Grocery Doppio in partnership with grocery insights firm FMI—The Food Industry Association today unveiled the State of Digital Grocery: Unlocking Private Brand Growth report, in partnership with. The report, based on interviews with 117 senior industry executives, revealed new insights about the state of grocery Retail-owned Brands (private brands.)

Key findings include:

• Improving sales of private brands is a priority in 2023
  • 83% of grocery executives said that private brand should be a C-level priority
  • 91% claimed to have a private brand strategy and roadmap
  • 85% intend to increase the number of digital assets for private brand in 2023, while 83% will expand their private brand digital marketing campaigns
• Private brand lags name brand marketing in grocery
  • 97% of grocers deploy emails and 95% use banner ads for manufacturer brand marketing, but only 32% and 16%, respectively, do the same for private brands
  • At 42%, digital circulars are the most widely used tactic for promoting private brands, but this, too ranks well behind deployment for name brands (86%)
• Grocers are dissatisfied with their private label performance
  • Only 38% of grocery executives reported satisfaction with their current private label performance limited in-house business resources, inadequate budget, and limited software/solutions were cited as the top three factors holding private brand marketing back.
  • They also cited digital asset quality (46%), diversity (44%), personalization (33%), quantity (32%), and automated delivery (17%) as key sources of dissatisfaction

“Grocery executives are in consensus that private brands are critical to growth in 2023,” said Gaurav Pant, Chief Insights Officer of Grocery Doppio. “But they also agree that private brands need an overhaul to live up to their growth potential.”

“During the COVID-19 pandemic more shoppers discovered the value and quality of private brands,” said Doug Baker, vice president of Industry Relations, FMI—The Food Industry Association. “Food retailers realize the opportunity on the table for private brands and this research outlines ways to enhance marketing strategies to bolster private brands programs in new and creative ways.”