Walk into any supermarket today and you’ll see it. Shelves stacked not just with the household names you grew up with, but a whole suite of unfamiliar interlopers.
Own-brands or private labels have risen to the point that, in some cases, they are even pushing name-brands to the fringes. Often sporting sleek packaging and even slicker marketing, these aren’t the budget ranges that once graced the bottom shelves.
What was once a marginal tactic to create affordable alternatives, has become a defining force. In 2010, private labels made up 20% of FMCG sales in Western Europe. Now, they account for 36% of sales, with McKinsey projecting continuing slow but steady encroachment. Private labels are expected to make up 42% of the European grocery market by 2030.
So what’s driving their growing market share and the shift in perception?
Not long ago, private labels were the “cheap copy” – the domain of oddly flat ‘Cola Drinks’ and cardboard ‘Crispy Rice’ cereals. They were thought of as the lesser option. But consumer perception has shifted dramatically.
Many have become “dupes” in the cultural sense; savvy, socially acceptable, even desirable. Choosing a private label is no longer embarrassing, it’s respectable.
This isn’t happening out of nowhere. Retailers are investing more and more in quality and their efforts are paying off. 86% now say private label quality is as good as, or better than, name brands – a shocking rehabilitation.
Why are retailers aggressively upping the game for their private labels? The answer is simple: profitability. Owning the brand means no middleman and better margins.
Private labels afford retailers more control over the customer relationship (through data and loyalty programs), the distribution channels (owning both the shelf and the online shopping experience), and they can rapidly improve product quality through focused investment.
It’s a pattern playing out across the retail sector. Carrefour is aiming for 40% of sales from private labels by the end of next year. Target is investing in their private label fashion brand to bring ‘Newness, Style, and Value’ Asos treats its private labels like fast-fashion brands, pushing designs from sketch to market in just three weeks.
One stand out example is Aldi, a retailer whose shelves are stocked almost entirely with private labels (over 90%). Recently Aldi refreshed the branding for their private labels, shifting for the first time from generic brand names to create an official Aldi range. This marks a further development in their private label strategy, reflecting their confidence in consumer trust.
Aldi’s private label strategy is even paying off for them in the U.S. market, where private labels have made little headway in the past. Between 2019 and 2024, Aldi increased footfall by over 50% compared to an industry average of 11% and they have plans to open 800 more locations by 2028 as they continue to rise in profile. They are the fastest growing chain in the U.S. and a huge part of that comes down to the fact that their average basket cost is around 20% lower than rival discounters – a consequence of their private label forward approach.
For decades, name brands held all the cards. Legacy, loyalty, and marketing muscle created an aura of superiority that kept consumers reaching for “the original.” But today, those levers no longer pull with the same force. While shoppers still acknowledge the value of name brands, that perception no longer outweighs a growing demand for affordability.
Economic pressure driven by Inflation, rising interest rates, and soaring household debt have made shoppers far more deliberate. As budgets tighten, many consumers have re-evaluated what matters most and found loyalty is easy to shed. 70% have now tried private label products, and half say they plan to keep buying them. What once felt like a compromise has become a mainstream, even confident choice.
What started as a short-term way to save money has evolved into a more ingrained shift in behaviour. Consumers have realized private-label products offer a competitive proposition. Retailers have responded with better quality, bolder packaging, and more prominent shelf placement. Each improvement boosts confidence, encourages repeat purchases, and strengthens the category. The more people switch, the more retailers invest — and private label momentum grows.
The future for private labels isn’t limited to just being another brand on the shelf. Private labels are straying into becoming brands in their own right, shaping consumer choice, setting trends, and redefining what value really means.
In the UK, brands like Waitrose already have a long history of collaborating with celebrity chefs, using them not only to craft and promote whole meal and ingredient ranges, but even to engage across other media channels – with a comedian and Michelin starred chef hosting their widely successful podcast. Name brands with their narrower range and reach can’t easily make this sort of play, making it a concerning threat.
There are also other significant developments already emerging:
So far, it’s seemed like private labels are having it all their own way. However, name brands still have crucial advantages that supermarkets can’t match – distinctive brand equity, stronger emotional relevance, and greater control over manufacturing. These strengths give name brands a clear path to regaining their edge.
Name brands must flex their manufacturing power, using their control over production to react faster to emerging trends and cultural moments. Limited runs, seasonal editions, and creative product innovations can help them move at the speed of culture, something private labels struggle to match as they rarely own the manufacturing.
Brands often have the benefit of heritage and clearer positioning, while private labels are diluted and generic by nature (at least for now.) By actively sharing this with targeted collaborations and co-branded launches, it allows them to combine forces and share relevance, breathing fresh life and vitality into their brands. It also makes them able to tap into cultural zeitgeists and trends at opportune times, stepping across categories.
With retailers controlling both loyalty programmes and consumer data, name brands must reestablish their own gravitational pull. That means creating ecosystems of value that sit outside the aisle – tools, services, subscriptions, communities and experiences that keep people engaged even when they’re not shopping. This shifts loyalty from the shelf to the brand world, insulating them from private-label trade-downs.
Most brands compete within rules that private labels can cheaply mirror. Instead, brands can choose to set new standards that shoppers recognise and reward, from ethics to sustainability. Whether through cleaner ingredient profiles, regenerative practices, traceability or radical honesty, brands can set benchmarks private labels find hard to match.
Oreo deploys timely innovation like a superpower, quickly dropping crazy, limited-edition flavors (like Halloween cookies or the viral Wasabi stunt) that get people talking and snapping photos, which private label brands are too slow to match.
Not only that, by teaming up with massive other big name brands like Coca-Cola or cool brands like Supreme, they are constantly reinventing ways to stay front of mind. Yet at the same time, every one of these moves reinforces the value of the Oreo brand name itself
Both of these two areas are vital for brand names to evolve, and create new value for consumers that rediscovers and reinvents the unique advantages that made them household names in the first place.
Even in supermarkets, the home turf of private labels, few brands face more threat than Italian giant Barilla. Pasta and sauces represent some of the fiercest private label battlegrounds. And yet, it has continued to post steady volume and EBITDA growth, alongside rising brand value.
A large part of this success has been built on investment in their premium lines like ‘Al Bronzo’, which stress distinctive taste, texture and heritage. While private labels are strong at undercutting on price, they struggle more when brands lean the other way, using brand authenticity as a price lever.
Meanwhile, Barilla have also been proactive in looking towards innovation, opening a specialist center to increase their ability to keep up with market demands – from high protein pasta to pasta sauces that capitalise on the latest taste trends.
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