The market share of private-label products in Italy has reached 30% this year, a 2% increase on pre-pandemic levels, a new study by Coop Italia has found.
According to the Coop Italia Report 2022 on consumption and lifestyles, Italian origin and sustainability are the key considerations of shoppers when purchasing food, with gourmet, ready-to-eat, organic and ethnic considerations on the wane.
Tackling Inflation
With prices on the rise, some 24.5 million Italians plan to decrease the quantity but not the quality of their food purchases, the study found.
Food inflation currently stands at 10% in Italy, which is lower than other countries such as Germany (+13.7%), Spain (+13.5%) and the UK (+12.8%).
Spiking upward are the purchase prices of basic products such as seed oil (+40.9%), olive oil (+33.1%), pasta (+30.9%) and flour (+25.4%).
Energy costs, which in 2019 accounted for 1.7%, will reach 4.7% in 2022 and 5.2% in 2023.
Category Growth
Sales of fresh products (accounting for 56% of total sales) were up by 11.2% in the first half of the year; packaged foods (27% of the total) grew by 12%; drinks (13% of total sales) grew by 15.4%; while ice cream and frozen products (5% of the total) increased sales by 12.8%.
Since the start of 2022, there has been a slight return to floor space expansions for large-scale retailers, mostly at the expense of proximity stores, while discount stores once again record the highest growth. Elsewhere, the e-commerce segment seems to have lost the thrust gained during lockdown, the study found.
In 2021, e-commerce stood at 2.9% with 2030 forecasts unlikely to exceed 6%. This compares unfavourably with the more dynamic UK (from 12% to 19%) or French e-commerce markets (from 8.6% to 16%).
The Coop Italia Report 2022 reports also found that, for every €100 spent by the consumer, the net profit for retailers amounted to just over €1.50.
© 2022 European Supermarket Magazine – your source for the latest Private Label news. Article by Branislav Pekic. Click subscribe to sign up to ESM: European Supermarket Magazine.
