By all accounts, the private label sectors of the snack and bakery markets are doing quite well. Overall, across all food and beverage categories, store brands accounted for about half of all sales growth recorded in major U.S. retail channels, according to the 2019 “Private Label Yearbook” from the Private Label Manufacturer’s Association (PLMA), with dollar sales advancing 4.4 percent in 2018 and unit sales increasing 3.1 percent. Compare this to the 1.1 percent rise in dollars spent on national brands (and the 0.4 percent decrease in units sold) and it becomes obvious that consumers are increasingly interested in private label.
This momentum doesn’t appear to be slowing down anytime soon. PLMA says this is part of a five-year trend that has seen private label dollar volume in the mass retail channel surge 41 percent, compared with a gain of only 7.4 percent for national brands.