News that Waitrose is rolling out 'Waitrose 1' premium label across 500 food products, replacing some premium ranges but adding ‘new and improved lines’ raises some issues for suppliers:
- Given that Waitrose tops the league table for best place to buy private label (Which? report 2015, 47% of products tested achieved best-buy status) this represents an extra emphasis on premium own label
- Bearing in mind that Aldi came 2nd, Sainsbury’s 3rd and Lidl fourth in the same survey, it is likely that other mults may take the Waitrose move as an incentive to upgrade their private label offerings
- With all mults in the same large-space, out-of-town boat, their growth will be at the expense of other mults...
- Price-cutting on brands has not worked and has impacted bottom lines...
- ...and private label remains the only real differentiator for the mults
- This could mean we are entering a new type of food-based private label quality-war, which if it works, could spread to other categories
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