429. The mid 1980s/early 1990s grocery store commercial starter pack.
So, about a month and a half ago I was really sad. I mean, I’m always sad, but for some reason it hit different that week. All I did every second I had some free time (at home!) for a week was watch old grocery store commercials on YouTube. Here’s an example of a playlist. I started noticing a pattern, a starter pack, if you will.
I thought we, as Americans, didn’t get bad about buying soda in bulk until the early 00s. Nah. We were bad about bulking up on soda on sale back then, too. I mean, check out the prices on those low, low Pepsi Cubes.
Sometimes canned ham. Only once with this adorable bunny puppet. Oh, storytime. When I was sent at home for quarantine around this time last year, I was on eBay late at night, as usual.
I wound up re-buying this little pink bunny made by Animal Fair rabbit I had when I was little. So that’s the bunny story.
These deli platters with rolled up lunchmeat.
Exactly how do you eat that at a party? Just pick up a roll of delimeat? What do you dip it in? Is there bread nearby?
Orange juice sales have slipped in the United States in the last twenty years due to concerns over its high sugar content.1 Thirty years ago it was practically a staple in the American kitchen. I mean, the cereal commercials always counted a glass of orange juice as part of “this complete breakfast”.
At first, I thought “Warehouse pricing” meant that a store had a section of items priced and packaged like you would find at whatever Costco and Sam’s Club was back then. This Washington Post article from 1981 kind of explains it:
“Warehouse pricing,” quickly became a synonym for “cheap food” but what the term originally meant was that prices would no longer be marked on individual items, only on the shelves as they are in discount food warehouses.
Giant Food Chairman Israel Cohen said the choice was up to consumers: The could have the price stamped on every bottle and can, or they could read the prices off the shelf signs and get lower prices. 2
Maybe because I don’t eat or buy meat too often, but I can’t remember the last time I went to a store that had a butcher behind the counter to show the customers meat. Ok, except for Whole Foods. I see them there. Because its Whole Foods.
Fruit Baskets at Christmas
How about a fruit basket of fruit you might actually need at the holidays? Like oranges lemons and limes. I mean, we always forget the lemons for zest. Just a reindeer basket full of lemons.
Jewel - take a new look at an old friend, Jewel
Great Scott! - We got a lot to do/give/we love you – Great Scott! was a Detroit area store, bought by Kroger in 1990.
A&P / Super Fresh / Kohl’s Food Store -- yep, its the same jingle for all three chains, except their names are subbed in the last verse. All owned by A&P. The guy in the commercial had to do the window wipe scene three different times.
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1. Food Dive. “Orange Juice Sales Get Sweeter as Consumers Look for Immunity Boost.” Accessed March 21, 2021. https://www.fooddive.com/news/orange-juice-sales-get-sweeter-as-consumers-look-for-immunity-boost/578175/.
2. Sinclair, Molly. “Price Rise Signals End Of Store Wars.” Washington Post, September 11, 1981. https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/local/1981/09/11/price-rise-signals-end-of-store-wars/cbea5b2c-89b6-4f42-b4d7-50a793df64ab/.
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