In the most recent edition of ESM, we spoke to retailers across Europe about their private label strategies, including chatting to Auchan Retail Portugal about how it is investing in its private-label brand identity. This article first appeared in ESM Issue 3 2020.
Auchan Retail Portugal recently launched a new marketing campaign, highlighting its commitment to everything that is ‘Bom, São e Local’ (‘Good, Healthy and Local’), and the retailer has also sought to instil this way of thinking into its private-label approach.
As Filipa Rebelo Pinto, chief product officer, explains, the retailer is seeking to simplify the product offering for its shoppers while taking into account key trends, such as health and wellness and sustainability.
ESM: What do you see as the main trends driving private label growth in Portugal?
Filipa Rebelo Pinto: Innovation, sustainability, convenience, and the demand for more healthy and affordable products. Today’s consumers are more informed, and therefore more demanding. They want innovative solutions that can make their lives simpler. That’s why we are constantly investing in innovations to respond to new trends and customer needs. Every year, we launch between 300 and 400 new-product references.
Consumers want more sustainable solutions, which has led us to offer a range of eco-friendly products, such as cotton swabs with cardboard sticks and jeans made out of recycled materials, among others.
Our customers also want healthier products, with a greater nutritional value and which are more affordable, with a good quality-price ratio. With this in mind, we are constantly working to improve our existing products, to make them more natural and healthier.
What changes have you made to Auchan Retail's private label architecture?
The good-better-best architecture continues to be valid and is still present in our own-brand products. Recently, we have introduced visual changes to these products, to make it easier to identify them.
We now have products with a green colour scheme, which indicates that they are essential items, for daily consumption, of good quality, and at a reduced price.
We have products with a red colour scheme, which respond to more specific needs, including bio, gluten-free and allergen-free products, or products that respond to specific ecological concerns.
Finally, we have gourmet products, with a gold colour scheme, which offer the consumer options with more refined or exotic ingredients at a fair price.
How has your private label strategy evolved over the past few years?
We try to make our own brand follow our commitment to ‘Good, Healthy and Local.’
Within the scope of ‘Local’, we are buying more and more products from local producers. Today, 88% of our products are purchased from national producers. In relation to ‘Healthy’, we are highlighting the quality of our products, such as if a product is GMO-free, or chemical-free in the case of cosmetics.
In terms of ‘Good’, Auchan is committed to investing in products that provide satisfaction to our customers, while adhering to high quality and transparency standards, so that people can make informed decisions about the products they consume.
What do you see as the future of private label in Portugal?
Today, one out of every three products in our customers’ baskets is a private label. In part, this also has to do with the economic crisis that we went through, which made people choose cheaper products.
At the end of the crisis, even with greater purchasing power, we found that people continued to buy our own brand, because they discovered its quality.
We are, therefore, convinced that own brands still have room to grow and to achieve even greater prominence.
© 2020 European Supermarket Magazine – your source for the latest retail news. Article by Stephen Wynne-Jones. Click subscribe to sign up to ESM: The European Supermarket Magazine
