Generic Food

All this talk about "recession" has me thinking about the early 1980s.

One of the products of that time period was "generic food." You know, you have premium-priced "name brand" products, e.g. Peter Pan Peanut Butter, and budget-priced "store brand" products, e.g. Great Value Peanut Butter. Well this was a category beneath "store brand!"

Initially, the packaging was solid black printing on a yellow background, like the can of "Beer" pictured, here. It kind of depended on which store you went to. Some had black printing on stark white labels, as shown below.

You had to pick and choose as to which items were "ok" to buy as a generic. Paper towels and spaghetti sauce stand out in my memory as being really crappy; I'd have to go with the store brands on these.

Canned vegetables, coffee, coffee filters, pasta, laundry detergent, shampoo and glass cleaner were all products I'd gleefully grab off the generic shelf.

My favorite part about the genric food craze was opening my kitchen cupboard and seeing that all the labels matched! It was so cool; kind of like living in a never-ending "Brand-X" commercial.

And, oh yes, I would buy a case of long-neck generic bottled beer ($3.99 a case, folks!) for my monthly film parties. It was nice and watery - just the way I like it!