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Comment by Clewza313 | Hacker News Reader

Interestingly, in Australia, major supermarket chain Woolworths used to have two parallel home brands: the bargain-basement Homebrand in stark black & white packaging, and the slightly better but still "designed in the DDR in the 1970s" Essentials. They had to ditch Homebrand, because it looked too cheap and was driving people to discount grocer Aldi, where you could get similar goods in packaging you wouldn't be ashamed to show friends.

https://www.businessinsider.com.au/woolworths-is-killing-off...

https://www.woolworths.com.au/shop/discover/our-brands/essen...

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Tesco, in the UK, did this too but only recently. They used to have a 'basics' range with labelling that said nothing but 'cheap'!

Instead, they now have these wholesome-sounding brands such as Redmere Farms, Nightingale Farms, etc which imply you're buying from some twee family business instead.

'Basics' was Sainsbury's, Tesco had 'Value', with its incredibly bold branding:

https://logos.fandom.com/wiki/Tesco_Everyday_Value

They also have "Stockwell & Co" for the things which don't come from British farms, like jam and baked beans. That at least is a nod to history, because Tesco started out selling tea packaged by T. E. Stockwell.

They are entirely upfront about their brands:

https://www.tesco.com/groceries/en-GB/zone/exclusively-at-te...

It amuses me that their dairy brand is 'Creamfields', both because that's too obvious, and also a house music festival:

https://creamfields.com/

Thanks for the correction. The branding obviously works since I would have never dreamed of buying 'basics' or 'value' in their original branding but do sometimes buy the 'farm-brand' veg and 'Stockwell' products.

Wairtrose also have an 'Essentials' range although the labelling is very similar to regular priced products. I buy these without a second thought.

Same in NL, at least for a while; there was the semi-premium looking 'home brand', and there was the really shitty looking red-on-white Euroshopper brand, I believe that one actually showed up in a few grocery store chains. I haven't seen Euroshopper branded stuff in a while though.

They replaced it with the AH basic, which only looks marginally better.

Wal-Mart, Vons, and I'm sure a few others do this in the US. A super cheap brand, a mid-range brand, and sometimes even a high-end brand too. I can't remember their names off the top of my head but I think this tactic is common

They kind of still do the split home brands, the “Essentials” brand is the super budget stuff and their “Woolworths” brand is the better-packaging stuff. There’s definitely products I’ve noticed that have both versions too.

Then they have heaps of other brands that are owned by them but have “proper” sounding brand names to give more illusion of choice.

Still the case in Kroger's in the US - there's a few home brands: Private Selection (higher-end) Simple Truth (organic and "natural" products) Kroger (main home brand) Pssst (discount/low-end brand)

Homebrand really looks like someone went the extra-mile to make it look cheap and cost less.

It's the kind of design you would expect at a government facility lowest bid kinda thing.

It's funny how this turned out, because in Sydney (at least the part where I live), any generic supermarket brand is referred to as "homebrand" instead of "own brand".

Also, don't forget about "Woolworths select", which was no better than homebrand but the tubs oats came in made really good pantry containers, and so in my kitchen anything loose like rice or almonds goes in them.

I remember when it used to be called Black and Gold because those were the colours of the homebrand brand for Foodland.

As a kid I always hated having to buy that particular brand because it indicated to everyone that we weren’t able to afford “real” brands. (I’ve thankfully grown out of this mentality. Even now that I’m earning the most I ever have in my life I still try to stick to homebrand as much as possible)

They tried this in the USA in the early 80's. Common products like paper towels in black-and-white "GENERIC" packaging.

Didn't last too long.

I think what people really want are "good enough" replacements for higher-priced brands, yet someone to take responsibility.

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