Things will really, really change when people realize that....

[bedpanartist]

"hey, I don't need Minute Rice. This generic rice does the same job."

"hey, I don't need Kraft Macaroni and Cheese, These box of generic pasta and this hear American cheese will do just fine."

The end of brands is coming, and oh how it will shake us up. Hopefully, for the better. Brands and branding are a waste, transparent to the young, and a dieing theory.

[NC_Nurse]

1. My, you ARE an optimist!

I'm not holding my breath. ;-)

[I Have A Dream]

I'm confused. It hasn't happened up to this point even though...

brands have been around for a long time. Why do you think things will change now? :shrug:

[MadMaddie]

2. From your lips to Gods ears...

This would be the best thing to happen to America....brands, over corporatization, mega murgers are destroying America.

[evlbstrd]

3. You're gonna have to kill a lot of ad agencies.

[tridim]

4. Is Safeway Select a brand?

In 99% of the cases their generic brand is much better than the brand name equivalent. Especially their fig bars!

[bedpanartist]

5. Are brands headed for obsolescence?

http://adage.com/garfieldtheblog/article.php?article_id=112730

[Warpy]

6. Branding is obsolete only because the parent companies

are near monopolies. Oh, yes, there used to be a difference between cheeses and soap and cake mixes and motor oil, etc, but this is largely a thing of the past as the cheapening process has caused all those "competing" brands bought out by the same megacorporation to be identical except for the box.

Unfortunately, the booboisie is still way behind the curve on this stuff. The changes happened long after they chose a brand they liked and they've been too gradual to notice. They just don't realize that most of the Brand X stuff is made in the same way by the same processor as the fancy labeled stuff. They have never stooped to making anything themselves from basic ingredients so they have no idea what a real difference in quality is.

That's why McBranding will be with us for the foreseeable future. People just can't admit they've been fooled by packaging and that there isn't any real difference between the contents of one box or can and the contents of another.

Once you realize the scam behind McBranding, you can shave a fortune off your yearly food bill. You can shave another fortune off if you learn how to COOK, but that's a whole other post.

For the stupid, however, McBranding will always be the real thing.

[Demeter]

15. A Few Unfortunate Imports from China, and Brands Will Be History

Provided there are home-grown alternatives

[Der Blaue Engel]

7. Hey, I don't need instant, bleached rice or pasta with cheese-like powder at all!

:D

(Didn't miss your point, but had to say it.)

Cheese-product. Ewww.

[kimmerspixelated]

9. Kraft = PlayDoh Food

I don't think I want to eat any foods put out by Kraft. I'm with you. American Cheese PRODUCT??? I wish I had the link to an article that describes what really goes on at those Kraft factories. You wouldn't want to buy their stuff ever again!

[bedpanartist]

11. exactly

and as the economy gets worse, people start to realize more and more what a waste it is to spend money on advertising.

[Czolgosz]

8. I agree with your sentiment, but you pick odd examples. Kraft Macaroni and Cheese costs 50 cents and

a generic isn't uniformly cheaper (at least at my grocery store). Likewise, I don't buy Minute Rice because I find it mushy, but the store brand I buy is actually more expensive, not less expensive.

I agree that branding is an evil to be concerned about, but I'm most concerned when a branding strategy is being used to inflate the price of a product, and I just don't see much price inflation in the context of the examples you choose.

[kimmerspixelated]

10. Minute rice and all instant foods.

raise the question of the price Americans really pay for convenience. Most of the the problems we currently have are due to the insistence on convenience. A push-button society, a drive-thru society is literally killing itself with plastic foods and overpriced toxic air.

[PDJane]

12. If you had to eat the way I've been forced to,

You'd find that brand names are pointless anyway; they aren't made better by the addition of a name and an advertising budget.

Corn has to come from the farms that don't use GM crops, and all corn products......syrup, starch, etc....are out. That, by the way, leaves out pop.

There really is nothing nutritional in white rice or cake mixes or craft foods......and I find I can bake a cake from scratch without much more effort anyway. I also make my own biscuits and bread, for the most part. My blood pressure has dropped from 195/130 to 130/76 since doing so. Lipides have dropped since substituting olive oil for butter and margarine.

I eat whole wheat or unbleached white flour, don't eat white flour pasta, and find American cheese salty beyond belief. I'm not sure why this is; Canadian cheese doesn't seem to have as much salt in it. Bizarre. Interestingly enough, most European cheese isn't as salty either.

No MDM.....that's partly because of additives, and partly because I can't stand the thought of the way the stuff is made. That cuts out hot dogs and luncheon meat.

My biggest complaint with Kraft foods is that they must use up most of the yearly production of MSG; everything from soup to salad dressing has the damn stuff in it. I now use balsamic vinegars on my salads, and that's helped too.

Had I made these changes years ago, I suspect that I would be much, much healthier than I am at the moment!

[tridim]

13. Good call on the homemade biscuits

Homemade isn't any harder than Bisquick and about 1000 times more tasty than a can. Pseudo-buttermilk is a staple in my fridge.

[rinsd]

14. The ends of brands is coming?

"Brands and branding are a waste, transparent to the young, and a dieing theory."

If anything branding has exploded beyond traditional marketing in the last 10 years.

[sypher]

16. Dunno....

Glenfiddich ($35 a fifth) >>>>>>>> Clan MacGregor (around $8 a fifth)

Much love for my brand of scotch :)

[bedpanartist]

17. which brand of scotch?

the expensive or cheap?

I would venture to say that one buys scotch because of the quality, not the brand name.

Didn't some guy get rich by selling quality wine for $2 a bottle?