The national media continues its fascination with Retail Brands (private brand) with the new article from CNN Business “Why every Costco product is called ‘Kirkland Signature” by Nathaniel Meyersohn. The piece takes a look at the history and mystery of Costco’s iconic Kirkland Signature brand.

Why every Costco product is called ‘Kirkland Signature

Costco’s Kirkland Signature brand is perhaps America’s weirdest private label. You can put Kirkland Signature AA batteries alongside Kirkland Signature cashews in your shopping cart.

It’s also shockingly successful.

Kirkland raked in $58 billion in sales during Costco’s latest fiscal year, making up around a quarter of the company’s total revenue. Kirkland is America’s biggest consumer packaged goods’ brand measured by sales. It’s larger than Hershey (HSY), Campbell Soup (CPB) or Kellogg (K).

Read the entire article.

And the article includes insights from RBI president Christopher Durham.

“Kirkland is a proxy brand for Costco. It really means Costco,” said Christopher Durham, president of Velocity Institute, a trade group representing the private brand industry. Kirkland is designed to appeal across demographic groups, he said, unlike many other retailers’ array of private labels that are each targeted at a specific segment of shoppers.”

“Kirkland has a one-note strategy and it’s really good at that one note,” Durham said. “It creates a reason and a point of differentiation for people to shop there.”