I keep trying to envision what y’all are talking about; then failing that, I googled. Unfortunately, I came up with nada. Anyone got a picture they’d like to share?
Man those eight packs of bottles were heavy, and what a pain to lug them back to the store.
Many stores still use a version of them. This is a modern version. The big difference is that the entire shelf was that sort of holder.
I can’t remember eight packs of soda. When I was growing up, it was always six packs of 12 ounces each.
I’ve never tasted any potato chips that tasted the same as another kind. I don’t even think it’s in their best interest to make them taste the same. You want there to be a different taste, so you don’t just buy the cheapest one.
Not that I’ve encountered that many brands before, either. It’s more like five or six.
We’re not discussing the shelf-edge price label. We’re remembering strips of stiff but flexible plastic (like Mylar) that rolled out parallel to the floor. You’d have a row of six-bottle cartons sitting on the floor, four deep. On top of that row was a “shelf” created by this stiff plastic, which must have been attached to the back of the display rack, and unrolled toward the shopper, displaying the brand logo on the bottom every few inches. Another row of four cartons sat on top of the plastic layer, such that the excess rolled up to rest against the bottom of the nearest carton, displaying the brand. The same thing was repeated on top of that, up to six or eight cartons high. Cartons on the top layer were supported just enough that they couldn’t tilt out of position, and so no further structure was required to hold them, even a stack eight high. It was cartons of bottles all the way down.
I think eight-packs, like one-pint bottles, were one of those short-lived trends as the industry moved first from returnable bottles to nonreturnable ones, and eventually to almost nothing but cans and two-liter bottles. A lot of those decisions were made by the local bottlers back when Coke and Pepsi didn’t own most of their distribution chain, so our memories of what packaging was offered will differ quite a bit depending on location. I have a particular memory of my friend, whose dad ran the local Coca-Cola bottler, describing a local decision to discontinue some line of bottles (perhaps the 16-ouncers) and the employees having to crush the bottles as they came back empty from supermarkets. I’m guessing that was to reduce the volume of cullet that the glass company would ultimately come to pick up and turn into something else.
I remember them, and I agree that they were used in the multi-layer way. As the plastic curled up, it exposed the next layer underneath.
If anybody’s time traveling back to those days, pick me up a pack of Shasta Grape sodas, will ya?
I remember them too, although I haven’t thought of them in at least thirty years. My assumption was that they were there to stabilize the stacks of cartons and keep everything lined up properly.
I spent a few minutes searching the net for a photo, but came up empty. 
I suppose I’m too young to know what the OP is talking about, but if someone could dig up some pictures…
As for the ‘rumored payola’, I’ve been in the business a long time. I assure it’s still alive and well. Look up ‘slotting fees’.
I have a friend that sells his product into a popular large chain grocery store. IIRC, the slotting fee is $10,000 per yer, per store, on top of that, they MUST have a back stock at all times. If they’re out for some certain amount of time, they’ll pull his product. On the one hand, I don’t like the idea. OTOH, I do understand it. It gives the store the ability to sell the product at the correct (read: different) margin without worrying about the overhead* since it’s all taken care of with the slotting fee. On a slightly related note, one of the local beer companies in Wisconsin sells all their beer in the exact same six pack holder. The bottle are different, but they use the same cardboard for all of them. People complain that it’s boring, but it works out really well for them. They can go into a big store, request, say 6 spots, then, once they get them, the distributors can jam whatever they want in there. For example, Oktoberfest beers are coming out. For 99% of them, the sale people will have to go to corporate, get the ‘new’ beer approved and wait for it to be entered into the system before they can order/stock it. However, this beer has the same SKU as all the other ones, it was in all the stores the week it came out. Hell, even if they didn’t have room, they could just it behind something that was running low. Didn’t matter, as far as the computer is concerned, it’s all the same thing.
Now, these big stores could request that they put different SKUs on all the beers since they can’t track which ones do better than the others, however, being one of the most popular beers in Wisconsin (and winning awards left and right all over the country), they might not want to get into a power struggle with them.
*Part of the margin (or the store’s profit in general) is eaten by the cost of approving the new product, entering it into the computer, deciding how to track it, stocking it on the shelf, dealing with ordering etc.
You were born out of time and place. You sound as if you would be happier in the mid-20th century Soviet Union. No worries about multiple identical products there and then.
This is all we need.
Yeah, I still have no idea what you all are talking about, although I must’ve seen that (as I was born in '68). Anyone else have a pic?
And thanks for trying, RC. I appreciate the effort.
No, I’m speaking of the transitional years between the 20th and 21st century, where among other things, gross consumer overproduction is rendering the planet uninhabitable for a majority of its occupants (did you say Russia? buy Siberian summer homes now!)
And frankly, having dozens of effectively identical products on every grocery shelf, differentiated only by their marketing programs, is both a symptom and result of the (marketing, megacorp profit-driven) idea that “freedom” and “choice” and “right to choose” is worth having 37 different brands of bottled water in a row. Or plain potato chips. You know, to hell with the planet if I have to eat Lay’s instead of Utz chips. I’m entitled… Big Daddy told me so.
What are you saying here? In both of these quotes you sarcastically mentioned our right to choose. Are you suggesting that the the government should take that away? How would that be done? You said there are too many brands of chips (why that bothers you so much, I don’t know). How would it be limited? Should the government limit the amount of potato chip manufacturers? Should it just pick the 5 that it likes the best? Then what happens when you have to pay $15 dollars a bag instead of $4?
How about if YOU don’t like it YOU just stick to the brand YOU like and don’t bother the rest of us that like to have more than just Lays and Jays even if they do taste the same.
