Dive Brief:

• Private label products accounted for 20.7% of grocery industry unit sales in 2023, a record level, according to data released last week by the Private Label Manufacturers Association.
• Store brands also gained ground on national brands in terms of the number of units sold during the year.
• The figures reflect strong interest among retailers in enhancing and expanding their private label assortments even as grocery inflation has lost momentum.

Dive Insight:

Grocers have been investing heavily in house-branded products in recent years, and the figures from PLMA shine a spotlight on that trend.

Private label sales came in last year at a record $236 billion, PLMA said, a level that was up almost 5% year over year and is up more than a third compared with 2019 — the year before the pandemic shocked supply chains and set the stage for months of powerful price increases. By contrast, overall grocery industry sales moved up by 3.5% in 2023 compared with 2022, with national brands also moving ahead at about that pace.

In an indication that volatility in grocery spending by shoppers is subsiding, growth in private label and overall grocery sales slowed in 2023 as the year wore on, PLMA said. Private label sales soared by more than 8% during the first half of 2023 compared with the same period in 2022, but were up by only about 1% during the final six months of the year.

While private label goods outpaced national brands in terms of dollar sales during the first half of the year, national brands were ahead by that measure during the final six months of 2023. Total grocery industry sales eclipsed $1.2 trillion last year, a 3.5% annual increase.

The statistics are based on data provided to PLMA by Circana.

PLMA noted that among the 10 private label categories the retail analytics company tracks for it, only tobacco products turned in a sales decline in 2023. That department saw sales sag by more than 16%, to about $60 billion.

All of the other categories, which include refrigerated items, beauty products, frozen foods and general merchandise, were up more than 1%, with the beauty department leading the way with a sales gain of over 10%.