Legacy grocery stores are winning with private label products.



Whole Foods, Central Market, and Metropolitan Market are but a few of the companies leveraging grocerant style fresh and prepared food to build top line sales and bottom line profits. Private label sale are reported to be 18%. However most grocery stores and tracking firms do not record or claim their fresh prepared food sales. That alone can push the 18% much higher. When you add in store prepared meat, fish, poultry and bakery products private label again moves into a new and increasingly valuable position much higher than 18%.


Walmart has focused on price to drive sales in doing so they quit requesting “trade funds”. Instead they focused on driving customer value while building consumer loyalty with private label products that shout competitiveness.

Legacy food retailers the ilk of A&P that have been focused on driving inside margins through trade funds that manufactures offer can’t stop taking the money it’s like a “monetary drug fix”. The problem is the companies relying on trade funds are all going to go the way of A&P.

With that said, there are many additional food retailers who are doing an excellent job with private label, such as Wegmans, Byerly's, Dorothy Lane, Stew Leonard's etc. If success leaves clues building strong fresh and prepared private label food programs at the retail level rank very high.

Since 1991 Foodservice Solutions® of Tacoma, WA has been the global leader in the Grocerant niche. For product or brand positioning assistance contact Steven A. Johnson and Foodservice Solutions® or visit http://www.linkedin.com/in/grocerant or on Facebook at Steven Johnson, BING / GOOGLE: Steven Johnson Grocerants or twitter.com/grocerant