"Regional" american detergents.......

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kenmoreguy89

kenmoreguy89

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Joined
Feb 23, 2010
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Valenza Piemonte, Italy- Soon to be US immigrant.
It is a curiosity I wanted to get an answer:

Are there any laundry  detergents that are local to your state/area and can be find only there or vicinities?

 I spent much time of my time while in USA in KS also ME and MA and occasionally NY state NYC exactly....but as mentioned in my other thread I just managed to find once in Maine some detergents local of the place, at a Store specialized in Maine products called Renys....... do not remember the brands... some of these "local" detergents were also sold at local Dollar Tree.....and few shops around there.....

Now just wondering if there're any detergents that you know are produced and sold in your state/ area only or  anyway vicinities or even regions, not known nationwide......if yes what are their brands? Have you ever tried them?

This is just a curiosity I wanted to know.....
Thanks in advance.

 
 
Hi Freddy, I shop my local Reny's and also Marden's (both local Maine discount stores) regularily, as you never know what they are going to have in stock. But I have never noticed anything detergent wise that was made local there, as most of what they buy and sell at a big discount at retail are either from a fire/out of business sale or sometimes, off brands that may or not be good. Reny's does tend to stock as much local items as they can and better name brands. Both tend to have lots of good values but you never know what you are going to find at each one as their inventory changes so fast.
 
Tim: Yes, they change very often inventory at Renys, they also make special deals for limited time for certain detergents  or products that would not be indeed on  theit regular stock over usual time....

But, I managed to find those local detergents more than one time, they were in their regular stock.... I cannot remember the brands even if I'm trying to remind them from alot.....I just remember powders being in white paper boxes  with the brand  wrote yellow with light blue red and orange draws/strips,  one liquid came in a small plastic grey/metallic color bottle with violet and blue draws on the sticker and a  "strange" violet  flat cap like the ones in water bottles.....

Just do not know......
Jamie: Thanks,  Texise is just right the type of small company and brand  of detergent I mean't! Greensville SC right? Did a little research!  :D  Looks an unknown brand in other states..... you also mention White King....I know it was  a brand of  laundry soap, bars and flakes, successively developped in powder? But known nationwide if I'm correct?  I know this brand not being even born in those years nor living  in Ca.... never been there also, I may be wrong but looks  it was famous nationwide..... I can actually find many VTG ads sold all over the country on Ebay.....may be a case though...

BTW I know white King being an actual brand in Australia though!

It is particular the fact that in US there're not many  local detergents manufacturers and brands you might know being known in certain areas only, of course small factories I mean....
In Italy is so  usual to have local  small  factories that would produce detergents you can find in that area mostly and only......
I just recall of the FP products being sold here in Northern Italy only which company and factory is in Veneto region and sold in all the Po Valley  mostly and almost exclusively from Valle D'Aosta to Friuli.....or the Fax lavatrice detergent being produced and sold  mostly in the deep south exactly Campania  region (discovered it by a trip I had time ago Calabria region)......but like them there're many small  local companies that produce detergents sold mostly and almost exclusively in that  area and or regions.....

And Italy is such a little country......
This is interesting and particular to me....I'm sure there's a why in US small local companies of detegents looks not so usual, just cannot think of it....someone got any ideas of the why?

Thanks again all for commenting

 

[this post was last edited: 9/5/2012-15:27]
 
In Midwest here we have Always Save and Best Choice branded detergents powdered and liquicg.  All owned by AWG in Kansas City, Kansas

 

 

 

 

awgbrands.com

AWG Brands

The mission of AWG Brands is to create member retailer value and grow total business by building consumer price perception across the store through well-positioned brands that deliver low prices and…
awgbrands.com awgbrands.com
 
Regional soap makers were that way because of shipping expense. The classic example of that was makers of chlorine bleach...the economical shipping distance for chlorine bleach (94.75 percent water) was only about 90 miles. There was a famous court case where P&G wanted to buy Clorox (to get the number 1 chlorine bleach brand nationwide). The Federal Trade Commission said no...P&G couldn't leverage it's no 1 position in the soap/detergent/softener market to get the position in the bleach market too; they had to unwind the merger.

That said, there are many local soap companies which provide industrial/commercial soap and detergent products...growing up in St. Louis, there were at least a couple. GS Robins (my dad was in purchasing for a chemical company---bought janitorial supplies from them) which had a laundry detergent sold in 25 pound bags which my dad would bring home and my mom would re-sell to the neighbors...remember it very vaguely. Also there was a company which sold Borax-Sudz (Centraz) which is available to commercial accounts in and around St. Louis.

