The first quarter of 2025 was a good one for store brands.
Mirroring trends that have taken place over the last few years, store brands dominated national brands by outperforming their counterparts in dollar and unit sales across all U.S. retail outlets, per Circana Unify+ and PLMA.
Store brand dollar sales gained 5% and unit sales rose 0.9%, compared to national brands, which were up 0.8% in dollars and down 1.1% in units, during the quarter ending March 23, vs the same period a year ago.
Store brand market shares came in at 21.5% for dollars and 23.7% for units, reflecting private label's superior, multiyear performance vs brands at checkout. In every one of Circana's last 30 monthly reports to PLMA, store brands finished ahead of national brands when it came to results in dollar and unit sales compared to the prior year.
Drilling down, all 10 food and nonedible departments showed store brand dollar sales growth for the trailing 52 weeks ending March 23, 2025. Refrigerated improved the most, up 11.5%, followed by Beverages (+4.7%) and Frozen (+3.5%). In store brand unit sales, nine departments increased. Top gainers were Beverages (+4.6%), Pet Care (+3.8%) and Home Care (+3.5%).
For total store brand dollar sales for the 52-week period, Refrigerated led all departments at $59.8 billion, followed by General Food ($52 billion), General Merchandise ($25.5 billion) and Frozen ($21.8 billion). In store brand unit sales, General Food set the pace at 19.8 billion, then Refrigerated (15 billion), Beverages (5 billion), General Merchandise (4.9 billion) and Frozen (4.6 billion).