WinCo Operations

[VibeGuy]

Tillamook butter is 100% licensee-produced by Challenge in California.

I don’t know if they’re still buying ice cream production capacity from Safeway’s Bellevue plant but they have in the past. I believe all of the novelty products are also co-packed.

To the topic at hand: Winco store brand quality seems substantially improved, especially in frozen categories compared to the Topco era.

I do wish they’d bring back their old sourdough dinner rolls which were exceptional for an in-store bakeshop.

[storewanderer]

Despite that I do quite a bit of shopping at WinCo, I almost never buy WinCo brand products...

Nothing really against them but it seems like they always have some secondary brand at a better price or no private label at all in various categories.

I have quite a bit of Kroger and Raleys private label stuff sitting around. Virtually no "Signature Select" since that line is a complete overpriced joke.

[retailfanmitchell019]

Tillamook butter is 100% licensee-produced by Challenge in California.

I don’t know if they’re still buying ice cream production capacity from Safeway’s Bellevue plant but they have in the past. I believe all of the novelty products are also co-packed.

To the topic at hand: Winco store brand quality seems substantially improved, especially in frozen categories compared to the Topco era.

I do wish they’d bring back their old sourdough dinner rolls which were exceptional for an in-store bakeshop.

You meant Hy-Top, not Topco.

Despite that I do quite a bit of shopping at WinCo, I almost never buy WinCo brand products...

Nothing really against them but it seems like they always have some secondary brand at a better price or no private label at all in various categories.

I have quite a bit of Kroger and Raleys private label stuff sitting around. Virtually no "Signature Select" since that line is a complete overpriced joke.

Down here in SoCal, the Signature line has better pricing than in NorCal.
Raley’s brand is really a rebadge of the store brands at Stater Bros. and Hy-Vee. It’s Food Club under a different name. I tend to buy a lot of store brand products.
Topco products have improved a lot in the past few years. I’d say they’re better than Albertsons brands by now.

[storewanderer]

WinCo's private label program went a few routes:

For years it was Flavorite/Home Best (Supervalu). When Supervalu bought Albertsons and did the EE/Equaline redesign program, and discontinued Flavorite, WinCo discontinued its relationship with Supervalu for private labels (still buys seasonal items from them to this day) and moved to the Hy-Top label from Federated group on food and some other label called QC on non food (not sure where that came from) for a few years before starting up the WinCo private label. Each time WinCo changed private labels they advertised it was label changes only and not a supplier change. I feel like there is less private label at WinCo now than back in the Flavorite days but WinCo has its label on both food and non food now.

Was Flavorite/Supervalu possibly a Topco member before they got the Albertsons private label program?

Raleys stuff does strike me as somewhat better quality than the usual TopCo line in some cases. Their items are not always the same as Save Mart's items (often are), the Sunny Select stuff, which they used to sell too at Raleys. I've had good luck with the Raleys label.

Signature Select is so absurdly priced in NorCal, and it has also become rather absurdly priced in Las Vegas/Arizona in recent months. Kroger has a lot of work to do on pricing at these stores once they take over. It was priced a lot more reasonably out at Jewel. Numerous canned items like canned fruits/canned vegetables, sugar, mayonnaise, etc. 50% less than NorCal.

[retailfanmitchell019]

Was Flavorite/Supervalu possibly a Topco member before they got the Albertsons private label program?

Raleys stuff does strike me as somewhat better quality than the usual TopCo line in some cases. Their items are not always the same as Save Mart's items (often are), the Sunny Select stuff, which they used to sell too at Raleys. I've had good luck with the Raleys label.

Signature Select is so absurdly priced in NorCal, and it has also become rather absurdly priced in Las Vegas/Arizona in recent months. Kroger has a lot of work to do on pricing at these stores once they take over. It was priced a lot more reasonably out at Jewel. Numerous canned items like canned fruits/canned vegetables, sugar, mayonnaise, etc. 50% less than NorCal.

Looking at evidence, SVU was never a Topco member. Roundy’s was a Topco member before Kroger bought them.
Federated did however develop private label for Supervalu and Albertsons at one point: https://web.archive.org/web/20010210205 ... /home4.htm
Yet Topco had a few international members at one point: Blue Square (Israel), Seiyu (Japan), and Oshawa Group (Canadian grocery conglomerate that Sobeys bought in 1999. Topco might’ve helped develop the Compliments private label for Oshawa, which Sobeys then took).

[storewanderer]

Looking at evidence, SVU was never a Topco member. Roundy’s was a Topco member before Kroger bought them.
Federated did however develop private label for Supervalu and Albertsons at one point: https://web.archive.org/web/20010210205 ... /home4.htm
Yet Topco had a few international members at one point: Blue Square (Israel), Seiyu (Japan), and Oshawa Group (Canadian grocery conglomerate that Sobeys bought in 1999. Topco might’ve helped develop the Compliments private label for Oshawa, which Sobeys then took).

Harris Teeter is still a TopCo member and still uses TopCo stuff. The Harris Teeter private label items look strikingly similar to Sunny Select items.

It will be interesting to see what happens at Harris Teeter once Kroger has owned it for 10 years. That anniversary occurs in less than two months.

Essential Everyday items wind up in random places in Asia; I recall seeing nut shelves in a Hong Kong Store completely merchandised/stocked with the EE nut SKUs you'd see in the US.

[HCal]

Essential Everyday items wind up in random places in Asia; I recall seeing nut shelves in a Hong Kong Store completely merchandised/stocked with the EE nut SKUs you'd see in the US.

I've seen it in Europe too, pretty sure it was Iceland. I think some sort of canned goods. And it was just one or a few items, not even a whole category. I was very confused...