Brings back memories, ate lots of generic stuff growing up. Haven't seen any in a long time though.

Forgot mention in the bonkers movie Food Fight (google it) All the name brands get in a war with the generic brands(played up a a Nazi socialist group no less! There motto is "One Brand, One store!") that want to take over the store, seeing Mrs Butterworth hurl exploding pancakes and Mr.Clean and Charlie the Tuna and nearly every other food and product icon/mascot in the brawl for it all is just too wild!

While that aisle always felt a little creepy to me, I did love that box of bags of chips. The saltiest chips in the world. I miss the novelty of that aisle. Right in the middle of the colorful and vibrant store was this blank and lifeless space. I'd swear even the muzak sounded a little sadder, a little more hollow. I'd love to find a store that still has one, just so I can share the eerie experience with my son. (I'm not mean, he'd get a kick out of it.)

I only have vague memories of such super-plain generic brands.

But I do still buy much generic and store brands. heck, the best corn flakes I ever ate was a generic brand.

In Canada, we still have a simple generic brand in one of our grocery store chains. They call it No Name and it is that - the No Name logo and a yellow or white box/can/container/bag with lettering of what the product is. Very rarely a picture.

My family also used generic products quite a bit, although, being thrifty as a child myself, I always rather liked the idea. Although, i HAD forgotten about them being lumped together in a few aisles. Like store brands, they're pretty much the same as the "big brands" but the generics added no advertising costs & little packaging costs. I still use store brands alot.

I remember when generic brands looked JUST like this. Now they are all fancy with fancy labels like Kroger "Private Selection" but in the day, it was just a plain white wrapper with writing on it.

The saddest thing was when someone was on food stamps and their family had that generic powdered milk instead of real milk. Basically you mixed it with water in a pitcher and (tried to) drink it. I remember having a sleep over at a kids house and we had powdered milk product on our cereal in the morning. It was horrible, barely palatable, though I'm sure his family was used to it. Needless to say I never had another sleepover there.

Remember that Plain Label era well when my kids were babies and my grocery budget was miniscule in Omaha, Nebraska. Thanks for this reverie.

I Remember Drinking Just "BEER" In College,When I Was Broke. Just A White Can That Said Beer In Black Letters On It....lol

My guess is you'd have to go to grocery stores that are all about low prices and nothing else to find lots of generics... the Be-Lo and Sav-a-Lot type chains.

Some here seem to think that "Generic" evolved into "Store Brands". That's not true. Store brands existed before the generics. The idea of the generic brand was that there was a cost saving by not having the expense of designing the packaging or printing with lots of color inks. As printing technology has improved and design tools are all computerized, there are no real cost savings any more.

I too remember the "Generic" isle at the local Eisners... After is was converted into a "warehouse" style sore called, "Big-E". No, the 1970's were not a great economic time.

MMMM Beer! I remember the generic stuff. We got smart and started reading the fine print on the labels. IIRC there were 3-4 manufacturers that produced it in our area. Some were better than others. For some reason I seem to recall that the Falstaff and DuBois breweries were the preferred ones. We had multiple stores selling it in our area at the time.

I grew up during this time and I remember how real it was to Need the name brand, I was convinced it was better. My dad always got those generic sandwich cookies. Why couldn't we have Oreos or Fig Newtons!!! Dang it!! Now that I pay for everything I know. Id rather pay less for similar food so I have money for other things. So keep your food Tucan Sam and Keebler Elves of the world!

I grew up during this time and I remember how real it was to Need the name brand, I was convinced it was better. My dad always got those generic sandwich cookies. Why couldn't we have Oreos or Fig Newtons!!! Dang it!! Now that I pay for everything I know. Id rather pay less for similar food so I have money for other things. So keep your food Tucan Sam and Keebler Elves of the world!

The generics I remember from my childhood were just like these, though instead of being white, the packages were yellow with black type or blue with white type. A regional thing, I guess.

The original, bare-bones generic products often had a disclaimer, saying that the peanut butter may have uneven color, but it was just as good as the national brand, or that the cake mix came in a bag rather than a box to save on costs.

I remember one store having a generic brand called "Plain Package"... I don't recall who it was, though...

I always loved the t-shirts "Generic T-shirt " needs a comeback.

I worked for a large east coast chain and I believe we were the first market to have the generic branded groceries. They were called No Frills and there was one whole aisle( both sides) devoted to it. Some of the products were pretty good while others had a noticeable difference. I know that there was a generic beer; but I was in a state that did not sell alcohol in the supermarket. There were paper products and even some health and beauty items. This was a very popular thing during the times when things were pretty tough during the eighties.
Eventually it was phased out in favor of store brands. Many house brand products are as good as, or better than name brands. There is one exception, though. In my opinion, Shop Rite has low quality private label products. Stick with the name brands if you shop there.

There used to be a place in Faifield California that was called "Generic Hamburger Stand". Same black and white wording on the sign outside!

college, 1990. Generic hot dogs - 48 cents a package... Ramen noodles, 20 packages for maybe $1 then. dump a can of no-name peas into a pot and cook it on your (highly illegal) hot plate and boom, enough to feed the whole apartment.

I was in pretty much the same situation growing up in the '80s. We didn't have much money, and my Mom was an expert budgeter, so we made trips down the generic aisle every week at the grocery store. I was only bothered by it with the handful of items where there was a stark difference in quality between the generic and name brands. In general, though I didn't care either way. I remember sitting at the kitchen table sometimes drawing my own package designs on the blank boxes, so that was a plus. Usually an image of Skeletor or someone eating whatever item was inside the package, haha!

