You may not think much about store brands as you shop for groceries, but it’s a business worth nearly $60 billion per year.
ConAgra, a company based in Omaha, Neb., made a splash recently in what the industry calls private label food when it paid $6.8 billion to buy Ralcorp, based in St. Louis, Mo. The merger created the biggest private label food company in the country.
Every major grocer has its own private label brand. Walmart has Great Value. Kroger stores sell Private Selection. Costco has Kirkland. Almost everything at Trader Joe’s seems to carry the store's name.
Behind those labels are companies you’ve probably never heard of, like Ralcorp or Treehouse Foods. John Stanton, a food marketing professor at St. Joseph’s University in Philadelphia, Penn., recently visited the Private Label Manufacturer’s Association conference. He said private label is sort of an anonymous industry.
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