During the first eleven months of the year, dollar sales increased by 10.6%, nearly twice the growth of national brands, which were up 5.8%, according to IRI.
In the month of November alone, store brand sales improved by 12.4% compared to the same period in 2021, while national brands were up 7.4%. So far this year, store brand dollar share is at 18.5%, and unit share is 20.1%. Based on the data, PLMA is projecting full year 2022 sales of store brands to reach $221 billion, which would be a $21 billion increase over 2021 and a new annual record.
The growth is significant because it is spread across the store and not limited to certain departments.
Looking at the 17 individual food and nonfood departments that IRI tracks for PLMA, over the trailing 52 weeks ending November 27, store brand sales were up in 16 of them, including double-digit increases in nine departments: Beverages, Deli Prepared, Liquor, Refrigerated, Floral, Bakery, Produce, General Food and Deli Meat. Tobacco was the only department that experienced a sales decrease.
In the two largest departments for store brands, - Refrigerated with $47 billion in sales; and General Food $38 billion, - the increases over the 52-week period were 15.3% and 12.3%, respectively.
Store brands also outperformed national brands in terms of unit sales. For the first eleven months of the year, unit sales slipped 1.3% but national brands dropped more than three times as much, off 4.3%.
For the month of November, store brands were nominally even at minus 0.8% while national brands gave up 4%. Such disparate results in unit sales are often seen as an indicator of shoppers switching to store brands from national brands.