The article is explicitly not about that.

The whole stated point of the article is that these things are neither real brands nor the absense of a brand.

> Aldi tries to signify that absence with a lackluster presence, with mock marketing that conveys minimal effort.

I read the article as being that actually. It’s the postmodern “generic” label. The traditional mocking of the brands, so to speak, were the plain black on white products from the 40 years ago, but today it won’t fly, it needs to have a self referential ironic flare. But idea is pretty much the same.

There was a Dutch version of this as well with the 'brand' name Van een goede fabriek ('From a good factory') which I used quite a bit while at university. It was packaged in white boxes/bags or jars/cans with white labels with the product type - 'macaroni', 'pindakaas' (peanut butter), 'aardbeienjam' (strawberry jam), 'tarwebloem' (wheat flour) - in brown letters on a yellow rectangle with a brown edge around it. It was very intentionally made to look 'cheap' and it mostly was, money-wise. The products were mostly OK, good enough quality for the non-too-discerning student I was. Were I to live in the Netherlands still and were those products still available I'd still buy some of them. Others - like peanut butter and jam - I tend to make myself now so there is no longer any need to buy such.

What’s your peanut butter recipe? I’d never really considered making my own.

Just salted peanuts plus a tablespoon of oil (peanut oil, rape seed oil, whatever). Dump these in a blender and blend 'till the right consistency is achieved. You'll probably have to help the blender a bit by stirring in the peanuts when the knives have created a hole in which they are spinning freely, repeat this until the mixture has gotten warm enough to start flowing by itself. Make sure not to touch the knives while doing this and use a wooden utensil to avoid damage to the knives. Plastic works as well but just in case you happen to touch the knives I'd advice using wood or you'll end up eating plastic.

A full jar of peanut butter takes about 1.5 to 1.8 jars of peanuts (and a tablespoon of oil) to produce.

It's also nice to get raw peanuts and roast them in the oven before blending.

That oven works fine for roasting raw coffee beans as well. Raw beans keep a very long time if stored correctly, pity though they tend to be sold as a luxury product and thus priced to match that description. A popcorn popper of the 'modified heat gun' type (aluminium cup with slits in the bottom through which hot air is blown) also works well for roasting coffee.

We had a store called Finast. Their store brand just said Finast and what was in the box, but the boxes were yellow instead or white.

Or in Canada, there's Loblaw's "No Name" store brand, with black Helvetica text on a bright yellow background:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_Name_(brand)