Jesse Newman and Stephanie Stamm of The Wall Street Journal tell their readers that from pretzels to pet food, store-brand goods are gaining on big-name brands: ‘Our food budget had exploded.’ They write:
Goodbye, Chips Ahoy cookies and French’s mustard. Hello…Great Value, Private Selection and Signature Select.
U.S. consumers are trying many tactics to cut their food spending: eating out less, buying less groceries and ditching name brands. That is boosting lower-cost store brands, which last year claimed 22 cents out of every dollar spent in grocery stores—the largest share ever for so-called private-label products.
National brands are still king in the U.S., making up 78% of overall food and beverage dollar sales, according to data from the market-research firm Circana. But store brands, manufactured by companies including TreeHouse Foods for such retailers as Walmart and Kroger, are gaining ground, raising pressure on big food companies that have pushed their prices higher. […]
Wofford Wise said his family has abandoned many packaged foods or switched to store brands since their weekly grocery bills ballooned by more than a third in recent years. Wise, a salesman in the Knoxville, Tenn., area, said he rarely buys Raisin Bran or Frosted Mini-Wheats anymore, in part because the pace at which his four children devour cereal makes them unaffordable.
“A $5 box of cereal would last exactly one breakfast,” said Wise, 40, adding that he now shops almost exclusively at Aldi and Costco. “Our food budget had exploded.”
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