Jesse Newman’s Post

Are the brands Great Value, Private Selection and Signature Select in your supermarket shopping cart? These sorts of "store brands" are taking business from big food companies across the grocery store. Long regarded as lower-cost imitations of household brand names in cookies, condiments and toilet paper, retailers see a chance to invest in "private label" products at a time when shoppers are looking for any break from high prices. And increasingly, their goal isn’t just to emulate national brands, but to beat them on quality and selection. Jesse Newman and Stephanie Stamm on the grocery store turf battle, via The Wall Street Journal:

Interesting article on how today’s stretched consumers are opting for lower cost store brands, which account for 22% of all grocery sales. With lower price points and improved quality perceptions, it’s getting harder and harder for brands to retain loyalty, especially in categories where it’s tough for consumers to really know the difference. I recall someone saying to me during some shopper research years ago, salt is salt isn’t it, why would it matter if I buy own label over a brand? That logic applies equally to all the ‘commodities’ like sugar, vinegar, rice, vaseline but also potentially to items like pretzels and pasta where the manufacturing process is not necessarily understood. So how can brands stay in consumers’ hearts and minds, and shoppers’ baskets, in this environment without relying on price promotion? I checked out my pantry and here are my four personal examples – what examples do you all have to share! ALEX’S HONEY – its local to the area I live in so tastes better and is more sustainable. PAUL NEWMAN SALAD DRESSING – tastes great and profits support children’s causes. BETTY CROCKER – it’s tradition, I grew up with this and so did my kids. BONNE MAMAN – it definitely costs more, but it is simply just better and delivers the quality every time.

If you're a #cpg brand, it is tough to compete on price with Store Brands, especially with #foodinflation continuing to climb at 3-4%. When you can't take #pricing because it will further erode your topline, then what do you do? Great companies do two things: 1. You invest in innovation. And real innovation, not a lot of meaningless flavor line extensions. 2. You invest in a structured, resourced #costsavings program that will provide the funding to better compete versus Store Brands. I don't do Innovation. But I do Consumer-focused cost savings. Let me know if your brand or business needs help...

https://lnkd.in/gg9RXpEA #retail #cpg #supermarkets #grocercies #consumertrends #privatelabels #Walmart #Kroger #Costco #Aldi #TraderJoes #Circana From cookies, to mustard to pretzels, consumers are displaying an affinity for private labels over national brands, based on data from market-research firm Circana. Rising food prices, increased development of private labels and aggressive private label pricing, is grabbing consumer attention and wallets.

From pretzels to pet food, store-brand goods are gaining on big-name brands: ‘Our food budget had exploded’ Goodbye, Chips Ahoy cookies and French’s mustard. Hello…Great Value, Private Selection and Signature Select. U.S. consumers are trying many tactics to cut their food spending: eating out less, buying less groceries and ditching name brands. That is boosting lower-cost store brands, which last year claimed 22 cents out of every dollar spent in grocery stores—the largest share ever for so-called private-label products. National brands are still king in the U.S., making up 78% of overall food and beverage dollar sales, according to data from the market-research firm Circana. But store brands, manufactured by companies including TreeHouse Foodsincrease; for such retailers as Walmart and Kroger, and are gaining ground, raising pressure on big food companies that have pushed their prices higher. #privatelabel #retail #groceryindustry MaryEllen Lynch Sally Lyons Wyatt Circana Jesse Newman Stephanie Stamm https://lnkd.in/egbCp4nr

💸Inflation is the gift that keeps on giving.🎁 🎯Americans are hunting for lower cost private label goods in the #grocery aisle as food price #inflation continues to impact household budgets while boosting business for store-directed manufacturing and #distribution.🚚 🛒According to the The Wall Street Journal, private label goods now represent a record 22% of grocery store spending, following a 26% increase in food prices over the past five years.😧 🏪Traditional brands have taken a hit while #retailers like Walmart are investing more in private labels and store-brand specialists like Aldi are expanding rapidly.⏫ 🏭Henk Hartong, a private label #supplier CEO, highlights the need for retailers to secure additional #manufacturing capacity to leverage their own brands effectively.🛍

