Yellow Pack was a brand of generic groceries, first launched in March 1980 by

Fine Fare Fine Fare was a chain of supermarkets in the United Kingdom. Their Yellow Pack budget private label, own-label range, introduced in 1980, was the first Value brands in the United Kingdom, own brand basic ranges to be introduced in the UK. His ...

, a British regional supermarket chain ultimately owned by the

Weston family The Weston family is a prominent Canadian-origin family of businesspeople with global interests primarily in food and clothing ventures. The family operations began with the purchase of a bakery in 1884 by American-born Canadian George Weston in ...

, whose extensive interests include the UK's

Associated British Foods Associated British Foods plc (ABF) is a British multinational food processing and retailing company headquartered in London, England. Its ingredients division is the world's second-largest producer of both sugar and baker's yeast and a major pr ...

Loblaw Companies Loblaw Companies Limited is a Canadian retailer encompassing corporate and franchise supermarkets operating under 22 regional and market-segment banners (including Loblaws), as well as pharmacies, banking and apparel. Loblaw operates a private ...

in North America, and a range of upmarket retailers such as

Selfridges Selfridges, also known as Selfridges & Co., is a chain of high-end department stores in the United Kingdom that is operated by Selfridges Retail Limited, part of the Selfridges Group of department stores. It was founded by Harry Gordon Selfridge ...

Brown Thomas Brown Thomas & Company Limited is a chain of five Irish department stores, located in Dublin, Cork, Galway, Limerick and Dundrum Town Centre. Part of the Selfridges Group, Brown Thomas is an upmarket chain, akin to Britain's Selfridges stores ...

and

Fortnum & Mason Fortnum & Mason (colloquially often shortened to just Fortnum's) is an upmarket department store in Piccadilly, London, with additional stores at The Royal Exchange, St Pancras railway station, Heathrow Airport in London and K11 Musea In Hong ...

. Distinctively packaged in yellow with aggressive black print, under a brand name ("YelLOW PRICE Packs") invented in January 1980 by the

Collett Dickenson Pearce Collett Dickenson Pearce & Partners (CDP) was a British advertising agency which operated from 1960 till 2000. It was founded by John Pearce and Ronnie Dickenson who bought an existing agency owned by John Collett. The agency played a pivotal ro ...

advertising agency, Yellow Packs, unlike previous generic grocery launches in North America and Europe, were positioned, next to a modestly successful own-label range, as the cheapest version of the product concerned available in Britain. In most cases, this involved product or packaging re-engineering, or uncovering of new sources. The range's colour scheme design was derived from the No Name brand of generics launched a year or two earlier by Fine Fare's Canadian sister grocery chain, Toronto-based Loblaws. The Yellow Pack brand was reasonably successful, accounting for 30% of the chain's grocery sales by the time Fine Fare was acquired by the Dee Corporation – then mostly trading as Gateway, now Somerfield – in mid 1986. It was then discontinued in

Great Britain Great Britain is an island in the North Atlantic Ocean off the northwest coast of continental Europe. With an area of , it is the largest of the British Isles, the largest European island and the ninth-largest island in the world. It is ...

. In the meantime, after initial internal hostility to someone else's idea, the range was adopted by Fine fare's Irish sister company, Quinnsworth, where it featured heavily in advertising presented by Quinnsworth's advertising manager, Maurice Pratt. Whereas in Fine Fare's Scottish and Teesside heartland, Yellow Packs had merely been a successful product launch, they acquired a semi-iconic status in Ireland, and were extended throughout Quinnsworth's affiliate chains within the Power supermarket group (such as Stewarts and

Crazy Prices Tesco Ireland is the Irish subsidiary of supermarket group Tesco. Tesco Ireland was formed by Tesco plc's 1997 purchase of the Irish retailing operations of Associated British Foods, namely Powers' Supermarkets Limited and its subsidiaries, tra ...

in Northern Ireland and

in the Republic). The term "Yellow Pack" became a generic term for cheap products or low-paid jobs in Ireland. As a promotional offer,

Quinnsworth Tesco Ireland is the Irish subsidiary of supermarket group Tesco. Tesco Ireland was formed by Tesco plc's 1997 purchase of the Irish retailing operations of Associated British Foods, namely Powers' Supermarkets Limited and its subsidiaries, tr ...

started offering reduced-price flights to its customers. These were soon given the nickname ''Yellow Pack Flights''. In the mid 1990s, Power Supermarkets began to phase out the Yellow Pack brand, replacing them with two new brands. Budget products were branded "Five Star" (later "K.V.I" (Keenest Value in Ireland)), and a more upmarket "Premium Choice" brand created for higher quality goods. After the acquisition of the Irish business by

Tesco Tesco plc () is a British multinational groceries and general merchandise retailer headquartered in Welwyn Garden City, England. In 2011 it was the third-largest retailer in the world measured by gross revenues and the ninth-largest in th ...

, the brand was completely replaced by Tesco own-brands, including the similar in concept Tesco Value, using white rather than yellow packaging). Tesco Value had been developed (as "Value Lines") in 1981, as Tesco's answer in Britain to Yellow Packs. Derived from the company's Victor Value chain, Tesco's Value range has, since the early 1980s played a consistent, though minor, role in Tesco's repertoire of private brands.

References

{{reflist British brands Defunct brands