Store brand sales reached a record high in 2015

Store brand sales reached $118.4 billion in 2015, an all-time record and an increase of $2.2 billion from the previous year. In the past two years alone, annual sales increased 5 percent or $5.4 billion in the major retail channels, said the Private Label Manufacturers Association's (PLMA), New York, 2016 Private Label Yearbook.

Store brand dollar share also increased to the highest mark ever at 17.7 percent. Across all outlets combined, store brands sales grew 2 percent, a performance that equaled that of national brands, which also rose 2 percent, PLMA said.

In unit sales, both store brands and national brands were off fractionally, less than a half percentage point each, PLMA said. Unit sales of store brands were almost 44 billion, nominally on par with last year. As a result, store brand unit share held at 21.1 percent.

The PLMA Private Label Yearbook compiles sales data provided by Nielsen for the 52 weeks ending December 26, 2015. The yearbook is published online at www.askPLMA.com and has become the benchmarking standard for retailers and suppliers. Nielsen sales and market share statistics are reported for more than 700 food and nonfood product categories, PLMA said.

Supermarket data shows that total sales of store brands were $62.5 billion, roughly even with the prior year. During a two-year period, sales were up in the supermarket channel by 2 percent or $1.1 billion. With unit share at 22.9 percent, nearly one of every four items sold in the country’s supermarkets last year was a store brand. As for drug chains, store brand dollar sales rose nearly a percentage point to $8.4 billion last year, while national brands fell about a point, PLMA said.

Figures for all outlets come from total U.S. supermarkets with annual sales of more than $2 million, drug chains with annual sales of more than $1 million, mass merchandisers, club and dollar store channels, and military exchanges, PLMA said.

Looking beyond these traditional outlets and the data available from Nielsen, a more comprehensive figure for annual store brand sales in food and non-food consumables would include an estimated $20 billion or more in revenues from chains that range from no-frills discounters like ALDI and Save-a-Lot, to specialty chains such as Whole Foods and Trader Joe’s, as well as convenience stores. If counted, these outlets would produce a grand total approaching $140 billion in sales, PLMA continued.

However, even that total does not take into consideration store brand products sold by chains specializing in office supplies; hardware, tools and do-it-yourself; home improvement, home decor and domestic goods; consumer electronics, baby care, pet care, toys, personal care and sporting goods. These are just a few of the non-grocery retail channels that are marketing a growing variety of store brand items, PLMA noted.