"The quality of private-label offerings has improved markedly, with more resources devoted to product development, packaging, marketing and more. In many cases, retailers’ goal now isn’t just to emulate national brands, but to beat them, analysts said." Excerpted from The Wall Street Journal article by Jesse Newman and Stephanie Stamm. And, per Numerator data, 71% of shoppers who recently bought new Bettergoods ice cream 𝙙𝙞𝙙 𝙣𝙤𝙩 𝙠𝙣𝙤𝙬 it was owned by Walmart. ***𝗧𝗵𝗲𝗿𝗲'𝘀 𝗺𝗼𝗿𝗲 𝗴𝗼𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗼𝗻 𝘄𝗶𝘁𝗵 𝗽𝗿𝗶𝘃𝗮𝘁𝗲 𝗹𝗮𝗯𝗲𝗹 𝘁𝗵𝗮𝗻 𝗷𝘂𝘀𝘁 𝘀𝗵𝗼𝗽𝗽𝗲𝗿𝘀 𝘁𝗿𝗮𝗱𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗱𝗼𝘄𝗻 𝗼𝗻 𝗽𝗿𝗶𝗰𝗲*** In our own 2024 #Snack50 report, we see incredibly high 𝗜𝗻𝘁𝗲𝗿𝗲𝘀𝘁 in store brands, but shoppers have not yet converted to full 𝘼𝙘𝙩𝙞𝙤𝙣 - they're not yet part of the routine. And factors way beyond mere price are driving a lot of this Interest and exploration. My run-through of our findings relative to current dynamics: https://lnkd.in/g_KzyAeJ https://lnkd.in/g-6wdwiG Walmart, Target, Amazon, ALDI USA, Frito-Lay, Kellanova, Campbell's, Mondelēz International, McCormick & Company, Trader Joe's, Nestlé, WK Kellogg Co, The Hershey Company, TreeHouse Foods, Costco Wholesale, Sam's Club, Conagra Brands, Tyson Foods, Mars, Circana, NielsenIQ

🚨📉 **Target's Price Slash Bonanza: Good Move or Risky Business?** 📉 👀 **Heads Up, Shoppers!** 👀 Target has just announced some jaw-dropping price cuts on about 5,000 popular items, with plans to slash prices on even more over the summer! 🌞🛒 🛍️ From essentials like Good & Gather Frozen Chicken Breast to sports drinks and household staples, the price reductions are everywhere! Just in time for Memorial Day, 4th of July, and the back-to-school rush. 🎉🍗🧃 But here's where it gets interesting... 🤔 **Target vs. Walmart** 🥊 The retail giant is going toe-to-toe with Walmart on prices at a time when inflation is squeezing everyone's budget. 💸📈 Target's EVP, Rick Gomez, says they're here to help customers save more. But is this really the right move? 🤷♂️ As someone who's been in the retail game for a while, I've seen these strategies before. They don't always work out, especially with everyday staples. Unless Target has some solid data showing they're losing out to competitors, this seems like a risky play. 🎲⚠️ I'm super curious to see how this pans out! Will the price cuts drive more foot traffic and boost sales, or could it potentially hurt their margins and Top Line? 🏃♂️💸📉 🔍 What do you think? Is Target making the right move by slashing prices, or is this a gamble that might not pay off? Let's discuss! 💬👇 #Target #RetailStrategy #PriceCuts #Inflation #Walmart #ConsumerSavings #RetailTrends #CuriousAndSkeptical #RetailWars

Great Value is great... but Walmart hopes Bettergoods will be even better. (Better for the bottom line, that is.) "Already the country’s largest grocer, the company is introducing a line of premium food called Bettergoods this year, aiming to attract new, often higher income shoppers more frequently and to encourage current shoppers to spend more." Is it silly for a retailer to have two private labels? No, it's actually quite smart. In my Retail Marketing Strategies course, I include an article in the syllabus awkwardly called “Two Tier Brands: The Benefic Impact of a Value Brand on Perceptions of a Premium Brand”, originally published by the Journal of Retailing in 2011. The article contains three interesting findings: 💡 When a retailer offers ONE private label store brand, consumers expect it to be of lower quality even when it's described as a premium brand. 💡 But the quality perception of a PREMIUM store brand increases in the presence of a VALUE store brand! AND... 💡 Quality perceptions of a VALUE store brand are not affected by the presence of a premium store brand. In English? "Great Value" should continue to be perceived as great value for Walmart shoppers AND should help the new Bettergoods brand be seen as more premium -- win-win! I'm excited to try Bettergoods when the brand launches in Canada... are you? #grocery #retail #privatelabel #storebrand P.S. You can read the full article using my WSJ Subscriber Gift Link below. P.P.S. If you're thinking, "Wait a second, what about Sam's Choice?", here's a quote from The Wall Street Journal article that answers that question... "consumers [were] confused about how Great Value products differed from Walmart’s other brand, Sam’s Choice. That brand—named after Walmart’s founder—was created in 2013 as a more premium range. Over the years it became too similar to Great Value and its packaging didn’t stand out to shoppers... Current Sam’s Choice products—about 200 items—will shift to Great Value or Bettergoods or disappear"

This weekend I got an email from someone with questions about a product...but it took me 2 emails & several questions to figure out that it was a product we sell in the Deli. (sorry, I'm not a mind reader!) Although I work for a supermarket, I don't intimately know every product sold. Do you know the typical supermarket can have as many as 300K SKU's? (The average grocery store today has 300,000+ SKUs, nearly eight times more than the average store of the 1970s. - https://lnkd.in/eGXJaUde) ...SKU stands for STOCK KEEPING UNIT Of course, that depends on how large the store is and how much variety they have. The type and number of products change often...in Produce it depends on the season...in other, non-perishable areas of the store, in may depend on promotions, new items and how well products are selling.