Podcast: Deliberate about store brands
Clearly, it’s an era of retailers aiming to grow their private brands programs. Giant Eagle, Yesway and ShopRite are three retailers looking to take their private brands to another level … and another level after that. Check out this podcast from Store Brands’ Editor-in-Chief Lawrence Aylward.
Highlights from podcast
• Brooke Hodierne, the vice president of own brands for Pittsburgh-based Giant Eagle, says she wants to grow Giant Eagle’s private label market share to a European-esque 40%, which she admitted is “super inspirational." Hodierne says Giant Eagle is taking a totally new approach to its private brands program. “We are thinking about our own brands differently,” she adds. “We used to be the me-too [product] and the fast-follower. But we’ve taken that model and thrown it out the window.”
• Derek Gaskins, senior vice president of merchandising and procurement for Des Moines, Iowa-based Yesway, a new fast-growing convenience store chain that will soon have about 500 stores in nine states, also has lofty goals for private brands. He wants Yesway to be the ALDI or Lidl of the convenience store channel when it comes to store brands. ALDI and Lidl, as you know, offer more than a 90% assortment of private brands. “Why can’t we be the Lidl or ALDI of the convenience channel?” he asks. “It’s an aspiration that we are treating very seriously. We want to be one of the innovative retailers.”
• Big changes are also coming to ShopRite’s private brands program. Chris Skyers, vice president of own brands for Wakefern Food Corp., the Keasbey, N.J.-based parent company of ShopRite, says he wants to take ShopRite’s store brands to 30% market share in the next five years. That market share is currently about 13%.