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The producers have only themselves to blame. Some products, like Oreos, have so many varieties that there is little room for anything but all the different kinds of Oreos in the cookie section. Every variation on box-size, flavor, cookie size, etc. is available. Why are there vanilla Oreos when there are Vienna Fingers? Why are there vegetable flavored Ritz when there are Vegetable thins?

Every producer is trying to cut into every other producer's marketshare by loading up the shelves with dozens of similar products.

I would rather have each producer put its best foot forward, rather than one producer monopolizing the shelves.

Unfortunately many stores are trying to cut costs by having the distributors fill the shelves. This is basically like have the foxes guard the henhouse. You can bet that the distributors are enticed to pack the shelves with various overlapping products of one producer rather than giving each producer a fair piece of shelving real estate.

Also, a bunch of businesses went on a buying spree during the bubble and got in so much debt they had to cancel certain brands. Archer cookies is gone. No more windmill cookies for me because some global bakery conglomerate bought them up and then shuttered their bakeries.

The free market is being twisted around real bad right now. Another reason to get rid of the Fed and let the market set interest rates so we don't have these credit boom/bust cycles allowing the inmates to run the asylum.