Store brands sales reached $118.4 billion in 2015, an all-time record and an increase of $2.2 billion over the previous year. In the past two years alone, annual sales are up 5%, or $5.4 billion, in the major retail channels, according to Private Label Manufacturers Association’s 2016 Private Label Yearbook.
Store brands dollar share came to 17.7%, also the highest mark ever. Across all outlets combined store brands sales grew 2%, a performance that equaled that of national brands, which also rose 2%.
In unit sales, both store brands and national brands were off fractionally, less than a half percentage point each. 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%.
The PLMA Private Label Yearbook compiles sales data provided by Nielsen for the 52 weeks ending December 26, 2015. The industry annual 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.
Looking at supermarkets, total sales of store brands were $62.5 billion, roughly even with the prior year. Over a two-year period, sales are up in the supermarket channel by 2%, or $1.1 billion. With unit share at 22.9%, 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.