Foraging for new growth

Which way is growth?

Sales and profit growth has slumped, the latest OC&C Index for The Grocer reveals, but own-label is finding its way more successfully through a changed landscape than the brands.
Conventional wisdom says own-label goods are the unglamorous, low-rent cousins of the all-singing, all-dancing and all-conquering consumer brands. Yet the recent disruption to UK grocery has affected suppliers and retailers in myriad ways, and one of the most significant is that the rules around unbranded players have been rewritten. we are now living in an era of own label.

Own-brand suppiers are growing over three times faster than branded suppliers, largely because the sector has been better able to navigate around the roadblock of the price war and collapsing traditional supermarket sales.

That collapse is partly responsible for The OC&C Grocer Index 2015 painting a downbeat picture, where the woes of the supermarkets are splashed all over the canvas.