They mainly sold through the local department store (Famous-Barr) which featured their detergent in their notions department (the point was to just phone the store and have a 25/50/100 lb carton/barrel delivered...no one actually bought it at the department store). Famous-Barr had that type of merchandise (patent medicines/bandages/detergent/mothballs/sundries) in an ad every couple weeks in the Post-Dispatch...although the stores had small notions departments it was more a convenience thing...call the phone order department and put it on your Famous charge and have it delivered. Perhaps it was unusual for St. Louis (they had a couple of the big moth-ball companies, for instance, based there) but I think most leading department stores in the 50s and 60s did the same thing (for instance am pretty sure that Marshall Fields had a complete line of private-label home care goods)...
 
So if I did understand well manufacturers "preferred"  to make sell them  to regional/state  shops chains and start a distributinting trade with them which sometimes used to make of them their store brands, instead of paying to distribuite what would have been their own brand, as it was too expensive, right?
Well that would make sense  I was just thinking of it with the "italian" point of view on this thing as the space from town to town is much closer than in USA....so it would cost less to bring stuff within a certain region from city to city......

 
 
Kenmoreguy89 I have never tried it.  It is a good low price gut it is in large buckets or boxes and we get the Sears.  If they had a smaller box would get and try.  It has to be concentrated like the Sears Ultra.  I just do not know how well it works.  I know it moves fairly well.  AWG is a big comany and the Harp's Supermarket chain my wife works for uses them in accounting in their corpiorate office.  The are Harp'sPrice Cutter/Pric e Chopped and Food $ Less.  Have about 80 Stores here in Arkansas, Misouri and Oklahoma

 

Here is their web page.  Sometimes the weekly adds will have detergent.  They are award winners for thier cakes.

 

Harps Foods

www.harpsfood.com www.harpsfood.com
 
All I was trying to say was that before shipping got easy and relatively cheap, and when media was more localized, it made sense to have smaller manufacturers at retail in more local areas (just as you were saying about brands/mfgrs from southern Italy...it's expensive to ship finished items to the "heel of the boot".
 
Jamie

Jamie sorry but I'm not sure I can understand well your speeches....

So you say that before was a common thing having local smaller manufacturers in local shop as shipping was easier and cheaper?  Right?
What you say it is logical that is more expensive to ship finished products to the "heel of the boot" or  more far away....that is the why they're sold only "locally" but that is logical.... this is not the question I wanted to get an answer.....

As you talk of before:

You say that  before was common  in USA to have local detergents sold in local stores,  so assuming that now is not so used I'm just wondering on what now has changed though, of course gas price, and and bigger stores of "standardized" chains actually having the same stock for everything, but cannot help but think to think about Italy where gas price is more than the  double if not even triple than USA and taxes are really alot.....so it still makes me wonder why in Italy it is  still used to have detergents  and brands made  and sold locally,  while in USA looks it is not

The only explanation I could give  to myself is the one above of the spaces.....of course stores also changed  and now many more national  "standardized" chains are everywhere, but small  local or local chains  "not national chains" ones still widely exist. Anyway this fact of the standardized chains is just a guess, but actually  national or not they could anyway decide to keep something more in the detergent stock and so a few local ones  than maybe another elesewhere I think .....

I'm confused at this point....

 
 
Lots of changes in the US over the last 50 years has led us to have more of a "single market" where national brands are king...1. media---become much more nationally focused (fewer local media....only a single newspaper per city 2. interstate highway system finished 3. fewer local retailers (now it's WalMart-Kroger-Target-KMart). Compare that to Europe: 1. still competitive media in a lot of places 2. transportation and energy expensive 3. still not as concentrated in the retail sector.
 
That is because europe is not structured like US that is a whole nation while europe is just a group of countries so different among them.....
For example carrefour "french chain" known in many states of europe actually carry local detergents in each country and different local brands of region and or areas of where the stores are , as for other national shops  chains of Italy in which you could find different local brands sold only in certain of these stores in those areas ...in my town we have just a few family owned stores, all the rest are national chains.....

Medias does  not make difference here in Italy local Media just disappeared  the same way, and BTW those local products does not even  ever get advertised.

So what you say would be a reason, but can't explain totally why they could not anyway carry local detergents.....at least from how I see things....

[this post was last edited: 9/6/2012-07:06]
 

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