There is no doubt that U.S. store brands benefited greatly from the Great Recession of 2008-2009. The quality of today’s store brand offerings coupled with more value-conscious consumers looking to stretch their dollars ignited a sales boom. In the U.S., private label sales increased 1.8 share points from the end of 2007 to the end of 2008 to reach a 22.3 percent market share.

With 82 percent of Americans online, 93 percent owning mobile phones and 155 million using Facebook, access to digital technologies is officially pervasive, yet retailers still spend an estimated 60–70 percent of their marketing budget on printed ad circulars.

The stats still show that women do the majority of shopping in the U.S., but with men facing a higher unemployment rate than women, more men are at home than in the past and in many cases, they are taking a more active role in household duties.

Given the recent economic slowdown in developed markets, the ‘value-conscious’ shopper is more visible across store aisles than every before.

The USDA is forecasting overall food prices to go up between two to three percent in 2011, due largely to the rising cost of commodities and lower supplies of basic ingredients – higher than the past few years, but certainly not the levels being encountered around the world.

Smaller, immediate trips capture the greatest share of Americans’ shopping trips. The interesting trend, though, is how the smaller trip is gaining in importance at the larger formats such as supercenters, while formats such as grocery are seeing increases in larger trips.

How will consumers react to higher gas prices, especially in an economy fraught with uncertainty?

In 2010, winning retailers didn’t sit on the sidelines, they innovated and many of the areas where innovation occurred are what we can expect in 2011 as retailers evolve their macro strategies.

Food is the age-old bonding agent among friends and family, connecting people in ways technology simply can’t match. As the economy forced families to tighten budgets, food-related activities from watching cooking shows and reading cookbooks to dining-in meal preparations all increased.

Three-quarters of U.S. households believe store brands are a good alternative to name brands and nearly two-thirds of households say that store brand quality is just as good as name brands.