No-Brand Groceries

"Standard" quality, low price

In 66 Chicago-area Jewel Food Stores, the items on one stretch of shelf space stand in drab contrast to the rest of the brightly colored, elaborately packaged brands. The cans and packages, in uniformly dull black, white and olive labeling, bear only the unadorned name of the product--corn flakes, tomato juice, applesauce--in blunt, stencil-like lettering. Yet these no-name groceries have become hot items, and they could herald a change in the way that Americans shop. Reason: prices of the generic-name groceries range 10% to 35% below those of comparable brand-name products, and even undercut Jewel's Cherry Valley and Mary Dunbar house brands by as much as 15%.

Jewel has been quietly test marketing the new line for almost ten months, but officially announced the program only last month. Jewel, along with its 59-store affiliate, the Star Market chain in the Boston area, now offers as many as 88 no-brand products ranging from flour to laundry detergent. To keep prices at rock bottom, Jewel and Star will spend nothing on advertising or promoting the no-brand goods. They also use the simplest packaging (no cellophane windows or four-color lithographs on boxes) and limit variety and size (generally the packages are fairly large).

The products are provided by the same domestic processors that supply the chain with its private labels and its well-known national brands. The food items meet all the minimum Government requirements for quality, and the packages and cans are made and labeled according to specifications laid down by Jewel. The difference is that unlike the major brands, which usually demand top-grade foodstuffs, the generic products are the cheaper, "standard" quality goods. Thus the green peas are more pebble-sized than petit, the rice is not always whole grain, grapefruit sections are broken and peanut butter contains specks of peanut skins.

But the prices! An 18-oz. jar of no-name peanut butter at Jewel costs 34-c- less than Skippy; a 14-oz. bottle of no-name ketchup costs 22-c- less than Heinz, and 25 Ibs. of dog food sells for $2.80 less than Gaines Meal. Says Jewel President Walter Elisha: "Consumer response has been overwhelmingly favorable." That is not hyperbole. One morning, Star stacked 500 cases of no-name tuna in twelve of its suburban stores. The 6 1/2-oz. cans sold for 59-c- each, v. 89-c- for Star-Kist. Though the food chain expected the supply to last a week, it was sold out by early afternoon.

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