Private label products being sold at other chains

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Re: Private label products being sold at other chains

Post by Brian Lutz »

Digging up an old thread, but I ran across a rather odd example in this YouTube video:



It's a video showing some of the food offerings at a 7-Eleven store in Singapore. Nothing too unusual about the video until you get to around 16:40, where you see a large bottle of Kroger branded hand sanitizer on the checkout counter. My guess is that it came from some Chinese factory that also produces it for Kroger stores.

Also in other videos on the channel, it seems that it isn't too uncommon to see Tesco branded products in Singapore markets, even though Tesco doesn't operate there (they do operate in Malaysia and Thailand, but the products shown seem to be of UK origin.)
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Re: Private label products being sold at other chains

Post by luckysaver »

I found these private label brands at many mom-and-pop dollar/discount bargain stores across Southern California:

Simply Nature (Aldi)
Signature/O Organics (Albertsons). Albertsons' manufacturing subsidiary Lucerne Foods also produces a few brands for just the dollar stores (such as "Busy Baker").
Equate/Pen & Gear/Ozark Trail (Walmart)
Meijer - some of their products have appeared at 99CentsOnly stores
Kroger/Everyday Living - almost every family-run discount store has something from Kroger
Office Depot/Office Max - Albertsons (Supervalu era) had stores with mini "Office Depot" or "Toys R Us" aisles
DG/Rexall (Dollar General) - I recently bought a DG item at 99CentsOnly!
365/Essentials/Basic Care/Basics/Happy Belly (Amazon and Whole Foods) - some store owners say they bought items direct from Amazon in bulk to resell.
Up & Up/Cat & Jack (Target) - mostly Up & Up health products; some stores carry Cat & Jack cloth facemasks.
Smart Sense (Kmart/Sears) - with the large numbers of Kmart/Sears closures, these products ended up at bargain stores
Staples
Lil' Drug Store - their own private label for c-stores
CVS Pharmacy/CVS Health/Beauty360 - overabundance of merchandise everywhere!
Walgreens/Well by Walgreens/Nice! - also an overabundance of Walgreens products at dollar bargain stores1
Rite Aid - I recently bought a 99 cent Rite Aid luggage tag from a military surplus shop!
Top Care/Food Club (Topco Associates' member supermarkets)
Best Yet/Western Family/IGA (C&S Wholesale Grocers' member supermarkets)
Big Saver Foods (a local LA area supermarket chain)
Gonzalez (Northgate Gonzalez, a local SoCal supermarket chain)
First Street/Sun Harvest (Smart & Final)
Special Valu/HomeBest/Springfield/Equaline (Supervalu UNFI member supermarkets)
HDX/Husky (Home Depot)
Kirkland Signature (Costco) - one of the largest buyers is "The Outlet by ELS" in Azusa CA
Starbucks/Seattle's Best

I've also seen some Sysco and US Foods items at bargain discount stores.

Don't forget Starbucks, Krispy Kreme, and La Brea Bakery have distribution deals with many supermarkets!

Many mom-and-pop bargain stores also picked up 99CentsOnly's private label merchandise ("Momentum Brands") - some store owners are supplied by Bargain W (99CentsOnly's wholesale subsidiary where the bulk of their customers are other family bargain stores).

Turkey Hill iced tea and ice cream is still available as a Kroger product - Kroger still owns the name and manufacturing facility but spun off all Turkey Hill gas stations.

A number of convenience stores and cafes sell Rite Aid's Thrifty Ice Cream. The bulk drums do not come directly from Rite Aid - they are from Bon Suisse (which has a contract with Rite Aid to distribute to outside supermarkets). Thrifty Ice Cream (the Rite Aid version) is also found at many Supervalu-supplied supermarkets. So if you see a Circle K or a cafe in Mexico selling Thrifty Ice Cream, its NOT the Rite Aid version - they carry the Bon Suisse version,
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Re: Private label products being sold at other chains

Post by mbz321 »

luckysaver wrote: January 25th, 2022, 3:03 am
Turkey Hill iced tea and ice cream is still available as a Kroger product - Kroger still owns the name and manufacturing facility but spun off all Turkey Hill gas stations.
Actually, this is no longer true. Kroger sold off the dairy around the time that they sold off the C-Stores. https://lancasteronline.com/business/lo ... 32544.html
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Re: Private label products being sold at other chains

Post by luckysaver »

Kroger's Ralphs-Food4Less-FoodsCo division still carries Turkey Hill ice cream and sweet iced tea and I still it on the shelves at every Ralphs or Food4Less store I visit. The label on the container says "Distributed by The Kroger Co Cincinatti OH".

99CentsOnly within the last couple of years picked up private label products from stores that are supplied by SpartanNash - notably the Meijer and Spartan house brands. I've also found Dollar General's DG and Rexall brands as well as Home Depot's HDX brand on shelves.

Albertsons SoCal region carries a few items from Tawa 99 Ranch Market's "Asian Taste" brand of Asian products. Walong Marketing LTD is Tawa 99 Ranch's in-house importer of Asian grocery items. Other connections between Albertsons and Tawa 99 - several of 99's stores (Irvine Jeffrey "99" and the "168" stores for example) were ex-Albertsons/Lucky, Tawa's HQ was Lucky's old corporate HQ in Buena Park, and a few members of Tawa's upper management are ex-Albertsons employees.

