Crazy Rare Star Wars Food Packaging

Gus writes:

 Over the past couple of years, I've been seeking out rare, and in some cases, previously unknown, Star Wars food packaging from the vintage years. It is hard to believe that after so many years we are still discovering new food items from the early years of Star Wars, but some of these promotions were so limited and very few were saved, that this area is ripe for new discoveries. In some cases, I've consulted food collectors and experts in other countries to get information and confirm instances of early food packaging. In other cases, we were able to reasonably conjecture the existence of packaging examples based on a Star Wars premium known from that time, since people generally save the premiums, but not the packaging. 

Here are some examples of these discoveries from the past few years, starting with Allen's Grape Drink from Canada. This is a fruit drink that existed in Canada in the late 70s and is still available today. The labels on the cans promoted a Star Wars "fighter contest" in English and French with prizes such as t-shirts and other Star Wars memorabilia. Allen's also came in other flavors of fruit juices at the time, but it is unknown whether this promotion extended to those flavors in addition to the grape drink.

Star Wars wasn't released in the United Kingdom until late 1977, but was heavily promoted leading up to and following the December 27, 1977 release. One of the early promotions was on cans of Heinz baked beans. Labels on the 220g and 447g cans featured a mail away offer for Star Wars Helix school sets. The Helix school sets were also sold at retail in a plastic case with Han Solo and Chewbacca on the cover.

Now for something really weird and unfortunately, highly offensive. In all my years covering Star Wars collectibles, I've seen some controversial stuff, but I've never felt compelled to censor an image. Until now. This product is so bad that we don't want it shared publicly in its original form. It's a cookie wrapper from France from the late 1970s from Brun's brand of Papou cookies that sadly used a racist caricature that remarkably they found acceptable for the French market at the time. Moving on from that, the wrapper shows a radio-controlled R2-D2 as a contest prize. Brun's contest on Papou and Palmito cookies offered the chance to win one of these R2-D2 toys or Star Wars posters. Brun continued to do food promotions on their Palmito brand for The Empires Strikes Back in France in 1980.

The next image shows two items: a 4 pack bag for Oh Henry! candy bars from Canada with a Star Wars mask promotion from the late 1970s along with a Lowney's Oh Henry! candy bar wrapper from the same period. Unlike the U.S. where the Oh Henry! brand was owned by Hershey's, in Canada, Oh Henry! was marketed by the Lowney's corporation. These bags contained four 50g bars of Oh Henry! and also promoted the Official Star Wars Fan Club. 

For The Empire Strikes Back, Express Dairy did a promotion on milk containers in the U.K. The premium for this promotion is a cool AT-AT Walker Hoth Battle poster which is fairly difficult to find. But an even more challenging piece is this milk ring packaging promoting the poster mail away offer. This ring went around glass bottles of Express Dairy milk. It also promoted The Empire Strikes Back soundtrack by RSO Records that was sold in Woolworth and Boots stores in the U.K.

One of the best examples of the disparity in scarcity between the premiums and the packaging occurs with the York Peanut Butter promotion in Canada for The Empire Strikes Back. The six character discs that were found on the insides of York Peanut Butter lids are still easily found today, however the jars promoting this offer are extremely scarce. This is a 500g jar of York "Crunchy" Peanut Butter. There was also a jar of "Smoothy" peanut butter shown in promotional literature but I'm not aware of one of those jars in a collection.

For Return of the Jedi, Konga did a tie-in with PBP in Spain where kids could enter to win Return of the Jedi action figures. The action figure line was shown on bottles of cola, lemon, and orange drinks. So far, we know of two 2 liter bottles of Konga Cola that sit in collections featuring this promotion, and there may be more out there, but have not documented any known examples of Konga Limón or Konga Naranja.

The Doriana margarine containers from Argentina are arguably the toughest Star Wars food packaging set to complete. I don't know a single collector who has ever assembled the entire set of 14 margarine tubs. The containers were also the premiums as the lids were meant to be cut out to create plastic character standees. So when they are found, they are often cut from the lids. An uncut, intact lid is super difficult to find, and an entire margarine container with a Star Wars lid is next to impossible.  

And finally, Crecs potato chips in Spain offered stickers for the Droids and Ewoks cartoon series. The cartoons were widely popular in Spain with a large variety of product. Similar to other food packaging, people don't typically save potato chip bags from almost 40 years ago, but they do save stickers. These bags are super fragile with a flimsy foil banner across the front with the Droids and Ewoks characters.

Got (Blue) Milk?

Gus writes:

 For the completist collector, there is nothing more nerve-wracking than a regional promotion. It’s hard enough to track down international items, but finding variations within a country are a whole other level of madness. 

For May the 4th in 2024, the Dairy Farmers of America brands did a nationwide milk promotion in the U.S. The most prominent item offered was “Blue Milk” under the TruMoo brand which was sold across most of the country, like the blue milk seen in the original Star Wars in 1977. But the promotion went far beyond one national brand with Star Wars-themed 1% lowfat, 2% reduced fat, fat free, and whole milk across 22 regional brands with labels featuring Chewbacca, Yoda, Leia, and Luke, respectively. There were also some size variations, the blue milk appeared on some regional brands, and there was even a nuanced 1.5% fat milk for those milk connoisseurs who need that precise balance between lowfat and reduced fat milk! Some of these brands were only available in one or two states such as Alta Dena in California, Cass Clay in North Dakota, Country Fresh in Illinois and Michigan, Creamland in New Mexico, Gandy's in Texas, Hygenia in Texas, Oak Farms in Louisiana and Texas, Oakhurst in Maine and New Hampshire, Price's in New Mexico and Texas, and Tuscan in New Jersey and New York.

We documented 97 different milk containers across this promotion. Because it was so daunting to assemble a complete set, I only went after them opportunistically where I knew friends who might be able to find them for me, since it was impossible to find them all on my own. This photo shows 44 of the known 97 milk containers from the promotion, and since taking the photo I have increased my count to 49 different milk jugs, which is just over half of the set. Also, two of these pictured here (the Turner's blue Bantha milk containers in the bottom right) are from a promotion in Pennsylvania from a couple years ago.