PLMA Live! presents Lunch and Learn - September 24
Unlocking Consumer Affordability: What Today’s Value Decisions Mean for Private Label Growth
Consumers are redefining affordability beyond price alone. This session explores how shoppers balance price, quality, trust, convenience, and performance and where those trade-offs create new opportunities for private label.
Marc Koutoufaris
Head of Private Label, Texture & Helpful Solutions
Ingredion
Marc Koutoufaris is Head of Private Label, Texture & Helpful Solutions at Ingredion, and has extensive experience across grocery, foodservice, and consumer packaged goods (CPG). Marc has held executive leadership roles at Share-ify, Southeastern Grocers, Performance Food Group, and Daymon Worldwide, helping retailers grow through innovation, sourcing, and private brand strategy.
Jake Finkelstein
Senior Marketing Analyst, Industrial Ingredients
Ingredion
Jake Finkelstein is Senior Marketing Analyst, Industrial Ingredients at Ingredion, leading market development and marketing communications for their US/CAN industrial ingredients business. Jake has seven years of experience working in the paper and packaging industry in various commercial sales roles.
Catherine Lochner
Senior Insights Analyst, Texture & Helpful Solutions
Ingredion
Catherine Lochner is Senior Insights Analyst, Texture & Helpful Solutions at Ingredion, specializing in consumer trends, market intelligence, and food and beverage innovation. Catherine helps brands translate emerging consumer needs into actionable growth opportunities through research-driven insights and strategic analysis.
PLMA Live! presents Lunch and Learn - October 1
What the research reveals
Store Brands’ Next Frontier: Unlocking Personal Care
Personal care represents an open frontier for store brands and shoppers have already begun crossing over. Seventy-eight percent purchased a store brand in at least one personal care category during the past six months, and more than half of these shoppers frequently choose store brands in other aisles. Yet they purchase store brands in only about one-third of the personal care categories they shop, leaving significant room for growth.
PLMA’s new Shopper Intelligence study of 1,501 U.S. personal care shoppers reveals what can close that gap. Trust in store brand performance is five times more influential in driving adoption than price sensitivity. Furthermore, the study shows that performance proof in personal care can be a matter of varying dimensions, such as hygiene vs. appearance, and the category determines just what type of proof shoppers are seeking.
Attendees will learn which proof points can motivate shoppers to brand-switch and the cross-category pathways that can turn a single-product purchase into broader personal care adoption.
Sara Williamson, Ph.D.
Associate Professor of Marketing
SUNY College at Old Westbury
Dr. Sara Williamson is an Associate Professor of Marketing with an expertise in consumer psychology. Her research investigates how choice, consumption, and disposal of packaged goods can be impacted by contextual cues related to product design, labeling, and retailing.
Her research has been featured in regional and national media outlets and has been awarded by the American Marketing Association for its societal impact. Currently a faculty member at The State University of New York (SUNY), Sara has been teaching undergraduate and MBA marketing courses for 13 years and has previously served as a faculty member for the Haub School of Business Food Marketing Department at Saint Joseph’s University. Sara also offers more than a decade of industry experience in sales and marketing within both private and public sectors, working with stakeholders along the value chain to foster successful relationships among retailers, restaurants, and food suppliers.