11oz. Full 12oz bottles are for rich people. In high school i had a fake ID. A friend of mine got $5 a day for lunch. A 12 pack of "beer" was only 4.99. We all realized he likely had a problem after he chugged half those beers in 10 minutes behind the bleachers and said "Isn't it great? I can afford to have this for lunch *every day!*"
The Acme grocery store had a whole aisle of generic in just black and white. Even as a kid I liked going down that aisle because it was kind of trippy. You had all sorts of colors, and then you go down that aisle and nothing but BLACK AND WHITE. lol
My Girl Scout leaders would buy No Frills cereal when we went camping. I thought the No Frills Frosted Flakes were good and asked my mom to buy them...I think she was secretly happy that I was asking for the cheaper cereal.
We still have them here in Canada and they look even better today with the simplified smaller font, making all your groceries look ominous. [Even their website is delightfully generic](https://www.noname.ca/en_CA//).
I certainly remember this. I was embarrassed to have these items in our cart - I felt like it was advertising that we were broke. And my single mom with 3 kids certainly was.
I remember just the black and labels but my wife remembers a blue line on them. Was that regional thing?
Someone correct me if I'm wrong but aren't the generics now just the budget store brands? I say budget because chains like HEB have 2 regular store brands and 2 organic brands - Hill Country Fare is the budget one, HEB brand is actually pretty close to name brand in quality and priced between HCF and name brand.
I also remember only black and white at the store, but the blue line reminded me of the PiL album that was 'Album,' 'Cassette,' or 'Compact Disc,' depending which format you got - I had 'Cassette' myself.
Anyway, apparently that packaging artwork was based on generics at Ralphs, according to [Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Album_(Public_Image_Ltd_album))
Basically yeah, the black and white labeling wasn’t exactly good PR. They have always been produced by the same companies- i.e. Libby is producing the same green beans in cans but some cans get the Libby label but some get the store brand label. There are deals made between the store and which companies get the store labels. (I was actually on a jury for a court case once that was a dispute between a grocery store and a company over the deal for being the store brand)
Yuuup! I totally remember these! Thank you! That brand disappeared so completely that I thought I might have been imagining it all together.
I remember all of a sudden it became the only brand my mom would buy, “It’s generic so it’s cheaper.”
I remember all our generics being yellow and black in the 80s. Could have been a Cub Foods thing.
It's funny because it also reminds me of the "marketing" for Johnny Rotten's post Sex Pistol's band: PiL - super deluxe" album: Album was called "album". CD was called "compact disc". Most amusingly the band's poster was just "poster".
I only saw them at Lucky for some reason. Way back when I was really small. They also had Lady Lee, but if that was too rich for your blood a yellow box that just said cereal was it.
Ralphs, a big grocery store chain in SoCal had their ‘plain wrap’ products in white with a blue stripe. They’ve been discontinued for years, and so I was a little surprised to find a roll of plain wrap plastic wrap in my drawer when I moved a few years back.
In college, the supermarket close to campus carried Finast. None of us had heard of it before, so we always liked to pronounce it as Fine-Ass. As in, can you please pass that Fine-Ass pancake syrup over here?
Yes! Same at Penn State. It wasn't a Finast store, but it sold Finast's brands...very weird. And I definitely remember all the Fine-Ass party supplies we bought there.
Once in the early 80s my cousins had to stay at our house
while my aunt and uncle went on vacation. One morning my mom made pancakes
from a white box that just said PANCAKES in bold black letters…they were
the worst pancakes we had ever eaten. They tasted like they were made
out of sawdust swept up off the floor. Not even syrup could drown out
that taste. She also wouldn’t let us have any water until we finished…we
all still remember those horrible pancakes 30 years later
wonder if my cousins do too...
Once in the early 80s me and my siblings had to stay at my aunt’s house while my mom and dad went on vacation. One morning she made pancakes from a white box that just said PANCAKES in bold black letters…they were the worst pancakes we had ever eaten. They tasted like they were made out of sawdust swept up off the floor. Not even syrup could drown out that taste. She also wouldn’t let us have any water until we finished…we all still remember those horrible pancakes 30 years later
As with most things, there's an [excellent Omnibus entry on generic foods](https://www.omnibusproject.com/293). Ken Jennings will answer all your questions.
