Store brands lead the pack in plant-based foods

If you get the Store Brands newsletter, you’re getting five new news stories a day (not weekends, of course, football’s on) and to the writers here scouring for and generating this content, it seems like every other story is on a plant-based private brand. 

So it was during a typical search for news where I stumbled across this headline in a business magazine that covers the vegan foods industry, “Plant Based Companies Must Look to Innovation and Marketing to Compete With Supermarkets.”

What struck me in the headline is the clear call to action that supermarkets are leading the category. The Vegconomist article goes on to address how retailers and their plant-based private brand lines are leading and that manufacturers are following. The article quotes an editor at research firm GlobalData saying plant-based brands need to develop marketing campaigns and innovations to compete with the “retail own label offensive.” It’s war! 

The article focuses on the U.K. market, which celebrates January as veganuary — an awareness campaign that challenges consumers to go vegan for a month — so the category is important to consumers across the pond, where retailers are capitalizing on the plant-based craze.  Asda launched its 48-product line of store brand plant-based foods. Retailer Co-op added its Gro line of vegan and plant-based items. Tesco announced its Wicked Kitchen line last year, and Aldi has a huge line of items, too.

But clearly this isn’t just a U.K. thing either (nor is veganuary, which is reportedly entering the U.S. next year).