Smart & Final Modernizes Private Label Packaging
With more than 250 stores in California, Nevada, and Arizona, Smart & Final has a major presence in the southwestern portion of the U.S.
Private label products under its own brand First Street and Sun Harvest continue to play a significant role at the retailer, which introduced one of the earliest retail private brands in the United States more than a century ago.
With a growing and evolving customer base that consists of private households and businesses, the Smart & Final team recently undertook a brand refresh to meet changing consumer preferences and tastes. Following extensive work, the new packaging offers a modern look that prominently features the product in each package.
Recently Store Brands spoke with key executives at Smart & Final, Bob Wagner, vice president of Private Label, and Todd Fryer, director of Private Label, about the importance and impact of the retailer’s packaging redesign.
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Smart & Final has updated the packaging for its First Street private brand. -
Smart & Final has updated the packaging for its First Street private brand. -
Smart & Final has updated the packaging for its First Street private brand. -
Smart & Final has updated the packaging for its First Street private brand.
STORE BRANDS: What were some motivating factors that led Smart & Final to redesign the packaging for its private label assortment?
TODD FRYER: It had been several years since we last revisited the packaging of our First Street label, which launched in 2010. Originally, our First Street logo featured a street scene that often took up the entire top third of the packaging. This greatly reduced the remaining space we had available to describe the quality and value of our products compared to national brands. Additionally, Smart & Final is unique among grocery retailers for its more than 3,000 club-size items, and our products come in a variety of shapes and sizes. The new design needed to work consistently throughout our product line. This led to our collaboration with MBD to develop the next generation of the First Street brand that would accommodate these requirements. Working with an external agency allowed us to loosen the reigns on our brand guidelines and have some fun with it.
STORE BRANDS: As you worked through the packaging redesign process, was there a specific message you were looking to convey?
FRYER: We wanted the products to have a strong on-shelf presence and communicate quality at a tremendous value. Some of our packaging in the past looked too plain or blended into the shelf. We wanted to stand out and demonstrate our pride in the First Street brand.
BOB WAGNER: You can design packaging that looks great on your desk in your office, and then you put it on a shelf, and all of a sudden it disappears and doesn’t look how you envisioned. MBD did a great job of presenting packaging designs on a shelf schematic to show us how it would look in stores. That was a big help as we went through the process.
STORE BRANDS: Are there any unique elements with the new packaging that you would like to highlight?
WAGNER: We updated a lot of the images we were using to focus on the product inside. This made everything more modern and much more relevant to the consumer.
STORE BRANDS: Have you received feedback from store associates or customers about the new packaging?
FRYER: Bob and I are out in stores a lot, and we get a lot of feedback from our associates. The bakery category was one of the first categories we updated as 90% of the products we sell in bakery are private label. We received a lot of positive feedback about the new packaging as it gave the bakery a lot more color.
WAGNER: We’ve come up with a new way to highlight our private label products to customers. We’re offering a free private label item each week via a digital coupon. We try to pick some of our newer, trendier snack items as well as some non-food items that customers can receive for free. Obviously, everybody likes something for free, but we’ve found it's a great way to show off the new packaging and reintroduce customers to these items.
STORE BRANDS: Going beyond the new packaging with Smart & Final’s private label products, what type of sales growth has the retailer seen in recent years with its own brand products?
WAGNER: Our private label penetration is more than 30% across the store, and we have some categories where the private label penetration rate is almost 100%. Our customers are trying to stretch their dollars further, and they recognize the value that First Street provides.
STORE BRANDS: Specific to Smart & Final, has there been expansion in existing categories or in categories where the retailer did not have a private label presence?
WAGNER: We continue to develop new items for every corner of our stores, however, this year we did enter a completely new category: over-the-counter medicine. In the past few months, we launched 15 items into the OTC category. It is exciting for us and provides great margins while helping us overcome some in-stock challenges with our national branded suppliers.