The universe of what we buy in the grocery store often comes from but a few large food manufacturers. The share of pork, beef or chicken comes from but a few major distributors.
But back in the 1950s, regional brands were still a powerful part of the landscape, not only in farm products, where there were local canneries, but in seafood.
Here, the array of brands from Virginia’s Northern Neck, as seen at the Morattico General Store, now the Morattico Waterfront Museum. Today, the museum has a wall of local shucking house oyster brands. This array indicates the large number of regional shucking houses, dependent on the oysters of the Chesapeake Bay.
What is also evident, before modern printing, is the vast colors and typography that helped sell these products. In a time when it was much harder to have items printed, the graphics and color were actually better. Each indicated a different family, and a different company. There was no branding, in a modern sense of marketing, only the simple delivery of product, in an elegant way.
We can get back to this approach.
To learn more, visit the museum in Lancaster County, Va.
