Dive Brief:
- Southeastern Grocers won first place from the Wisconsin Dairy Products Association during the 2017 World Dairy Expo Championship Dairy Product Contest for its Raspberry Cone Crunch private label Prestige premium ice cream, according to a company statement.
- The regional grocer won five awards in total for its private label foods: three for ice cream and two for cheeses. This marks the third consecutive year Southeastern Grocers’ store brand dairy products have been recognized by the association. Its previous winners were Prestige French Vanilla in 2016 and Prestige Coconut Almond Fudge in 2015.
- The award-winning products are available at all of the grocers’ banners, including Winn-Dixie, Bi-Lo, Harveys and Fresco y Mas stores.
Dive Insight:
Nationwide, store brands contribute more than $150 billion in yearly sales for grocers, according to the Private Label Manufacturers Association. And shoppers save $30 billion every year by choosing store brands over mainstream brands. It’s no wonder grocers across the country have invested a lot of money in their private label lines in recent years.
In many cases, these store brands have become indistinguishable from national brands in terms of quality. They also offer better value and a unique selling point for grocers, too. These days, retailers like Lidl, Kroger, Trader Joe’s and Publix offer store brands that are on par with national brands.
Some are hoping to eclipse national brands. Kroger, for example, generates more than $20 billion a year from its private label brands. Store brands comprise 25.6% of Kroger’s sales and 28% of units sold. During an earnings call earlier this year, Kroger CEO Rodney McMullen told analysts the company had benchmarked its private label products against national competitors, and often found their brands were more desirable.
“Our research showed that the most-loved brands sold in our stores are our [own] brands, above even the national brands," said McMullen. “And in the blind taste tests, our brands outperformed competitive national brand and other private label products almost 100% of the time.”
Southeastern Grocers is hoping to find similar fortunes in its tiered private label selection, which could be a bright spot for a company struggling to find sales growth as of late. With some award-winning products under its belt, it would behoove the grocer to leverage these wins in its marketing efforts in an attempt to create a halo effect that could extend to its other store brand products. Southeastern Grocers joins a list of other grocers that have recently won awards and other accolades for their store brands.
Discounter Aldi is accustomed to the awards circuit. Several of the retailer’s wines won medals in the International Wine Challenge earlier this year — proving that wine doesn't need to be expensive in order to be appreciated. Some of the grocer’s other private label products were honored with BrandSpark International's 2017 Best New Product Awards. And 18 of its products were recently awarded the Parent Tested Parent Approved Seal of Approval from Ontario-based marketing firm PTPA Media, too.
Newcomer Lidl has only been in the U.S. a few months and it’s already racking up best product awards. The grocer’s Icelandic-style Skyr yogurt was recently named the #1 yogurt in the country by the 2017 World Dairy Expo Championship Dairy Product Contest. In addition, the retailer won 16 medals, including three gold medals for its cheese and additional honors for its ice cream and other yogurts.