Are you buying "artisan, small-batch" canned veggies that purport to be locally produced?

I think he meant that the "brand" costs more, with no added value.

A better example is hotdog rolls. The supermarket brand is usually 20% less and literally sits next to the "name" brand in your area. The Bimbo/Weston/Freihoffers/etc hotdog rolls are literally the same thing, deliveried by the same guy and baked in the same place!

See: http://www.bimbobakeriesusa.com/our_brands/

Although, companies like Vlassic are now shipping pickled vegetables in jars that resemble mason jars to look like the more artisanal products.

From the Green Giant website, "Premium Le Sueur® brand vegetables come from the birthplace of the Green Giant® brand—Le Sueur, Minnesota—where they’re grown in the rich, fertile soil of the Minnesota River Valley."

So, is Green Giant doing the same thing if the same farmer/field/canning facility supplies peas to generic/supermarket brands?

What MGP/Green Giant are doing is just fine. I've no objection to that. The issue is the "craft distillers" passing off MGP's stuff as their own, claiming it's done with their own proprietary yeast blends and family recipes and whatnot.

Look, for example, at http://templetonrye.com/wp-content/themes/Templeton-Rye/docs... which is linked in the article.

> At Templeton Rye, we’re proud to say we use our own proprietary yeast culture propagated in-house and developed exclusively for whiskey production.

That's entirely deceptive. It's as if Whole Foods resold Green Giant products saying "grown with our family's heirloom seeds!"