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When did generic grocery brands get so good looking?

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Re: When did generic grocery brands get so good looking?

#111

Post by taurath »

irrational wrote: post #108
CivBase wrote: post #95

Local 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…

I 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.

Trader Joe’s makes me irrationally angry about cheese prices at other grocery stores, especially Safeway and Kroger.

Re: When did generic grocery brands get so good looking?

#112

Post by zzzeek »

kradeelav wrote: post #74
theamk wrote: post #16

Unrelated 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…

That's odd.. may I ask which ad-blocker you were using? I visited it with both Privacy Badger & uBlock Origin running (on FF) and it loaded for me.

uBlock Origin v1.33.2 on Firefox linux blocks the entire page from loading for me. wasn't sure if it was one of those puzzle websites or something.

Re: When did generic grocery brands get so good looking?

#113

Post by tomc1985 »

Cthulhu_ wrote: post #64
Clewza313 wrote: post #21

Interestingly, 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 ash…

Same in NL, at least for a while; there was the semi-premium looking 'home brand', and there was the really shitty looking red-on-white Euroshopper brand, I believe that one actually showed up in a few grocery store chains. I haven't seen Euroshopper branded stuff in a while though.

Wal-Mart, Vons, and I'm sure a few others do this in the US. A super cheap brand, a mid-range brand, and sometimes even a high-end brand too. I can't remember their names off the top of my head but I think this tactic is common

Re: When did generic grocery brands get so good looking?

#114

Post by kipchak »

quercusa wrote: post #101
woobar wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Aldi owns Trader Joe's, but I wouldn't call them same chain. For instance, Kroger owns multiple chains with the store format, branding and products that differ a lot. From my experience the US Aldi (which is part of an Aldi Sud) is a dimlit, bottom of the barrel discounter with a small selection of basics. Where Trader Joe's is a quirky "Hawaiian-themed" specialty grocer with a good selection of the unique-to-US prod…

In the US NE, Aldi is replacing the old dark stores with nice new bright stores with good selections.

The newer/larger stores seem like they might have also helped with inventory/space management, at least in my experience the smaller stores would be more likely to have things on extreme clearance.

Re: When did generic grocery brands get so good looking?

#115

Post by CivBase »

taurath wrote: post #111
irrational wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I 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.

Trader Joe’s makes me irrationally angry about cheese prices at other grocery stores, especially Safeway and Kroger.

Is Trader Joe's cheese particularly cheap? Sharp Cheddar is about $5/lb here.

Re: When did generic grocery brands get so good looking?

#116

Post by cashewchoo »

kevindong wrote: post #104

For 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-pri…

I 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.

Re: When did generic grocery brands get so good looking?

#117

Post by drone »

skunkworker wrote: post #24

I'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.

Right! 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

Re: When did generic grocery brands get so good looking?

#118

Post by CivBase »

irrational wrote: post #108
CivBase wrote: post #95

Local 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…

I 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.

We have a total of two Trader Joe's locations in Iowa. I've gone to one of them a couple times, but I didn't see anything I couldn't get at my local Hy-Vee.

Re: When did generic grocery brands get so good looking?

#119

Post by gumby »

anomaloustho wrote: post #93
gumby wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So why is the store brand not in the prime spot rather than the bottom shelf. Is the major brand paying for placement?

Yes, it’s called a slotting fee. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slotting_fee

Clasic 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.

Re: When did generic grocery brands get so good looking?

#120

Post by lotsofpulp »

theamk wrote: post #16

Unrelated 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…

I very briefly get the eye and then the site loads using Safari with Wipr content blocker.
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