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tags: [] - coffee/history - coffee/business aliases: - commercial coffee brands - mass market coffee - Folgers Maxwell House created: 2026-05-10 updated: 2026-05-10

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Supermarket Coffee Brands

Tags: #coffee/history #coffee/business Aliases: commercial coffee brands, mass market coffee, Folgers Maxwell House Related: First Wave Coffee | Coffee as Commodity | Specialty Coffee MoC Status: 🌱 Stub

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Overview

Supermarket coffee brands — led by Folgers (founded 1850, owned by J.M. Smucker), Maxwell House (founded 1892, owned by Kraft Heinz), and Hills Bros. — dominated the US coffee market through the first wave era by competing on price, convenience, and advertising rather than quality. Their pre-ground, vacuum-canned products set the commodity baseline that the second and third waves explicitly rejected. These brands shaped mass consumer expectations of coffee as an undifferentiated, utilitarian product, a perception that specialty coffee has spent decades working to change.

Related Notes

• First Wave Coffee
• Coffee as Commodity
• Specialty Coffee MoC

References

• Pendergrast, Mark, Uncommon Grounds: The History of Coffee and How It Transformed Our World, 2010

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