Food retailers increasingly offer a wider variety of private brands options in their stores and are strengthening their private brands value proposition. But it all comes down to which private brands categories shoppers actually purchase. That’s what we examined with IRI in Power of Private Brands: At the Register 2018 report.
In general, private brands are purchased by a majority of U.S. households with U.S. sales totaling $138 billion in calendar year 2017 across multiple retail outlets and convenience. In the grocery channel, private brand sales totaled $68 billion during the same time period. While overall private brand sales improved, it’s important to consider consumer trends in addition to where they are spending their food dollars. Supermarkets have stabilized their role as the “primary store,” but this status matters less as shoppers add on other non-traditional channels as frequently used sources. Remaining primary with consumers today does not mean maintaining a steady share of grocery trips, which is why we’re seeing private brands performing best outside of grocery. IRI’s experience indicates that the growth must therefore be coming from the Mass-Dollar-Club channel. It’s evident that the private brand picture depends on the channel.
So what’s a food retailer to do? To better understand potential growth opportunities for food retail private brands, let’s take a closer look at how private bands are preforming in specific categories and departments.
To read the rest of the story, please go to: Food Marketing Institute
