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What is Store Brands Month
The basics of Store Brands Month and why it matters for manufacturers.
What is Store Brands Month?
Store Brands Month is a nationwide, month-long consumer campaign every January that brings together retailers, manufacturers, and brokers to promote store brand products. The inaugural celebration launched in January 2025, and PLMA coordinates a national toolkit, messaging, promotional assets, and employee activation across the industry.
Why does it matter for manufacturers?
Store brands are at an all-time high—and growing faster than national brands. Store Brands Month concentrates consumer and trade attention on the categories where you compete and win, giving you a designated reason to deepen retailer partnerships, secure feature and display, and build brand equity beyond price.
- $282.6 billion in store brand sales—an all-time record
- 23.3% dollar share, an all-time high
- 25.5% unit share, an all-time high
- Store brand dollar sales grew almost 3× the rate of national brands in 2025
What does success look like for a manufacturer?
- Deeper Joint Business Planning relationships with key retail partners
- Secured endcaps, features, and circular placement for the items you make
- Engagement against your products across retailer media networks
- Trial and repeat from new shoppers entering the category
- Brand-equity lift that protects price integrity after January
Who started Store Brands Month?
A committee comprised of retailers, manufacturers, brokers, and trade suppliers. PLMA launched Store Brands Month in January 2025 to give the industry a shared platform for celebrating private label and turning consumer momentum into year-round engagement.
How to Participate
Costs, planning, and what to bring to your retail partners.
How do manufacturers participate?
You participate through your retail partners. Bring Store Brands Month into your Joint Business Planning (JBP) conversations, offer ready-to-use assets and content, propose displays and sampling, and align on retail media. You enable the retailer's January program rather than running a consumer campaign yourself.
What can my company do during Store Brands Month?
Store Brands Month is your opportunity to help retail partners spotlight the store brand products you make. As a manufacturer, you don’t run the consumer campaign yourself — you enable your retailers with the assets, content, and activation ideas that make their January program stronger. Activation falls into four pillars:
In-Store
Win the shelf
Endcaps, secondary displays, cross-merchandising, POS materials, and sampling or demo support that put store brands front and center.
Digital
Feed the channels
Ready-to-run social content, retail media network creative, e-commerce banners, and email assets your retailer can deploy across their own ecosystem.
Storytelling
Build the equity
Brand origin, quality, and innovation narratives — “behind the label” content that reframes store brands around value and trust, not just price.
Trial
Earn the basket
Sampling, coupons, bundles, and new-item launches timed to January to drive first purchase and repeat.
Where does Store Brands Month fit in my retailer planning?
Treat January as a fixed, calendar-able moment and build it into your Joint Business Planning (JBP) conversations alongside volume, promotions, and co-investment commitments. Bringing a Store Brands Month plan to the table gives your retailer a reason to feature store brands — and gives you a reason to be in the room. Align your assets to the themes shoppers respond to in January:
Does it have to be reduced price?
No. Store Brands Month is about building store brand equity—quality, value, innovation, and trust—not just cutting price. Price is one lever among many. Lead with story and trial, and use promotion to reinforce a brand consumers come back to, so the gains outlast January.
Beyond the discount: the strongest January programs deepen the relationship between the shopper and the store brand — not just the price tag.
Does it cost anything to participate?
No. There is no cost to participate in the program, and the PLMA toolkit and assets are provided free of charge. Any media, sampling, or display investments you choose to make with a retailer are your own commercial decisions, typically negotiated as part of normal trade and JBP discussions.
What should I bring to my retailer?
- A tiered activation proposal (Foundational, Amplified, or Integrated)
- Ready-to-run retail media and social creative for their channels
- An endcap, secondary display, or cross-merchandising concept
- A featured item, new launch, or sampling and coupon plan
- A shared scorecard so results can be measured after January
When should I start planning?
Now. Retailers are planning the year ahead today—many are already in the midst of it. Start the conversation now so Store Brands Month is built into the annual plan rather than added on late, and get your assets and proposals into your retailer's hands as early as possible.
Manufacturer Eligibility
Who can participate and which retailers have already activated.
Who is eligible to participate?
Any manufacturer or private label supplier that produces store brand product for the U.S. market. PLMA manufacturer members have full access to the toolkit and committee resources, but participation in the consumer moment itself is open across the supply base.
Can brokers participate?
Yes. Brokers play a central role in carrying Store Brands Month plans to retailers and coordinating activation across the manufacturers they represent.
Which retailers have participated in Store Brands Month?
Manufacturers have a wide range of partners to activate with. Past participating retailers include:
What about manufacturers outside the U.S.?
The Store Brands Month consumer program is currently focused on the U.S. market. International suppliers serving U.S. retailers can still activate through those retail partners.
PLMA Support
How PLMA helps you succeed.
What's in the manufacturer toolkit?
- SBM Manufacturer Playbook: Presentation material to introduce Store Brands Month to a retailer—business case, 4-pillar framework, activation tiers, planning calendar, and KPI scorecard.
- Retailer Sell Sheet: A one‑page leave‑behind for buyers to make the case for featuring store brands in January.
- Meeting Prep Worksheet: A print‑and‑fill planner covering retailer info, category data, tier selection, and meeting objectives.
- Logos, Graphics & Facts: Official logos and badges plus industry facts and consumer insights from Circana / Numerator.
What resources does PLMA provide beyond posted assets?
- Store Brands Month Committee — cross‑industry advocacy and thought leadership
- Monthly data reports — category and consumer insights to bring to JBP
- National consumer and trade media outreach — coordinated amplification of the January moment
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Who do I contact with questions?
For an immediate response, contact Kristal Sevcik, Senior Director of Member Relations, at ksevcik@plma.com with any questions you may have about Store Brands Month.
Or, email storebrandsmonth@plma.com for more information.