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PLMA Show Shows Strengths and Weaknesses



interesting new products show up at store brands expo in Chicago



By Susan Stansbury
contributor




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The Private Label Show held at Chicago’s Rosemont Exhibition Center in November continued to attract store brand buyers and other visitors with an estimated 4500 attendees viewing the latest from exhibitors. In the nonwoven products world, there were a lot of big-brand-equivalent products as usual and some interesting niche items.

According to PLMA, the show is the largest marketplace for store brand products. Some 2000 booths vied for the attention of buyers and executives from major retailers and wholesalers. All major product categories were represented from food to health, beauty care and household.

Representative of store brand attendees at the show this year were four American retailing and wholesaling companies who received top honors from PLMA at its Salute to Excellence Awards. The four are H-E-B Grocery Co., Costco Wholesale Corporation, Navarro Discount Pharmacies and Topco Associates. They are winners in the supermarket, mass merchandiser, drug chain and co-op/wholesaler categories.

Private label and store brands continue to grow on retail shelves. In some cases, PLMA exhibitor-sellers are also the converter-producer, while in others, production is outsourced to contract converters. PLMA says growth has not only been caused by current economic conditions but is an overriding trend. The association reports that private label sales are “on fire,” gaining 10% in supermarkets and 13% in drugstores in the past year, based on Nielson Company reports. Private label sales are now at $80 billion in all mass marketplaces. Analysis of recessions has shown consumers turning to store brands and increasingly staying with them when the economy im­proves. In the past, shares held up after a recession primarily when high quality was maintained. In the 1990-1991 recession, private label shares moved from 17.6% to 20%, and consumers remained loyal after economic conditions improved.

Among nonwovens niches, there is a wide variation in private label shares. For example, at the high end are baby wipes with just under 30% private label market share. Baby wipes generally dominate the personal wipes category at around two-thirds of the total. Exhibiting at the show were private label private label leaders Rockline Industries and Nice-Pak Pro­ducts. Baby wipes growth is essentially flat, with sales growth occurring in other personal care categories.