Unlabelled tins

[Teael]

I was just thinking about how we used to economise when I was a child, for obvious reasons given the current climate. Lots of it was pretty miserable, and I'm not nostalgic for going back there at all.

Does anyone else remember their parents bulk buying unlabelled tins? So you didn't know what you were getting for tea until you opened them and cobbled it together? Often they'd be dented, or out of date, but not always. Sometimes they'd have the contents on in marker pen.

Why were there so many without labels? Can you still do this? How did we not accidentally eat dog food?!

Does anyone else remember this? Or remember other weird money saving things that don't make sense now?

That sounds like an amazing lucky dip opportunity - I'd love to try that!

My fave childhood economy was buying boxes of broken biscuits - again for that lucky dip angle. Sometimes it would disappointingly be an entire box of the same biscuit, but I loved it when it was a good mix and you'd even get a few chocolate ones.

A local independent shop still sells things like broken biscuits, packets of miss-shapen jaffa cakes and wagon wheels and so on. Even packs of the cut-off ends of fruit cakes!

Oh yes, broken biscuits!

I didn't know until adulthood that ravioli wasn't really slimy stuff from a tin!

The range still often sell the broken biscuits.
We have a market stall that sells the broken ones. Big tubs for £1. All branded. Jammie dodgers, jaffa etc but just a bit broken.

Do FarmFoods still sell boxes of broken (Foxes?) biscuits?

Yes I remember the tins. I was born in the 1960's but remember them from the 1970's.
I think they were ex army surplus if I recall. Really nice food.

Yes - broken biscuits and dented tins

The dented tins can’t be healthy

Grew up in a v deprived area, hope this is not going to be a mainstream thing

I remember this but we never had them.

Yy to broken biscuits though.

And, my nan used to work in a chocolate factory so we got seconds from there.

Iceland do broken biscuits.

My mum used to get unlabelled tins in the 80s from lord knows where.

Sometimes just had a sticker with “sweet” or “savoury” on them.

My parents didn’t purposely buy unlabelled tins…but me and my sister spent a hell of an afternoon ripping all the labels off once “Tin Can Surprise” for dinner for a couple of weeks after that

How do the biscuits get broken? I hope they're not all off the floor and trodden on.

In my misspent youth I wrote a letter tongue in cheek to a biscuit manufacturer (probably McVities) asking them to remove the biscuit at the top of the pack as it was always broken!

They were very good sports in those says and replied thanking me for letting them know and I got a free pack of biscuits as thank you!

We had bags of broken biscuits, and bags of chocolate miss-shapes.

Army surplus! That would make sense. I was trying to think why so many tins got their labels removed. I don't remember them being 'really nice food'.

@Teael

Army surplus! That would make sense. I was trying to think why so many tins got their labels removed. I don't remember them being 'really nice food'.

We had a whole lot of tins without labels. It turned out to be really nice quality, slow braised steak in gravy. Gorgeous. I remember my mum getting them and having it with peas and buttered mash as a treat.

Maybe we got lucky!