'm just biased towards the things I grew up with.
- irrational 6y agoI don’t know if I could live somewhere without a Trader Joe’s. Though, I only buy the pound plus chocolate bars and chocolate treats there.
- taurath 6y agoTrader Joe’s makes me irrationally angry about cheese prices at other grocery stores, especially Safeway and Kroger.
- CivBase 6y agoIs Trader Joe's cheese particularly cheap? Sharp Cheddar is about $5/lb here.
- taurath 6y agoCheap cheddar and mozzarella is everywhere here, but Brie, any hard cheese other than cheap Parmesan, meunster, Gouda, goat, chevre, anything smoked, fresh ricotta, glouchester, etc are all half price or less at Trader Joe’s compared to the above companies and the quality is good. To get better quality you must pay 4x at a Whole Foods or specialty store.
- kevindong 6y agoFor a while, Walmart had a brand called 'Price First'. As the name implies, it was their lowest end store brand. The label never had pictures. It was always just a blue label, with white text, and a yellow arrow pointing downwards. I was honestly a fan of those products for the pantry basics (e.g. flour, sugar, etc.) as I'm not an organic foods kind of person. https://www.theshelbyreport.com/2014/10/30/the-art-of-pricing-is-walmarts-price-first-smart/ https://www.theshelbyreport.com/2014/10/30/the-art-of-pricin...
- cashewchoo 6y agoI think the appeal in buying them is that you know what you're getting. You're getting the cheapest possible thing that can be legally labelled as such. Whereas with more expensive brands, at least for me, there's always a worry (and frequently, a strong suspicion) that you're just buying the exact same product but with an extra 200% markup.
- cambalache 6y agoThis is BS. I used to work for a gigantic consumer product company, I took a seminar more than 10 years ago and the generic chain brands were already identified as a big risk because of how good they were in all sense (including presentation) and how much cheaper they were. Nothing to do with big data.
- irrational 6y ago(Seminar, seminary is a place of religious instruction).
- cambalache 6y agoI know the difference, I am kinda dyslexic. Thanks anyway.
- kazinator 6y ago> When did generic grocery brands get so good looking? Since that time when you can order a nice book made out of your photographs, for ten bucks, and 3D print complex parts. The people who are in the business of providing packaging likely upped their game with new production techniques that let them use better images, colors, materials and so on. They probably did that to edge out other people in that business. Packaging sells; people are attracted to attractive packaging, so there is obvious motivation behind it. Once everyone is doing it, you can't be left behind.
- johbjo 6y agoThe same reason single independent videographers can post videos with higher production value than TV-networks just 15 years ago. The reason is that design, photography, image/video editing, and printing became basic capabilities available to anyone.
- NoOneNew 6y agoI... sadly... went to graphic design school in 2005-09 and am I happy as hell I left that shit hole industry. Especially with this incredibly sad excuse for journalism. Also, I had a fascination with package design at the time. Publix (southern US employee owned grocery store) was the first "big" store to try making the store brand look like a competing brand back in the early 2000s. They did it in response to the dot com bust and then gas prices soaring a year or two later. Other food brands were shrinking package sizes, but charging the same. Publix tried to differentiate by keeping the bigger sizes as long as they could (they eventually adopted the smaller trends). However, they capitalized on being able to brand at the same time. That Target brand aesthetic in the article, yea, Publix did that first in 04. If you look up HOW, ADDY and AIGA awards from like 2004 to 2009 for package design, you see Publix kicking ass and taking names. Every award article commented how other stores need to take notice (especially target). Add on their profits from store brand goods went up, making them a bigger powerhouse in southern US grocery. Other stores followed suite. I just find it weird how aiga themselves cant report on something they helped break out from back in the day. I'm guessing it's a Target paid article? Or a fiver blog writer...
- hinkley 6y agoI worry that the danger here is the same danger we had with wireless carriers. They started out selling someone else's product, and at some point they got the idea that they needed generics (carrier branded phones), but it was an attempt to deny brand recognition to their suppliers. A failed coup attempt. Rarely is it good to compete with your own vendors. Sometimes it works, but you have to be quick, you have to be brash, and most of all you have to be lucky. The rest of the time you may find yourself having to negotiate with people who remember you tried to stab them in the face.
- peanut_worm 6y agoHere in the South East US, Publix has a pretty good reputation. Generally, their store brand stuff is as good and often better than brand name. Makes me wonder if more Aldi style stores that sell predominantly store-branded products will become more popular.