Have You Ever Wondered What Happened To Vlasic Pickles?

Have You Ever Wondered What Happened To Vlasic Pickles?

Walmart has had its own “house brand” lines of products as far back as 1993; "Equate", "Dr. Thunder" and "Sam's Choice" to name just three. There are several products from cheese to canned beans now merchandised in their “Great Value” label. That is not so unusual; Homeland has “Best Choice”, Costco has “Kirkland”, Target has “Up and UP” and Safeway has “Lucerne” and others. I read recently that Amazon is expanding their own “Elements” product line, into food items. Do the retailers do this because they want to make less profit on their sales? Of course not.


So Walmart’s “Great Value” line is not a new thing and really not a problem with me.

But there is a problem.

While we shop at Homeland or our local independent grocer as much as possible, there are times we find ourselves in the crowded aisles at our Walmart Superstore. During these shopping visits, I believe I have seen an emerging pattern that annoys me.

Not only is the “Great Value” packaged similar to the name brand packaging in size and color and design, there’s more of it. Sometimes the stock of the name brand product you might be looking for has been allowed to deteriorate to nothing, while the “Great Value” product can be found in prominence.

For an example, I went looking for a light bulb for a small night lamp. I found a six foot section of display almost depleted of the Sylvania, Westinghouse and GE brands, while next to it was a fully stocked section of “Great Value” light bulbs.

I found examples where a name brand product has been moved to another location in the store, and the “Great Value” brand of the item you went to get is stocked in the original location instead. And since the packaging is designed and printed in colors to approximate the name brand, you may not even notice you are getting a “house brand” instead.

So the clever Walmart merchandisers are in a deliberate campaign to get their “Great Value” line into the shopping carts by sleight of hand or chicanery or whatever method works. If you pick up their brand by mistake or out of desperation because you can’t find the brand you were shopping for, they don’t care.

No. They do not accidentally, unintentionally run out of anything. Walmart (as do many large retailers) has the most sophisticated perpetual inventory system one can find. They know without visiting each shelf, how much of each product, in each size, color and flavor they have in stock at any given moment. A low stock situation automatically triggers an ordering system to bring the item back to established stock limit conditions. Some stores receive DAILY stock trucks to maintain their inventory.

Walmart ran out of something? Not unless they wanted to.

Sears and Roebuck, the big merchandiser of the past, used to buy huge amounts of stock from a smaller manufacturing company. They would maintain orders for a period and then cease ordering suddenly. The smaller company often went bankrupt because of the loss of projected revenue. Sears would step in and buy the smaller company and resume manufacturing under one of their own brand names like Kenmore, Craftsman, Jaclyn Smith and Country Living.

Now, you don’t suppose Walmart, the world’s largest company, does the same thing? Here is an article describing Walmart’s activity and what happened to Vlasic Pickles: “The Walmart You Don’t Know”

So my problem is, I guess, I am not comfortable with being tricked into getting something I had not intended to purchase.

And here is another article showing the insidious power of the world’s largest company.