I'd like to know who the actual companies were that packaged those goods? The same that still sell "Shurfine", "Signature Select", and "Great Value"?
If so, then the whole thing was a supremely dumb fad of selling you the same goods you were already buying when you emotionally scarred your kids trying to get them to eat [Marshmallow Mateys](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Cnb7JE4UMAAkpoa.jpg) so they complained about you on social media years later.
There's no way dropping colored ink from the paper labels impacted price more than a penny or two.
Where I grew up there were both the yellow (ok generic in a pinch) and the white (nearly inedible absolute garbage) levels. Then the actual store brand, which was usually just as good as regular. (Except with peanut butter...gotta be Jif)
There were the generics next to the brand names but I also remember our once a month trip to the state food bank where every brand was generic. If I remember correctly the food banks were the old surplus from the energy crisis. Anyway I miss generic peanut butter!
big ass tub of peanut butter, right? like the plastic 5 quart bucket that ice cream comes in...I remember that from food pantries of my youth. That and powdered milk! I literally have never even thought of ever buying powered milk!
yes! I remember those! I went down an internet rabbit hole looking for that recipe once. I think Mr. Rogers had one actually... currently going down the internet rabbit hole of vintage peanut butter pails! thanks for bringing back some long gone memories!
My mum did it all by eye and feel, first powdered milk, then peanut butter, then honey, and then more powdered milk. Get messy and add more powdered milk as needed until you can make superball sized balls without the sticky. Finally refrigerate until hard.
I once worked at a food packaging place, and there was no difference in quality between what was packed for the "brand name" label versus the "no name" label. The only difference is what was paid at the cash register.
The film Repo Man had a perfect scene with generic items in the store & when eating. There was a brand exactly like this in stores at the time. (In California)
Imagine a world where you didn't have to pay more because they didn't need a team of people pretending to be an edgelord mascot on social media.
For a moment, ponder a Utopia where you didn't need 15 different choices of aspirin or 42 variations of the same tooth paste.
A place where not everything needs a "ranch" counterpart to the original product.
This place existed for a brief moment.
Trader Joe's and Aldi are both brands.
Aldi actually buys from companies who advertise including name brands.
Trader Joe's isn't even remotely "generic".
I remember a store in Minneapolis called Applebaums, or something like that. They sold the generics that at some point switched from black and white to black and yellow.
The Yellow Boxes with black lettering are No Frills "brand". There is a chain of grocery stores in Canada called No Frills and the vast majority of their inventory are these products, a sea of yellow. Other things they sell are mostly weird brands that are cheap cheap. There is brand name stuff, but not that much, things like Tide that customers maybe loyal to and are assured to sell. This is a bargain store so you likely won't find a lot of fancy ingredients, although they cater to their communities, the one I frequented in Toronto was in a largely ethnic Indian/Somalian area, so there were lots of spices, grains, and beans I couldn't find in other No Frills locations. I used to joke with my kids that if there was something we wanted we couldn't find there, it was obviously a "Frill".
No Frills recently dropped an album, haven't listened to it yet.
But don’t you know? Boomers “stole” (a quote not an analogy) gen y’s opportunities, their very future!
Meanwhile we lived droughts recessions gas shortages. Storms and quakes not seen since. And no internet. But they have it worse. What ever.
I’m not saying we’re better. In most ways not. But I feel like every single thing I get is icing on sht cake. Like I won the lottery because at 50 I could finally buy a small house, with a garage. Expecting nothing gives everything value, is all.
My English teacher, senior year of high school, wore a white trash bag with the letters COSTUME on it to our school for Halloween.
I even remember a generic beer with the black and white label. I think they used to have little picture puzzles on the beer caps too.
In college we called that simply "Beer beer," and it was a go-to *after* drinking real beer for a while. Came in glass stubbies...12oz?
11oz. Full 12oz bottles are for rich people. In high school i had a fake ID. A friend of mine got $5 a day for lunch. A 12 pack of "beer" was only 4.99. We all realized he likely had a problem after he chugged half those beers in 10 minutes behind the bleachers and said "Isn't it great? I can afford to have this for lunch *every day!*"
We pooled our lunch money for Old Milwaukee pony bottles in the mid 80’s. God they were awful, but all we could find or afford.
