Challenge Butter is facing some challenging times in the year it is celebrating its 100th anniversary.
With its iconic packaging featuring an elk standing in front of a snow-covered mountain, it is a well-recognized brand. But in recent years Challenge and other brand-name butters are finding their market share being reduced by cheaper store-brand butters.
Sales of private-label butter were up 23 percent in the year ending June 2011, while sales of the overall butter market, which includes private label and name-brand butters, rose 19 percent in that time frame, according to an industry report released in August by Mintel, a Chicago-based marketing firm.
"We can see support for this in the growth of private-label butter sales over the past year, with consumers trading down from branded to private-label butter. From a sales perspective, private-label butter accounts for more than half of all butter sales" in food, drug and discount retailers excluding Wal-Mart Stores, Molly Maier, senior health and wellness analyst at Mintel, wrote in an email.
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