Right after Haggen bought out the 146 CA stores from Albertsons/Vons, they agreed to carry the remaining inventory of Safeway's private labels (mostly the Safeway brand as well as some of the original Signature items) in those 146 stores while supplies last, to go along with the private labels that Haggen along has from both Topco and Unified Grocers. After Haggen exited SoCal, they still couldn't sell or deep discount the leftover Safeway products and much of that stuff ended up at Big Lots or many independent dollar bargain stores. When they sued Albertsons right after their exit, one of their claims was that Albertsons left Haggen with over $10 million of inventory (much of it being Safeway private label merchandise) knowing either side can't sell them all at regular store prices.

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Re: Private label products being sold at other chains

Post by storewanderer »

luckysaver wrote: January 31st, 2022, 11:36 pm

Right after Haggen bought out the 146 CA stores from Albertsons/Vons, they agreed to carry the remaining inventory of Safeway's private labels (mostly the Safeway brand as well as some of the original Signature items) in those 146 stores while supplies last, to go along with the private labels that Haggen along has from both Topco and Unified Grocers. After Haggen exited SoCal, they still couldn't sell or deep discount the leftover Safeway products and much of that stuff ended up at Big Lots or many independent dollar bargain stores. When they sued Albertsons right after their exit, one of their claims was that Albertsons left Haggen with over $10 million of inventory (much of it being Safeway private label merchandise) knowing either side can't sell them all at regular store prices.

luckysaver
In CA/AZ, Haggen was selling its own private label in certain categories but brought in Springfield in other categories and Topco brands in others. The former Albertsons units were selling down Essential Everyday items/Equaline items. I was in some Haggen store closing sales on the last day they were open when everything was 90% off and they had largely emptied the store but it was mostly Supervalu stuff that was left (both stores were former Albertsons).

In OR/WA, Haggen was using Supervalu brands to supplement its own private label in grocery but was using the Topco for non food. So in the former Albertsons they bought there was nothing to close out as those Essential Everyday items were what Haggen planned to carry anyway. The former Safeways still had to close everything left out.
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Re: Private label products being sold at other chains

Post by mbz321 »

luckysaver wrote: January 31st, 2022, 11:36 pm Kroger's Ralphs-Food4Less-FoodsCo division still carries Turkey Hill ice cream and sweet iced tea and I still it on the shelves at every Ralphs or Food4Less store I visit. The label on the container says "Distributed by The Kroger Co Cincinatti OH".
Well that is rather strange. Can you post a picture the next time you spot it? Even when Kroger did own the Turkey Hill Dairy in PA, there was zero reference to Kroger anywhere on any of the product line packaging, not even on Turkey Hill's own website. I bet very few outside of some industry followers and us retail nerds even knew that Kroger owned them at all. I'm assuming they are being made in some other plant and not being shipped across country...maybe Kroger still has rights to use the brand for a while?
(Funny enough, the below picture is a Turkey Hill item hosted on Kroger's own website)
Image
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Re: Private label products being sold at other chains

Post by Brian Lutz »

I have a container of Turkey Hill ice cream in the freezer purchased this week and it has the Turkey Hill Dairy address on it. It does look like there may have been a recent packaging change though, so maybe that accounts for the difference.
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Re: Private label products being sold at other chains

Post by retailfanmitchell019 »

Weeks ago, the Stater Bros. I’m at got a single bottle of Publix mustard.

Stater Bros. was also selling Sunnyside Farms (Save Mart) ice cream as a temporary fill in, the store brand ice cream is made in the same plant.
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Re: Private label products being sold at other chains

Post by HCal »

retailfanmitchell019 wrote: December 16th, 2023, 11:58 am Weeks ago, the Stater Bros. I’m at got a single bottle of Publix mustard.

Stater Bros. was also selling Sunnyside Farms (Save Mart) ice cream as a temporary fill in, the store brand ice cream is made in the same plant.
I feel like I have seen Sunnyside Farms ice cream at other grocers in SoCal, perhaps Vallarta or Superior?

Possibly it's distributed through Topco or Unified/Supervalu?
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Re: Private label products being sold at other chains

Post by marketreportblog »

Maybe a week or two ago I stopped by a bodega in NYC (Queens) to get a drink and was shocked to find how many random storebrand things they had. On one section of shelves alone, they had:

Hannaford grape jelly
Krasdale canned fruit (big NYC-area food wholesaler/cooperative, so that's not so unusual, but it is the storebrand for CTown and Bravo supermarkets here)
Kroger canned peaches
Great Valu and Market Basket strawberry ice cream sauce
Market Basket chocolate sauce
Tops barbecue sauce

How the heck did they get all these things? They weren't expired or damaged as far as I could tell, although admittedly I needed to get on a subway so I couldn't stay and investigate for too long. And I've seen bodegas or small stores that have exclusively one storebrand (like the owner makes a trip to BJ's or Walmart to stock up once a month rather than having a real distributor), but this one was new to me.
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