Todd Hale, SVP, Shopper and Consumer Insight, The Nielsen Company
2008 was a stellar year for store brands in the U.S., with both dollar and unit growth outpacing branded offerings across consumer packaged goods (CPG) categories. Store brand dollar sales within food, drug and mass merchandisers grew 10.2% for the year, while branded dollar sales grew by just 2.6%. Although the gap in unit sales was not as wide, indicative of how store brand dollar growth resulted from inflationary pricing across a number of commodity-based categories, store brand units grew 2.6% …

Organic products – which are often priced at a premium over non-organic products – have taken a sales hit over the last 12 months as consumers have cut back discretionary spending, according to new analysis by Nielsen’s Director of Industry Insights, Tom Pirovano.  In March 2008, monthly sales of organic products grew 24 percent; a year later, growth almost came to a standstill of 1 percent, marking a dramatic shift from previous monthly growth rates of more than 30 percent seen in 2005 and 2006.
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“The recession and …

Household budgets are stretched. Consumers are nervous. When commodity costs are down and prices are still high, should the price increases taken in 2008 to be rolled back in 2009? Not necessarily.

In perhaps the most challenging and volatile economic climate in over 35 years, holiday spending across food, drug, mass, and convenience stores saw a 5.8% gain. Other bright spots were online shopping, new movie releases and Blu-ray DVDs.