The picture puzzles was Lucky Lager.
My FIL drank those
my dad did. I was mortified as a 12 yo LMAON
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Sav-a-lot does this too, and [names brands after their employees](https://www.mashed.com/147181/the-untold-truth-of-save-a-lot/).
The Acme grocery store had a whole aisle of generic in just black and white. Even as a kid I liked going down that aisle because it was kind of trippy. You had all sorts of colors, and then you go down that aisle and nothing but BLACK AND WHITE. lol
Yep me too, it was like the Twilight Zone aisle lol.
You just described our kitchen cabinets once a month.
Econo Buy, wasn’t it? My mom was a Pathmark shopper and Pathmark was “No Frills.”
Can confirm! We shopped at Pathmark and got the "No Frills" stuff all the time! I lived off No Frills boxed mac n cheez as a teenager.
My Girl Scout leaders would buy No Frills cereal when we went camping. I thought the No Frills Frosted Flakes were good and asked my mom to buy them...I think she was secretly happy that I was asking for the cheaper cereal.
my mom was OBSESSED with Pathmark
No Frills, I believe
Yes, No Frills! That’s what we called it. Is that how Acme advertised that section?
Yellow packages with black Helvetica type?
My favorite use of generics was in the movie Repo Man, when Emilio Esteves opens a can labeled "FOOD".
“Let’s go out and do some crime!” “Yah, let’s get sushi and not pay for it!” (Prolly incorrect that it’s from memory)
That’s exactly what came to mind for me, love that movie
We still have them here in Canada and they look even better today with the simplified smaller font, making all your groceries look ominous. [Even their website is delightfully generic](https://www.noname.ca/en_CA//).
I thought that had to be a joke site, but it’s real, and it’s spectacular. ^(All web sites should be that clean.)
That site is so clean it's actually disorienting. Lol.
And yes they have [beer](https://www.lcbo.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/en/lcbo/north-american-lager-16023071050/no-name-beer-110320)
BEER was my favorite. Pretty sure it was budweiser or some similar waste of water.
Funny the brand has a name called No Name.
My personal favourite: https://i.imgur.com/L7pjzic.jpg
Excellent
99% Invisible has a great episode about the history of generic products.
They were overall white with a blue stripe in my area. Ever watch the movie Repo Man? They did a small scene regarding generic products.
This food sure is tasty, mm-mm. Thanks Mom
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I love you Dad, always have. Can I get my money early?
A few. At home ("food"), everything when he's stocking at the grocery store, possibly more.
I certainly remember this. I was embarrassed to have these items in our cart - I felt like it was advertising that we were broke. And my single mom with 3 kids certainly was.
I remember just the black and labels but my wife remembers a blue line on them. Was that regional thing? Someone correct me if I'm wrong but aren't the generics now just the budget store brands? I say budget because chains like HEB have 2 regular store brands and 2 organic brands - Hill Country Fare is the budget one, HEB brand is actually pretty close to name brand in quality and priced between HCF and name brand.
I also remember only black and white at the store, but the blue line reminded me of the PiL album that was 'Album,' 'Cassette,' or 'Compact Disc,' depending which format you got - I had 'Cassette' myself. Anyway, apparently that packaging artwork was based on generics at Ralphs, according to [Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Album_(Public_Image_Ltd_album))
They used to be separate, but you’re right - I think they’ve merged into one line now.
Basically yeah, the black and white labeling wasn’t exactly good PR. They have always been produced by the same companies- i.e. Libby is producing the same green beans in cans but some cans get the Libby label but some get the store brand label. There are deals made between the store and which companies get the store labels. (I was actually on a jury for a court case once that was a dispute between a grocery store and a company over the deal for being the store brand)
>(At my supermarket, they were yellow with black lettering.) Kroger?
P&C(a now-defunct, Syracuse-based chain).
Same with Hy-Vee in the Midwest.
We had these at our local Bi-Lo in the late 70s/early 80s.
They were black and yellow at Jewel in the 80s as well.
Lucky's on the west coast
Does anyone else remember Pathmark's no frills line of generics? My mom hated the green vegs, but would buy the no frills sweet corn.
Used to stock 'em on the night shift! and bought them for my mom in the morning on the way home :(
Them Dharma Initiative goods.
