DataWeave, a global leader in retail data, pricing and AI analytics, today releases its report on the ascent of private label brands in the grocery space, Inflation Accelerates Private Label Share and Penetration. The study digs deep into the reasons behind and numbers backing the rise in popularity of private label food brands and products resulting from the pandemic, and now rising inflation.

“Across the ten major grocery retail chains we analyzed, private label brands were more economical compared to national brands, which is likely one of the key factors contributing to the private label’s increased penetration across grocery categories, said DataWeave CEO Karthik Bettadapura. “We will continue to watch private label closely, as it seems to be impacting many decisions across the retail value chain, from margins to merchandising.”

The report looks at top private label brand penetration, ranks brands by category, and tracks price variations across regions, along with private label ratings, reviews and ranks. It finds that on average, retailers in the U.S. carried more than 4,500 private label products online and had private label brand penetration of more than 13 percent. DataWeave analysts feel this trend will only continue to grow at a historic rate as inflation pushes consumers to buy more affordable private label products in the months ahead.

“Availability and affordability amid prolonged economic uncertainty furthered the power and presence of private label brands in 2021, increasing market penetration beyond all expectation. Our data found that eight of the top ten brands with the highest number of SKUs carried across all grocery retailer websites in our analysis were private label goods, signaling the strength of their Share of Voice and verifying a shift in consumer preferences,” said Krish Thyagarajan, president and COO of DataWeave.

DataWeave’s methodology draws on more than 500 billion global data points, looking at both external sources and their own internal banks to explain that data. This Private Label report is the latest to compare prices and popular differences by brand, category and retailer, in light of inflation and market-driven economic changes.

Watch next for a DataWeave report on the shrinking price disparity between organic and regular food products, with an interesting private label twist.

DataWeave is a leading provider of advanced sales optimization solutions for e-commerce businesses, consumer brands and marketplaces. The AI-driven proprietary technology and language-agnostic platform aggregates consumable and actionable Competitive Intelligence across 500+ billion data points globally, in 25+ languages, with insights to drive performance for more than 400,000 brands across 1,500+ websites tracked across 20+ verticals and ensure online performance is always optimized. Learn more about the power of big data and global level analytics in understanding the rapidly changing retail industry at DataWeave.com