I can't think of any grocery/hypermarket chain in the US or Canada that markets their store-brand products quite as heavily as Real Canadian Superstore, which goes as far as to mention them on their store exteriors and road signs! If I remember correctly, I bought some President's Choice spaghetti sauce here (to go along with my No Name spaghetti); it was perfectly fine, but not as special as their marketing would have you believe. What is special are those giant bollards in the foreground, nearly as tall as I am -- I guess they
really don't want anyone hitting that fire hydrant!
Loblaw sure does love promoting President's Choice items! Even the Loblaw banners out in eastern Canada heavily promote President's Choice. I've seen some foreign Wal-Mart stores, I can't remember if they were Canadian ones or maybe British ASDA stores, promoting the George brand of clothing on the outside of their stores. HEB is in love with their store brands, but many of HEB's products just carry the HEB name so there isn't really any great need to promote the names on the outside of their stores. HEB often has multiple tiers of their store brands though. In some cases, you can't even get the national brands at HEB so there is no need for HEB to promote their own brands when that's all you can buy there!
ReplyDeleteInterestingly enough, President's Choice has not always been exclusive to Loblaw stores. Tom Thumb sold President's Choice products (or at least used the name on American sourced products under license from Loblaw) and people in Dallas got upset when Randall's bought Tom Thumb and started replacing the President's Choice items with Randall's stuff. Eventually, Randall's ended up bringing President's Choice items back to Tom Thumb and started selling them in Austin and Houston as well. When Safeway bought Randall's, Safeway eliminated the President's Choice stuff and that caused some Randall's/Tom Thumb shoppers to sour on Safeway's ownership. So, yeah, I bet you didn't know the relationship between President's Choice and Safeway!
Now that you say that, I think I have seen those George signs at Canadian Walmarts. I did visit a couple of those on that trip, and they'll show up on the blog some day!
DeleteI had heard of US stores selling President's Choice, but I hadn't realized Randall's/Tom Thumb was part of that! I know American Stores (Acme/Lucky/Jewel) did too until the Albertsons merger, and looking at Wikipedia, so did several chains Kroger acquired, so I guess all three have been involved with killing off President's Choice in the US! Of course, Loblaw itself also used to have a presence in the US, and I wonder if their T&T stores they're planning for the US (the first one is supposed to open this summer in Bellevue) will sell any President's Choice/No Name products or just T&T's store-brand Asian foods (I'm not sure what T&T's Canadian stores sell).