Sound an Alarm for Eight O’Clock Coffee, Please

Just returned from my neighborhood Winn Dixie where a register printer-generated coupon informed me to look for the same taste, new look Eight O’Clock Coffee.

I was appalled at the change; I thought the company had decided to retain the venerable red bag.

The TATA Group, owners of the iconic Eight O’Clock Coffee brand, are preparing to release a new package. It features a lot of white (illustrated at popsop.com).  This package leaves one cold, being highly reminiscent of the recent rash of white private label designs, e.g. Dollar General and Walmart’s Great Value.  It deletes the iconic red bag and emasculates the bold, oh so familiar logo around since at least the World War II era.

That little red package has come a long way, from a private label sold only in A&P to a national brand distributed by that company and even featured in some convenience stores and restaurants to a company under the TATA Group.

Despite the vicissitudes of former mother ship A&P, many never lost their taste for this coffee. It had a cult following long before Starbucks was even dreamed of by the first baby boomer. Such a following that A&P set up its Compass Foods subsidiary to wholesale it to other retailers after they withdrew from so much of the country in the 1970’s and 1980’s.

While I am sure TATA would like to rival J.M. Smucker’s Folger’s and Kraft’s Maxwell House, they can probably keep wishing.  Changing such iconic packaging is almost akin to Coca-Cola’s foolhardy New Coke scheme. The product stands out on the shelf as is, suggesting not only nostalgia to traditional customers, but class, quality, and solidity to new consumers.  I hope this isn’t the death knell for a great brand.  (And, what, heaven forbid, will the line extensions like Bokar look like in these generic bags?) Shame on whoever thinks so little of this classic brand to remake it as a lookalike to trendy private labels.

This is about on the same level as Kraft’s cheesy (no pun intended) redesigns of the mayonnaise and Miracle Whip labels to hip-hop statements and their repackaging of their bottled salad dressings and barbecue sauces in tacky, cheap generic-looking bottles. The barbecue sauce no longer carries the iconic stamped bricks. Even store brands retain the bricks…for now. What are these people thinking?

Author

  • Dooney Tickner

    BrandlandUSA Contributing Writer and business historian Dooney Tickner is the owner of Dooney's Book Company in Ft. Walton Beach, Florida.

8 Comments

  1. Oh those sorry bastards. I wondered who was responsible for defiling of my Eight O’Clock coffee bag. Don’t show up in my town unless you bring bodyguards. And pfui to the rest of your ilk.

  2. glad I found this website! have learned MUCH! it seems our country has been bought out or is being bought out by FOREIGNERS!! Look at famous iconic “Smithfield hams”, wow, didnt know that China now OWNS so many of the iconic MEATS we grew up with and still eat!!! Smithfield, John Morrell, to name a few. AND who’s to say that the hogs arent being shipped to China for processing, and who KNOWS whats coming back in our meats? Oh my gosh!!! what have they done?? its all about money anymore! I’ll just grow/process my own foods from now on…you CANT TRUST ANY OF THE MANUFACTURERS ANYMORE! and the farmers are being corrupted also……woe is US

  3. What would you expect from a foreign multinational corporate portfolio; more money than brains. How would they have the foggiest idea of what Americans buy. Too bad, At the end of the day the only losers are us the consumer.

  4. I am 62 and have loved and bought the coffee in the old bag for most of those years. The old saying, “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” comes to mind. I agree it stuck out and now I find it blends in. My allegiance will too. I have already tried Maxwell House 100% Columbian and it is pretty good. The guys who thought up the change for the coffee were probably the guys fired from Coca Cola when they decided to change that, remember?

  5. ARE YOU CRAZY……Changing the Eight O’Clock coffee package. Fire that person or people. The new package is regular “run of the mill”, it will blend in with all the other packaging…..if anything my market or markets are always running short of the product because it is selling….Boy are your sales going to plummet Lets try to save one wonderful package that has been lighting up our lives and taste buds for so many years. The packaging is an icon. I’m upset and will not go crazy trying to find the new package…..but I would love to copy the old package and use it for my own business unfortunately you won’t give it up…..why…..because it’s wonderful and you smart people know it, the new and younger generation should be taught to market well by using the old packaging as an example of success. We want our good old fashioned “stick out in a crowd” kind of packaging and not a copy of everyone else’s, your sales will not increase but advertising will, if thats your problem and it must be otherwise this wouldn’t have happened.
    Catherine Cremaldi
    cat1313@comcast.net

  6. WE need to boycot all things TATA. How dare they tamper with perfection. The new bag is so generic, I feel it is chickory and not real coffee.
    What a mistake!!!!

  7. Something I consider to be an important update regarding Eight O’clock Coffee: the product is now controlled by TATA of India. A google search of TATA shows them to be a huge corporation in India and with a rather shadowy reputation in the US, having been involved in class action litigation for reportedly shameful employment practices. I doubt that TATA will have any regard for preserving the classic old American A&P coffee label and red bag for Eight O’Clock.

  8. I am also very disappointed that Eight O’clock Coffee will be getting a label makeover. What is the point in changing its famous red bag and black Art Deco lettering to some tacky, undistinuished new bag and lettering? It makes no sense and will likely not be easily recognized by legions of Eight O’clock Coffee buyers who may just think this new package is somehow a knock off of genuine Eight O’clock Coffee. Confusion like that often happens when an iconic brand is mucked around with and the results are usually disastrous. I will not buy Eight O’clock Coffee if they change the package and lettering. And I agree that the new awful lettering for Miracle Whip makes the product appear to be dead bargain basement. Bring back the Miracle Whip classic label and lettering.

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