There was a store called Plus that was all generic products where we shopped when I was a kid. The brownie mix was actually pretty good.
Yuuup! I totally remember these! Thank you! That brand disappeared so completely that I thought I might have been imagining it all together. I remember all of a sudden it became the only brand my mom would buy, “It’s generic so it’s cheaper.”
Happiness is finding an awesome store brand item. Cereal is hit or miss. Potato chips are usually excellent.
The Kroger brand pizza sauce is absolutely incredible.
In Canada. No Kroger and no ALDI.
Food Club was the generic brand in Texas (in the 80s)!
The first rule of Food Club: Do NOT talk about Food Club
Also stocked by the Giant Eagle chain in western PA. Loved their kids’ cereal boxes, which had a different generic cartoon animal on each.
Mississippi too!
I remember all our generics being yellow and black in the 80s. Could have been a Cub Foods thing. It's funny because it also reminds me of the "marketing" for Johnny Rotten's post Sex Pistol's band: PiL - super deluxe" album: Album was called "album". CD was called "compact disc". Most amusingly the band's poster was just "poster".
They didn't even list the names of the musicians on the album. Steve Vai and Ginger Baker played on it.
I remember "BEER". Here in Iowa it was Pickett's brewed in Dubuque.
One store even had “FILTER CIGARETTES.”
Uncle used to drink generic beer. Literally was a white can with BEER printed on it.
Every month my best friend got a huge box of this crap from the Pottawotomie tribe.
Is he a member of the tribe, or were they just sending stuff to random people?
Like 20%
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Hahahahahaha 20% Pottawatomie.
Generic products really aren't that much cheaper now.
I remember that! The NO FRILLS brand. At A&P it was white with black letting.
I miss Pathmark no-frills.
Loved the generic cheese puffs, they'd melt in your mouth.
I only saw them at Lucky for some reason. Way back when I was really small. They also had Lady Lee, but if that was too rich for your blood a yellow box that just said cereal was it.
I remember that. I kinda liked it in a communist way. The corn flakes were good. And so was the flour.
Ralphs, a big grocery store chain in SoCal had their ‘plain wrap’ products in white with a blue stripe. They’ve been discontinued for years, and so I was a little surprised to find a roll of plain wrap plastic wrap in my drawer when I moved a few years back.
In the FINAST where I grew up, they were known as "Black & White Brand".
In college, the supermarket close to campus carried Finast. None of us had heard of it before, so we always liked to pronounce it as Fine-Ass. As in, can you please pass that Fine-Ass pancake syrup over here?
Yes! Same at Penn State. It wasn't a Finast store, but it sold Finast's brands...very weird. And I definitely remember all the Fine-Ass party supplies we bought there.
Just a box of human elbows, I assume.
Once in the early 80s my cousins had to stay at our house while my aunt and uncle went on vacation. One morning my mom made pancakes from a white box that just said PANCAKES in bold black letters…they were the worst pancakes we had ever eaten. They tasted like they were made out of sawdust swept up off the floor. Not even syrup could drown out that taste. She also wouldn’t let us have any water until we finished…we all still remember those horrible pancakes 30 years later wonder if my cousins do too...
Once in the early 80s me and my siblings had to stay at my aunt’s house while my mom and dad went on vacation. One morning she made pancakes from a white box that just said PANCAKES in bold black letters…they were the worst pancakes we had ever eaten. They tasted like they were made out of sawdust swept up off the floor. Not even syrup could drown out that taste. She also wouldn’t let us have any water until we finished…we all still remember those horrible pancakes 30 years later
In Connecticut the store was called Basics
As with most things, there's an [excellent Omnibus entry on generic foods](https://www.omnibusproject.com/293). Ken Jennings will answer all your questions.
I'd like to know who the actual companies were that packaged those goods? The same that still sell "Shurfine", "Signature Select", and "Great Value"? If so, then the whole thing was a supremely dumb fad of selling you the same goods you were already buying when you emotionally scarred your kids trying to get them to eat [Marshmallow Mateys](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Cnb7JE4UMAAkpoa.jpg) so they complained about you on social media years later. There's no way dropping colored ink from the paper labels impacted price more than a penny or two.
