Depending
on the direction I drive and the errands I am trying to get finished,
there are about six different grocery store chains within close
enough range to my house that I feel safe buying ice cream. (Read
into that: It won’t melt if I go directly from the store to my
house.) Three of those chains would qualify as neighborhood markets
for the nearest city.
Even
in what would be called a rural area, I have a variety of markets
that isn’t too far off from the city where I grew up. Biggest
difference is size, as most of these neighborhood shops are a
bit smaller than the usual locations of these chains.
When
we moved into the area, we spent a bit of time in all of the markets.
And if I’m being honest, I still do visit them all. But those
first visits were an attempt to try and get a feeling for which
stores had the best offerings in a variety of areas. Best prices
would be one such idea. Best produce, best bakery, best weekly
sales and more could be added. I think you can easily see where
I’m headed, and probably come up with a few reasons of your own
that one store might be better (or worse) than another.
There
was then, and remains today, one rather silly item that we noticed
when it came to differences.
Milk.
What
major milk brands do you know? Hood? In the northeast United States
brands like Garelick and Upstate are well known. New York has
the legendary Byrne Dairy.
Imagine
if you walked into a store and you only had two choices of milk
brands. Hood and the store brand. Garelick and the store brand.
Upstate and the store brand. But that’s it. None of them offered
Hood and Upstate along with the store brand. Or Garelick and Hood.
Or Upstate and Hood and Byrne Dairy.
If
you had a particular brand of milk you were trying to find, you
had to select a specific store to find it. Hood milk isn’t in
every store. A preference of Garelick meant going to only one
option.
At
first I chuckled, thinking about orange juice. I really couldn’t
grasp a similar idea, where Tropicana wasn’t in every grocery
store. If you like Tropicana, Minute Maid or Florida’s Natural,
and walk into a store with orange juice on your list, you feel
pretty good that you’re going to see your favorite brand. They
might be sold out of pulp-free or some other variety, but more
than likely all of the major choices will be there.
Not
milk. Not near me.
I
tried to shrug it off in the beginning. After all, orange juice
has a longer shelf life. Plus, judging by the habits of my house
over the past thirty years, milk sales might be down. (In fact,
I looked it up. The U.S. Department of Agriculture has the average
annual consumption per person significantly down over about 45-years,
from 29 gallons in 1975 to 16 gallons in 2021.)
Start
adding in plant-based alternatives and such, and maybe it isn’t
that wild an idea that stores would limit dairy inventories. Offering
a few limited choices could be the way to go.
That’s
what I began thinking over the years. Inventory control and sales
numbers. Made sense. Until I looked at the frozen vegetables over
the past few months.
I’d
go in to look for a specific offering of this or that, and more
and more I couldn’t find it. I started noticing less and less
selections from groups like Birds Eye and Green Giant. The national
brands had their logos and packaging there to some degree, but
it was obvious that significantly more ground in the frozen foods
aisles were being stocked by the store’s label.
Armed
with my milk experiences years before and this new observation,
I began looking in other places throughout the store recently.
In everything and anything, from cookies to soups, pastas to salad
dressings, it sure feels like there is a takeover developing.
Overall,
none of this should be a surprise. The store brand items usually
cost less for us as consumers, and yet the store likely keeps
a larger portion of each sale. If you wanted to maximize profits
in your chain of stores, this would be a way of getting there.
But
most of us shoppers are locked in. We want our familiar paper
towels, beverages and snacks. We can be extremely brand loyal
when we find something we love. And if you have children that
are picky eaters, maintaining a sense of peace and quiet in the
house while getting the kids to finish dinner can be based solely
upon have the right offerings in the pantry.
So,
national brands have their place and a bit of control. Still,
if the store label products gain a following, I’m convinced the
stores want to go in a different direction. Whole Foods and Trader
Joe’s, as examples, have directed a spotlight on food retailers
and private labels. And that’s where the past couple of years
may have nudged the move.
Between
rising costs and the supply difficulties over the past two to
three years, shoppers are looking at things with a different set
of eyes. Nothing like heading in and not seeing any orange juice
to make you look really hard for whatever might be there. If the
store brands can increase the level of product quality, and each
store can combine that with having stock on hand with a lower
cost, the products will begin to sell.
Recently
I was talking to a friend about chicken sausage. Said I had tried
a few over the years but could never find something consistently
good and available. The quick response was a referral to a regional
market’s offering. The market has one of the best overall reputations
in the country, I picked some up, and it was outstanding. It’s
a regular item in my fridge now.
I
don’t think this is an accidental trend. I don’t think it’s a
temporary shift, either. It’s an option consumers are willing
to consider. And, when it’s happening with groups like Market
Basket, Wegmans and Publix leading the way, stores that have earned
the trust and loyalty of their shoppers, it is a practice that
has a great chance of succeeding.
Will
all the grocery chains attempt the transition? And, for the ones
that do, will sales support it and the chains survive? I don’t
know. I’m still on the hunt for the right combinations of milk
and frozen vegetables from a single source in my community. But
I’ve got my chicken sausage locked down, and I have a feeling
a few other choices may go the same direction. If that’s the case,
I wonder if the private label store brands are destined to become
the new national brands.
Might
happen. Might not. But I wouldn’t feel so confident about being
too big to fail anymore. No one is.