Wal-Mart expands store-brand food deals

Posted Feb 19th 2009 5:51PM by Zac Bissonnette
Filed under: Wal-Mart (WMT), Marketing and Advertising

Looking to capitalize on the flight to affordability, Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. (NYSE: WMT) is planning to reintroduce its 'Great Value' private label food brand with new packaging and more aggressive marketing.

Wal-Mart is reportedly hiring (haven't heard that word in awhile, have you?) 75 people for its private-label business, and there would seem to be no better time for expanding this investment. Consumers are always willing to pay a premium for nationally-known brands but in this economy, that premium could be extremely low, giving Wal-Mart an opportunity to increase its private label revenue by a lot -- and keep a great chunk of its food sales in-house.

The private label expansion also makes sense because it gives Wal-Mart increased leverage in negotiating with national brands like Kraft Foods (NYSE: KFT).

The bigger winner here is probably the consumer who will benefit from a wider variety of cheap private label products and possibly lower prices on major-brand products as a result of the increased competition.

Tags: brands, generic, private label, PrivateLabel, Wal-Mart, WMT

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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

2-20-2009 @ 12:03AM

Vince Marchisotto said...

Wal-mart is a ripoff!!! I buy their generic Dr. Thunder because of the price and taste. 2 years ago they were .50 they have raised the price twice since then. They are now .75 here. What a rip. The only thing Wal-mart gives U is CREDIT @ 20+%. Aldis and other markets are cheaper on a variety of items ( and yes they are great tasting good quality items) If Walmart wants to help the community how about lowering their exorbitant credit charges. Don't they make enough?

2-20-2009 @ 3:37AM

djm22 said...

How good could this private label walmart brand be when they emisize on cheap and thats what there stuff is is cheaply made the lowest quality stuff they can find so what this would taste one leval better then crap cause when ever you buy a great value product you can taste how cheaply it was made because it taste like well so so if you care about taste at all that is so what they going to do since they do that with there other brand make this taste just barely better

2-20-2009 @ 2:26AM

dj said...

Hey I thought they had a brand that was suppost to be better then great value for some of there products isn't that what sam's choice is or have they redone it now so that it is not like that

2-22-2009 @ 12:19PM

roudy11z said...

Wal-Mart is still on the right track as far as the low income family is concerned.With little money to spend they don't mind buying generic.At least WMT is making these products available along with the name brands. Go Wal-Mart!! RoudMan

3-02-2009 @ 1:15PM

J Burns said...

I was making stew and poured a box of GV beef broth in the pot, when a solid substance started dropping out of the container. I cut open the box and there was some type of Black papers in the bottom of the box. I removed them and placed them on a piece of paper towel to look at them. They appeared to bee some sort of paper product, faling apart and was black with small white spots on them. I was going to take it back to WM at first, but have decided to contact FDA first. I am afraid that WM would sweep it under the carpet, not investigate. I am highly alergic to mold and don't know what impact this woould have had on my health. Any comments?