Magazine: private label products are unstoppable

PLMA’s World of Private Label, the biggest annual private label product trade show in Europe was held in Amsterdam on 24-25 May 2011, with 3,600 exhibitor stands from 70 countries and 100,000 visitors. Seminars, a New Product Expo and an Idea Supermarket were all part of the programme. Currently private label products are breaking sales record all over the world and according to forecasts this trend will continue with the international expansion of retail chains. This is the reason why quality private label products are available in more and more categories, e.g. among fresh and frozen products, cured meats, drinks, cosmetics or in the gardening and DIY product groups. At a seminar Jean-Jacques Vandenheede, senior retail industry analyst with Nielsen spoke about how private labels were pushing forward in both good times and bad, carving out a significant part of the cake in terms of both value and volume. Private label shares improved in 18 European countries, going above 30 percent in 9 of them. He told that loyal private label buyers are better off than the average buyer, are better educated and buy more products more often. CBA and TESCO Hungary were among the 171 retail companies who were represented at the event. PLMA was founded in 1979 as a non-profit organisation and unites family businesses, medium, large and worldwide manufacturers and retailers. Nielsen provides PLMA members with exclusive data, which is published as a yearbook and contains the market shares of 4,000 product categories in more than 20 countries. The next PLMA World of Private Label will take place in Amsterdam on 22-23 May 2012