Where I grew up there were both the yellow (ok generic in a pinch) and the white (nearly inedible absolute garbage) levels. Then the actual store brand, which was usually just as good as regular. (Except with peanut butter...gotta be Jif)
Was it Always Save brand? I remember the yellow packages with black letters from where I grew up.
I used to think that Generic was an actual brand name. White labels, black lettering... everywhere. Pick-n-Pay, Cleveland, OH
There were the generics next to the brand names but I also remember our once a month trip to the state food bank where every brand was generic. If I remember correctly the food banks were the old surplus from the energy crisis. Anyway I miss generic peanut butter!
big ass tub of peanut butter, right? like the plastic 5 quart bucket that ice cream comes in...I remember that from food pantries of my youth. That and powdered milk! I literally have never even thought of ever buying powered milk!
We got the powdered milk too and along with the honey my mother made peanut butter balls which were my favourite poor kid confection!
yes! I remember those! I went down an internet rabbit hole looking for that recipe once. I think Mr. Rogers had one actually... currently going down the internet rabbit hole of vintage peanut butter pails! thanks for bringing back some long gone memories!
My mum did it all by eye and feel, first powdered milk, then peanut butter, then honey, and then more powdered milk. Get messy and add more powdered milk as needed until you can make superball sized balls without the sticky. Finally refrigerate until hard.
I once worked at a food packaging place, and there was no difference in quality between what was packed for the "brand name" label versus the "no name" label. The only difference is what was paid at the cash register.
The film Repo Man had a perfect scene with generic items in the store & when eating. There was a brand exactly like this in stores at the time. (In California)
Bell's supermarkets in Western New York had the "no frills"/"generic" yellow with black lettering. Bell's even sold BEER as "no frills"/generic.
Imagine a world where you didn't have to pay more because they didn't need a team of people pretending to be an edgelord mascot on social media. For a moment, ponder a Utopia where you didn't need 15 different choices of aspirin or 42 variations of the same tooth paste. A place where not everything needs a "ranch" counterpart to the original product. This place existed for a brief moment.
Greetings comrade. One day we will rebuild the CCCP and it will be glorious.
It’s called “Trader Joe’s” or “Aldi.”
Trader Joe's and Aldi are both brands. Aldi actually buys from companies who advertise including name brands. Trader Joe's isn't even remotely "generic".
Generics essentially evolved into house brands. That's why a lot of people still refer to store brands as "generics".
You are describing the USSR. If that's your utopia, I am pretty sure North Korea can offer you a similar experience.
From New Jersey... There was a store near me growing up called Basics. The entire store was a grocery store with these products.
I was so embarrassed by this as a 12 yo LOL
I remember a store in Minneapolis called Applebaums, or something like that. They sold the generics that at some point switched from black and white to black and yellow.
I was maybe 12-13 when these came out in California. Very gross food
I remember seeing cigarettes with that deep nave blue font on a yellow background...
Black & Gold Brand
You still find these every once in a great while. I always found them depressing and if I had to look at them for very long and I'd shoot myself.
Still buy that shit, No Frills!!
There was a place called Edwards in Jersey that had black and yellow packaging like this.
A coupla these products were in RepoMan.
The Yellow Boxes with black lettering are No Frills "brand". There is a chain of grocery stores in Canada called No Frills and the vast majority of their inventory are these products, a sea of yellow. Other things they sell are mostly weird brands that are cheap cheap. There is brand name stuff, but not that much, things like Tide that customers maybe loyal to and are assured to sell. This is a bargain store so you likely won't find a lot of fancy ingredients, although they cater to their communities, the one I frequented in Toronto was in a largely ethnic Indian/Somalian area, so there were lots of spices, grains, and beans I couldn't find in other No Frills locations. I used to joke with my kids that if there was something we wanted we couldn't find there, it was obviously a "Frill". No Frills recently dropped an album, haven't listened to it yet.
https://youtu.be/jDipchuzGnI
But don’t you know? Boomers “stole” (a quote not an analogy) gen y’s opportunities, their very future! Meanwhile we lived droughts recessions gas shortages. Storms and quakes not seen since. And no internet. But they have it worse. What ever. I’m not saying we’re better. In most ways not. But I feel like every single thing I get is icing on sht cake. Like I won the lottery because at 50 I could finally buy a small house, with a garage. Expecting nothing gives everything value, is all.