Generic brands of consumer products (often supermarket goods) are distinguished by the absence of a brand name. It is often inaccurate to describe these products as "lacking a brand name", as they usually are branded, albeit with either the brand of the store in which they are sold or a lesser-known brand name which may not be aggressively advertised to the public. They are identified more by product characteristics.

They may be manufactured by less prominent companies, or manufactured on the same production line

Production line

A production line is a set of sequential operations established in a factory whereby materials are put through a refining process to produce an end-product that is suitable for onward consumption; or components are assembled to make a finished article....

 as a 'named' brand. Generic brands are usually priced below those products sold by supermarket

Supermarket

A supermarket, a form of grocery store, is a self-service store offering a wide variety of food and household merchandise, organized into departments...

s under their own brand (frequently referred to as "store brand

Store brand

Store brands are a line of products sold by a retailer under a single marketing identity. They bear a similarity to the concept of House brands, Private label brands in the United States, own brands in the UK, and home brands in Australia and generic brands...

s" or "own brands"). Generally they imitate these more expensive brands, competing on price. Generic brand products are often of equal quality as a branded product; however, the quality may change suddenly in either direction with no change in the packaging if the supplier for the product changes.

Comparison with store brands

Today, such stark package design is rarely used. Lower priced products today usually bear the name of the store or supermarket

Supermarket

A supermarket, a form of grocery store, is a self-service store offering a wide variety of food and household merchandise, organized into departments...

 where it is sold, or the name of the distribution company

Distribution (business)

Product distribution is one of the four elements of the marketing mix. An organization or set of organizations involved in the process of making a product or service available for use or consumption by a consumer or business user.The other three parts of the marketing mix are product, pricing,...

 that supplies that store. A variation on this that is common in the United States is private label

Private label

Private label products or services are typically those manufactured or provided by one company for offer under another company's brand. Private label goods and services are available in a wide range of industries from food to cosmetics to web hosting...

ing: brand names owned by the store that sells the product, that are not the same as the name of the store. For example, supermarket chain Safeway, Inc. sells dairy products under the Lucerne brand, while the Kroger's line of supermarkets sells products under several names, ranging from the top quality Private Selection down to the budget-driven line Kroger Value.

Membership-based "warehouse club

Warehouse club

A warehouse club is a retail store, usually selling a wide variety of merchandise, in which customers are required to buy large, wholesale quantities of the store's products, which makes these clubs attractive to both bargain hunters and small business owners. The clubs are able to keep prices low...

" stores have begun their own contract-packed brands. The Wal-Mart

Wal-Mart

Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. , branded as Walmart since 2008 and Wal-Mart before then, is an American public multinational corporation that runs chains of large discount department stores and warehouse stores. The company is the world's 18th largest public corporation, according to the Forbes Global 2000...

 owned Sam's Club

Sam's Club

Sam's Club is a chain of membership-only retail warehouse clubs owned and operated by Wal-Mart Stores, Inc., founded in 1983 and named after Wal-Mart founder Sam Walton. , the Sam's Club chain serves more than 47 million U.S. members...

 sells products under the name Member's Mark, Costco

Costco

Costco Wholesale Corporation is the largest membership warehouse club chain in the United States. it is the third largest retailer in the United States, where it originated, and the ninth largest in the world...

 sells products under the name Kirkland Signature (a reference to former corporate home office location, Kirkland, Washington

Kirkland, Washington

Kirkland is a city in King County, Washington, United States. It is a suburb of Seattle on the Eastside . The population was 48,787 at the 2010 census makes it the 9th largest city in King County and the 20th largest city in the state...

), and BJ's Wholesale Club

BJ's Wholesale Club

BJ's Wholesale Club, Inc. , commonly referred to simply as BJ's, is a membership-only warehouse club chain operating on the United States East Coast, as well as in the state of Ohio...

 sells products branded Berkley & Jensen.

Generic branded food, as well as being cheaper than branded food products, may be a healthier alternative with independent research finding supermarket own-brand cereals containing less salt, and saturated fat than the branded equivalent. In addition to price and nutrition, evidence suggests that quality is equal to, if not better than established brands and in the 2007 Whisky Bible several supermarket single malts were rated higher than top-brand distilleries with Tesco the highest rating own-brand.

Premium and value generic brands

Rather than offering a single own-brand alternative, supermarkets have in recent years introduced 'premium' and 'value' ranges offering varying quality and price. Some supermarkets advertise the quality of their premium own-brands for example Sainsbury's television commercial featuring celebrity chef Jamie Oliver

Jamie Oliver

James "Jamie" Trevor Oliver, MBE , sometimes known as The Naked Chef, is an English chef, restaurateur and media personality, known for his food-focused television shows, cookbooks and more recently his campaign against the use of processed foods in national schools...

. Value supermarket brands are sold at considerably less than known brands, sometimes even below cost price

Cost price

In retail systems, the cost price represents the specific value that represents unit price purchased. This value is used as a key factor in determining profitability and in some stock market theories it is used in establishing the value of stock holding....

, to entice the shopper into the store. Despite perceived lower quality, supermarket own-brands continue to sell and a trading standards investigation found that there was little nutritional or taste difference between value and regular products.

Generic drugs

When patent

Patent

A patent is a form of intellectual property. It consists of a set of exclusive rights granted by a sovereign state to an inventor or their assignee for a limited period of time in exchange for the public disclosure of an invention....

protection expires on a drug it may be sold generically at a considerable discount, less both patent royalties and marketing expenses. The quality of these products is as effective as the original and they have to undergo stringent quality tests before they are allowed to be marketed by the F.D.A.