If you eat the generic cereal you will get the green poo

Just found an empty bucket of generic "Peanut Butter". Tan with black letters- I think it came from Ralph's market in the late 70's. I kept my marbles in there until it broke. I'll send you a picture if you ask.

I miss the black and white generic foods. I don't think we were embarrassed to buy it. Even after my dad went from being laid off at the steel mill tobeing a teacher and could afford the "good stuff", we still got the black and white generic cause it tasted good. My favorites were the potato chips (like Lays), the French Onion Dip and the very best was the Ramen!!!! We use to call it Oodles of Noodles.... the black and white generic was mushroom flavored and the best I've ever tasted in my life. So sad that I can't find it anywhere. Even Google doesn't remember it. The closest now is "Chicken and Mushroom". So not the same.

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Does anyone remember an ingredient called Butarran? My mom came across an old recipe for blueberry muffins and that's of of the ingredients listed. I'm thinking it may be a brand of butter that is long gone... But I cannot find anything on Google.

Most generic products were OK to me. I wasn't picky. When I was in the 8th grade (1981-82), our school held a bake sale. If we contributed to the sale, we wouldn't have to pay admission to get into an upcoming school dance. So, I went to the store and bought some generic brownie mix. My mom thought I was crazy, so she went out and bought Duncan Hines.

Trying to remember name of the store looked like a warehouse, generic foods was in yellow packages anybody remembers the name of the store?

Menards has a no name 4K WiFi video camera exactly like an early GoPro Camera, for $35 and $40. All it says is "action cam", "sport cam", and made in China. Generic still exists, but now in every other product.

I remember generic products going by a few names, and a few package designs... the only name I can think of offhand is "Plain Packages"(can't remember the store that used that name), and aside from black printing on white, some places used black printing on yellow, and one was blue printing with a blue stripe on white... I also remember the band Public Image, Ltd. released an album in 1986 called "Album"("Cassette", or "Compact Disc", depending on format), the cover was modeled after Ralphs's generic products label...

I grew up before and after "No Frills" it's been many many moons since then and though I willingly & happily watched my mother make the powdered milk religiously every week and ate everything else that came No Frills I have to say that to this day I still crave the bags of pudding mix and the bags of chocolate chip cookies. If anyone here knows of products similar in taste to those delectable sweets, I would love to get some again, they have been sorely missed in my life.

Great post. We ate a lot in our family, and back in the day going to the supermarket was an evening event with my mother. Basically filling up the cart and car trunk to last a few weeks. My mom was never ashamed to save a buck anyway she could, and I never felt ashamed of things that were not Brand Name, so she/we loved the introduction of Generic food. To us it simply meant getting more food for the same money. I remember loving their peanut butter and pasta and canned fruit more than the typical Skippy or Ronzoni or Dole we would previously get, and my mom loved saving on cleaning products. In our Shop Rite, the generic was mixed in with it's corresponding product, whereas Pathmark had it's own dedicated aisle, and, honestly, it was like entering grocery Disneyland because nothing was off limits to our mother, so we could grab anything we wanted. Trying that with name brands many times got that side look from my mother with the typical "put that back" response. Health-wise, who knows? I don't like much of these processed items today even with the best brand name. They all seem lacking real nutrition. As an adult, I am more inclined to real meat, vegetables and fruit rather than something out of a box or can, but back in the day before we took health and nutrition more seriously, it was Nirvana.

I remember stocking the black n white label canned goods at Jewl t. During high school. Lol. Good times

Though the items are branded, in a way, today's version of such, is the Dollar Tree stores....but at times shopping them is so erratic! I find a new fave, and poof! they sell out, and never get it again. I def remember the b&w aisle of generics.....also remember the mark down buggies full of dented cans, etc. Shopping the generics and the mark down buggies was a way of surviving on a student budget for me. I remember the Austin, Texas HEBs had the the generics in 1983, my first year away from home....but after that, they simply sort of dissappeared.

One of the main reasons generic foods (and the generic food aisle) disappeared was because as you pointed out in your article, they basically screamed "I am poor". So the people they were intended for were too embarrassed to buy them or be seen consuming them.

In an odd twist, people who could afford name brands often bought generic items to be funny/ironic, but that sort of niche purchasing wasn't enough to sustain it.

I remember plain label Foods the back of the can good said size and shape may vary but taste is not affected

Man, I was just googling around to see if anyone else remembered the aisle of financial shame. ;p The cereal always melted in the milk. That's what I remember most clearly.

This original post was some years ago-but just now stumbled across it and wanted to say thanks for stirring up the memory I had otherwise lost of that oddball wholly generic aisle in the grocery store from my younger years. Truly well-depicted! I always savor flashbacks of the 70s/80s. If u have any other details which are
reminiscent and specific to that time period I'd like to read about it.

The movie Repoman brought me here. Born in 71, I vividly remember generic product. Was to young to drink generic beer but curious on what it tasted like!

I remember everything was all in 1 aisle and when money was low we got everything in that one aisle... cereal, ice cream, dishwashing liquid ( made no suds), washing powder, everything... brings back memories of the good fun days. We didn’t need name brand everything back then

Hard to believe how fast time he's passed & the "white & black" & yellow & black" products have changed in their own ways... Sadly I'd love nothing more but to bring back those simpler times!