As part of ESM's annual Private Label Issue, we spoke to Swiss retailer Migros about how it is seeking to enhance transparency on its private labels while tapping into emerging food trends. This article first appeared in ESM Issue 3 2021.
Migros had a strong 2020, revenue wise – sales went up by 4.4%, to CHF 29.9 billion (€27 billion) – and structural changes undertaken at the Swiss retailer certainly helped its performance.
During the year, it morphed its LeShop online platform into Migros Online, streamlined its group portfolio, and invested heavily in private label – by improving the quality of its own-brand ranges, introducing new lines, and lowering the prices of approximately 1,000 core products.
According to company spokesperson Patrick Stöpper, the changes to the group’s store brand approach were driven by changing consumer need states.
“We saw an increase in the purchase and consumption of bio products and entry-price ranges, as well as ethnic food,” Stöpper tells ESM. “On the one hand, it’s about consuming more healthily, or, given that consumers are unable to travel, making a ‘journey’ through your meal. On the other hand, it’s about being price sensitive, as there is a lot of uncertainty at the moment.”
Online Offering
This also includes ensuring that private label is available in a wider range of channels, with the launch of Migros Online, a platform aligned with the group’s supermarkets, presenting an opportunity for growth.
“We recently launched the Shop.Migros.ch website and are increasing the private-label share step by step,” Stöpper says. “In addition, we have invested in what we call a ‘no line’ customer journey. This means, for example, that you can order your goods online and pick them up at a physical store.”
On the new-product development front, one of Migros’s biggest private-label launches of the year was V-Love, encompassing a range of plant-based and vegetarian foods, which will, in time, be extended to include dairy substitutes, snacks, ready meals and frozen items.
“We see an ever-growing interest in these kinds of products from our clients and are very happy with sales,” says Stöpper.
Improved Transparency
Migros has long sought to improve transparency across its operations, and recent months have seen it increase its range of organic products, as well as introduce a sustainability scale on its own-brand items, to enable ‘conscious consumers’ to shop more efficiently, as well as rolling out Nutri-Score labelling, following an initial trial on its Cornatur and Pelican brands.
“This test was a success,” says Stöpper. “At the same time, we see a tendency that the Nutri-Score will establish itself across Europe as the commonly accepted nutritional score.
"This led us to the decision to introduce Nutri-Score across all of our Migros own-labels. We are the first Swiss retailer to establish this sort of broad transparency.”
© 2021 European Supermarket Magazine. Article by Stephen Wynne-Jones. For more Private Label news, click here. Click subscribe to sign up to ESM: European Supermarket Magazine.