Also, regarding your ‘to hell with the planet’ comment. I’m not sure it would make that much of a difference since whether we have 40 choices of everything or 3, we’d still buy (more or less) the same amount of everything. That is, if I want potato chips, I’ll buy potato chips. In your world, I get to choose from a small handful of brands, in my world, I get an entire aisle to pick from, but either way, they still had to be made.
If you really can’t figure out the tremendous cost of not only net consumer consumption, but the massive waste in producing, marketing and selling endless identical products, then there’s very little I can add to help you along.
There are various optimums between some vague Soviet “one brand of potato chips” and this faux “freedom” notion of all the replicated brands the conglomerates can dream up to sell us. (You DO realize that the majority of “competing” brands come from each of a few mega-corps, right?)
An optimum that provides reasonable choice without vast waste of economic, energy and social resources might be a better choice than sucking up to the fostered notion that only unlimited choice at any cost is acceptable.
And you have to multiply the potato chips under discussion by thousands upon thousands of consumer products from laundry soap to cars and beyond. A vast number of which are essentially indistinguishable from one another except for the brand stamped on them. Waste on so many levels, and it’s no longer a matter of “oh, well” when it’s at the very core of our planetary abuse.
I didn’t actually ask you to. What I did ask you about is why and how you plan to restrict our freedom of choice. Can you give us some examples? Does the government limit each item to a certain number of manufacturers? Do they decide who gets to make the items? I don’t understand how you think this is going to work.
Being in the food industry my entire life, I probably realize it more than most people. I’ve known about it lone before that chart with all the brand logos on it came out. However, I’m not sure what it proves. But it does tell me one thing you might be incorrect about, the ‘waste of resources’. If one mega corp makes two kinds of energy drinks or potato chips or toilet paper. Often times all they do is toss them in different packaging at the end of the line ( and possible adjust parts of the formula while they’re being made). Isn’t it better for one company to make two ‘competing’ products than for two separate factories to make two products?
Say that again, in English.
Okay, reread it a couple of times…
Here’s the thing. YOU’RE the one that decided we have too many choices, so YOU tell me how many choices the American public ought to have and how it should be regulated.
This is, what, the third time I’m calling you out on this BS line. How about some answers. If you don’t want ‘unlimited’ potato chips, how many should there be?
Yeah, I got that, I’m just running with potato chips since you brought it up, lets stick with it, it’s kinda funny at this point.
Oh, one last thing to keep in mind, Unless you word your restrictions very carefully or put some very specific exclusions into this new law, you can almost guarantee that only mega corps will be making all of your food once you limit the amount of manufacturers.
I think, what you really want, is tighter EPA laws that would put more manufacturers out of business which would, in turn, give the others extra money to comply (or go above and beyond) the new rules, limiting and in some cases eliminating pollution, carbon output, waste water etc. Is that what’s really going on here? I mean, that makes a whole lot more sense then ‘there’s too damn many potato chips’.
If you’ve read my comments (here and in other threads) as that the solution is a whole shitload of restrictive legislation, you have entirely missed my point.
Buy all the brands of chips you like. Remember me when there ARE no more chips on the shelf because potatoes ceased to have viable farming regions.
I guess I have missed the point. How about you move past the vagueness, work on the assumption that I don’t follow you around from thread to thread and just spell it out.
Lay out your plan. No more BS. No more beating around the bush. No more telling me that I missed something (you’ve done that the last two times I asked you).
I’m calling you on this one. Here’s your quote
What’s your solution. Real actual answers.
1)How many brands of each product are allowed?
2)How do you plan make this happen without infringing upon our “rights” or “freedom”?
I’ve got lots more questions, but those are the two things that you mentioned the most so lets start there. And, please, either give these questions actual thought out answers or just ignore them. If you’re just going to come back and tell me that I missed the point again or that If I had read some other thread or this or that, I’m not interested.
This article from 2013 lists the 10 most popular Potato Chips at that time. There is only one duplicate in the top 10:
- Lay’s Frito-Lay (Pepsico)
- Ruffles Frito-Lay (Pepsico)
- Pringles Kellogg’s
- Utz Independent
- Kettle Brand Diamond Foods
- Cape Cod Snyder Lance
- Herr’s Independent
- Wise Acra Continental (MEXICO)
- Popchips Independent
- Golden Flake Independent
You’re the one who jumped from my statements of the problem to demanding detailed legislation to fix it. That’s where the boat turned and you didn’t.
I was talking about the absolutely fierce competition for shelf space, how few players are actually in that competition, and how damaging their “war” is for all of us (and the planet), especially when most of the products fought over are virtual duplicates.
You want to discuss fixes? It’s another whole topic. Sorry if I don’t play the (common) game here of being trapped into defending another poster’s arguments.
But legislation has nothing to do with the real fix, so go ahead and amuse yourself imagining what number of chip brands would be legally allowed all you like.
Good find, but it may not prove quite as much as you think. So there are only 9 significant makers of potato chips in the US? That’s more than some segments, but still a pretty small number given the vast duplication of product from each maker, and between them. Some are also regional, reducing the number of makers in any given area.
So it’s still a handful of very large food conglomerates producing a vast number of duplicate products and driving an essentially meaningless consumer competition by spending more on marketing than (in some cases) on the cost of the food materials themselves.
If I have a single point here, starting from the beginning and ignoring demands for draft legislation to magically fix it all, it’s that (1) we have been generationally conditioned to think we have, and have an entitlement to, vast “choice,” and that a vast amount of that “choice” is an illusion fostered by intense marketing efforts.