Canada’s largest grocer sells No Name, which is actually in itself a brand name. Lots of products. Many are the same as brand name items, just a different label slapped on. No Name products are cheaper and generally quite acceptable.
I remember an entire store that was based on either generic or the store brand called "national " it was actually called "no -frills " I don’t know if it was owned by another company or by itself it only lasted about 3-4 years tho
this was in kokomo Indiana around 81 or 2 and when I went back in 86 it was gone
It was all the yellow packaging with the black letters
I remember the generic black-and-white labels. I was already living on my own, and the one generic product that I loved was the saltines. I guess they were “seconds” of some kind because they were always a little darker and toastier than the name brands. To some people, this was probably inferior, but I’m a burnt toast kind of gal and to me they were perfect.
Star Market?
I mentioned in the other thread that I worked in a grocery store when these got rolled out. I remember them being stocked in their appropriate sections, rather than in one big generic section, and I remember that we did not carry them for long.
I haven’t read that thread, so I missed the reference there. I’ll have to go check it out. But I watched “Repo Man” a lot in college - maybe even had a videotape at some point. One of my favorite lines is when he’s eating “food” straight out of the can and his mom says “Put it on a plate, son. You’ll enjoy it more.” 
I remember the black and yellow labels.
At one point, my stepsister moved in with us. It was a real comedown for her because we were broke as a joke. At one point, she threw open the pantry door and yelled in frustration, “Is there anything in here that’s not generic!” There was not.
I don’t recall if my mom bought any generic products but I definitely remember seeing them. In my area, they were white with blue stripe and black lettering,
My husband and I were married in 1982. I remember buying both the black & white and the black & yellow generic products - not everything but quite a few items. I remember buying the cake mixes, potato chips, and storage bags. I even bought the generic disposable diapers a few times. As far as I can remember, they were all fine.
Good to know, and makes the most sense. Though my relatives who worked in the local vegetable canning factory during that era reported that the same stuff went into all the different labels of cans.
This kind of stuff would slip through in movies sometimes and it wasn’t meant to be ironic or comedic. Apparently in the Whoopi Goldberg film Clara’s Heart, there’s a scene in which a character takes a can clearly marked “BEER” out of the fridge. When you hire the lowest-bidding production designer…
Yes! As a kid, I remember my mom would intentionally buy the generic small white potatoes. They were tender and delicious and pretty much like what they call “fingerlings” in restaurants. She would roast them with parsley, and they were delicious.
I don’t know, and I refuse to find out!
In college, I made my own costume one year. Got a white sweatshirt; drew a line across the top and bottom and in block letters, wrote “Costume”. Got a pair of white sweat pants; drew a UPC symbol on the butt.
Mid 80s, the company I worked at had a Halloween party. One department dressed up as pirates. One guy had two bottles of wine on his desk with the black-and-white labels. One was marked “Cheap Red Wine”; the other “Cheap White Wine”.
Me, too. If I get a batch of Wheat Thins or Triskets that are darker than usual, I love it.
I barely remember generics. I mean, I remember them, it’s just that I don’t remember them lasting very long.
I remember seeing costumes like that back in the day.
I grew up in the 60s and remember that the grocery store chains always had their own house-brand (lower cost) products. Giant, for instance, just used their own name on their line of goods. A&P was more subtle, labeling their goods “Ann Page”. The plain-in-the-face generic goods that started showing up in the late 70s/early 80s pushed prices lower with their bare-bones packaging. At least that was the perception. I’m not really sure that was always the case. Toward the mid-80s, Safeway introduced their Scotch Buy line of products that were priced about the same as generic. The line included Scotch Buy cigarettes and, delightfully, Scotch Buy Scotch. I’ve no idea about the quality of either.
The brownie mix was good.
That government cheese was good.
I’d swear it was the same cheese used at McDonald’s when they came to Russia in 1990. They said it was imported from Germany.
Everything they used back then had to be imported until they established their own indigenous production plants. The stuff their successors are now using is reportedly crap.
Government cheese is the absolute best cheese ever for making grilled cheese sandwiches.
When was it that stores started carrying different tiers of house brands? For instance, Albertson’s has “Albertson’s”, and “Western Family”, and something else that I think had “Market” in the name?
And when did they start using different house brands for different sorts of products? Like, all Aldi cereals are Millville, and their frozen pizzas are “Mamma Cozi’s”, and their dairy products are “Happy Farms”, and so on.
Target was the first store where I noticed that sort of thing, with their Market Pantry and Archer Farms brands, but I don’t know if they were actually the first.