Magazine: Competition between manufacturer brands and private label products

Christoph Knoke
managing director in Germany
IRI

Christoph Knoke, managing director of IRI in Germany has been interviewed by Lebensmittel Zeitung. He told: although private label (PL) products started out as the imitators of manufacturer brands, today they are already innovative products that adapt to the needs of consumers, offering real value for money. Not only the discount supermarket channel is making progress in the domain of PL products, as super- and hypermarkets and drugstores are also taking part in the process. Mr Knoke is of the opinion that brand manufactures have to be not only innovative and customer-focused, but they must also offer special product characteristics to shoppers if they want them to pay the higher prices of branded products.

In his view PL products can be successful because leading FMCG retailers are reacting to changing shopping and consumption trends smartly and quickly. He added that there are more and more discount supermarkets, and Amazon and Google are entering the FMCG market. The managing director told that many retailers are intensely increasing the size of their PL product selection, e.g. Lidl’s fresh burger concept. At the same time others are launching PL products that don’t even have branded competitors. //