We’ve identified 4 discrete phases in the development of UK private label:

• Value
• Imitation
• Tiering
• Strategic

Value
Most commentators agree that private label proper began in the UK in 1993 with the launch of Tesco Value. Sainsbury’s had invested heavily in private label during the 80’s but had had to pull back in the face of significant customer opposition. Positioned unequivocally as a range of no-frills alternatives to national brands, however, and reflecting Tesco’s “pile it high and sell it cheap” mantra, Tesco Value was all about low prices. Against the backdrop of the early 1990s recession, this new introduction from Tesco was clearly well timed and well received.

Imitation
Fast forward to the end of the decade. By the late 1990s many iconic brands found themselves dealing with unwanted levels of flattery, with brand imagery extensively copied. This led, in some instances, to intervention by the courts, and to some difficult stand-offs between leading branded suppliers and their supermarket customers.

To their credit, it wasn’t long before most supermarkets realised that private label could play a much more sophisticated and strategic role in underpinning their own core retail brand strategies, although Sainsbury’s and Diageo still found themselves at loggerheads over infringement of Pimm’s design rights as late as 2009.

Tiering
Private label as we currently know it probably began to take shape with the launch of Tesco Finest in 1997. With its distinctive silver and black pack design, Tesco Finest well and truly buried the conventional wisdom that private label could only occupy the territory of opening price point (OPP) ranges. By April 2008, Tesco Finest reached sales of £1.2 billion and laid claim to the accolade of Britain’s biggest food brand. Tesco Finest also led to most supermarkets adopting tiering strategies, based on Good – Better – Best. Tiering itself reflected an increasingly nuanced understanding of value. (Entry level ranges offer great prices; mid-tier offers mass-market quality at competitive prices; best offers above average quality at below average prices.)

Quality improvement is another important reason behind growth in private label. The step change in quality heralded by Tesco Finest has continued unabated. Most shoppers will now be confident that even products in entry-level ranges will be “good enough” to do a basic job. As each year passes, the perceived “quality gap” between brands and private label gets smaller and smaller.

Strategic
The fourth and latest phase in private label’s development probably started some 15 years ago. This period was characterised by an explosion in supermarkets’ investment in and experimentation with private label and, crucially the realisation that, as well as generating sales and margin, private label could also be used strategically to build one’s own, differentiated retail brand proposition.

Few supermarkets have been more experimental than Tesco, and some experiments have proved more successful than others.

Tesco has moved from a classic “Branded House” (Tesco Everyday Value; Tesco, Tesco Finest; Tesco Free From; etc.) to a “House of Brands” (F&F; Euphorium Bakery; Giraffe, Huddle; Blinkbox), and back again.

In 2009, Tesco introduced a controversial range of “Discount Brands” (Trattoria Verde Pasta, Oaktree Baked Beans; Wheatfield Bakery; Crofters Cider), closely followed in 2011 by its more premium “Venture Brands” (Llama’s Snacks; Halo Sanpro; Lathams Petcare). Neither the Discount ranges nor the Venture brands carried Tesco branding.

The Discount brands, in particular, were criticised in many quarters for “deceiving” shoppers as they implied provenance that didn’t, in reality, exist. This was, surely, a spurious criticism. When we created the Aunt Bessie’s brand for Tryton Foods in 1995, few shoppers believed the character necessarily existed, just as they didn’t believe that the Oxo Family lived next door, or that Cadbury’s Joyville was a real place with a chocolate railway station.

Although its Discount Brands were subsequently phased out, in many respects they were the direct ancestors of its current “Exclusive to Tesco” value lines such as Hearty Food Co., Ms Molly’s, and the eponymous, Stockwell & Co.

Tesco were not alone. Most other supermarkets have also experimented, to a greater or lesser extent, with House Brands, Sub-Brands, Tertiary Brands and Stand-Alone brands.

An important factor underpinning this proliferation of private label strategies was the growing understanding that different grocery categories can have different dynamics and might therefore be approached in different ways. This more nuanced view of the roles private label might play was probably, in turn, linked to the growth of category management and the increasingly sophisticated understanding of the Shopper.

Away From Supermarkets
Of course, experimentation with different private label strategies hasn’t been confined to supermarkets. Most leading UK retailers have explored different ways of optimising the opportunities represented by private label.

The Boots logo is hugely trusted and has been used to great effect across its Health & Beauty ranges for generations. However, it doesn’t appear on Boots’ much-loved No.7 range of cosmetics, which is positioned as a mainstream, stand-alone brand that happens to be exclusive to Boots stores.

Between 1950 and 2000 virtually all products sold in Marks & Spencer carried the St. Michael logo, which was dropped, virtually overnight, in 2000 as part of a general rebranding move to M&S (supported by various sub-brands).

For several years, DIY store B&Q adopted a private label strategy wherein many of its ranges shared a consistent visual style, but with range names that appeared to have no literal meaning. This absence of meaning presumably allowed B&Q to use the same designs across its various European store brands. However, the retailer has recently moved to a more conventional approach wherein range names project category values. Many of its everyday lines for home and garden now carry the GoodHome brand name, whilst its power tools carry the manly MacAllister or Magnusson names.

So where is private label now in UK supermarkets?

Well, it’s increasingly popular and continues to grow. Figures from Neilsen IQ published by the Private Label Manufacturers Association indicate that in 2023, private label represented nearly a half of all UK grocery sales (43% by value).

The ability to offer good quality at great prices has been particularly important over the last, challenging, few years, during which many hard-pressed families have turned to private label as a way of helping stretched budgets work harder without compromising quality. At a time when many brands have been accused of taking advantage of rising raw material costs to raise prices, private label has also allowed supermarkets to claim some higher ground in the minds of their customers, as their true friends in hard times.

But perhaps the biggest change has been the extent to which private label has become an independent force for innovation and positive change. If it was once synonymous with copying brands, private label unarguably now sets its own agenda.

ASDA’s new, The Health Menu is a case in point. It’s an entirely new range of great tasting, nutritionally balanced products, with delicious choices for breakfast, lunch and dinner. The proposition is unique, as are the products. It exists because ASDA itself recognised a market opportunity, based on its own insights into the needs and wants of its core customers as they live their 21^st century lives. It borrows from no-one.

If private label is one of the big success stories in UK retail over the last 30 years, then design, and pack design in particular, has been the means by which these many strategies have become real. Where brands have traditionally been launched with awareness-building advertising support, a new private label range will inevitably move directly onto the shelf (and on-line), fully reliant on its pack design to get noticed, communicate its proposition, entice trial, and be sufficiently distinctive for customers to find again.

We like to think that our designs for The Health Menu do justice to its sense of innovation and excitement, and will be the conduit by which ASDA customers discover, explore, and repeatedly purchase the brand.

Regarding the future of private label more generally? We’re confident the best is yet to come.