Private Label Isn't a Trend. It's a Takeover.

We ranked the top 5 grocers in our catalog this spring. On average, they introduced over 300 PL products each — in a period of only eight weeks. That's about 1% turnover of all CPG products in a typical store of 30,000 SKUs — in less than a season.

Data

3 min read

Author:

David Goodtree

Date:

June 23, 2026

Private Label Isn't a Trend. It's a Takeover.

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Private Label has accelerated into an aggressive takeover strategy of the center aisles.

Across all grocers in our catalog, nearly 3,000 new PL products launched just this spring, beyond the massive rollout of "Our Brand" products in the prior 6 months.

Here are the highest-performing U.S. grocers in our catalog:

WIN:	Kroger bested the next closest grocer by 2x, with over 700 new SKUs.
PLACE:	Meijer and Walmart continued their rapid pace, with over 300 new SKUs.
SHOW:	Hy-Vee and Target landed over 200 new SKUs.

Details for these retailers are below, plus other performers such as Ahold, Albertsons, Wegmans, and more.

Why Private Label Acceleration Matters

New PL products are rolling out faster than systems were built to track them. The downstream impact affects the entire grocery ecosystem, from marketers to analysts, and even Wall Streeters.

For Product Matching & Receipt Enrichment

For marketers building audiences using panel data — from Circana, Fetch, Ibotta, NIQ and Numerator — recognizing shopper affinity for PL products is key to unlocking consumer behavior.

Foodgraph’s depth in PL products fills the black hole that often comes with syndicated data. Messed-up UPCs, unrecognized SKUs, and cryptic titles prevent product matching. The result: Line items get dropped and consumers’ PL purchases become invisible.

For Shelf Analytics & Price Intelligence

CPG companies are asking market researchers to explain PL’s voracious appetite. Retailers are shelving new offerings at such a fast clip that CPG is hard-pressed to assess the rapidly-evolving dynamic.

When Walmart’s new Cold Brew “Brownie Batter” beverage is positioned right next to your product, Foodgraph has the Private Label data and images needed for competitive analytics.

For Consumer Apps and Health & Wellness

Food Is Medicine is finally gaining traction — even in PL — for GLP-1 Support foods, functional beverages, and protein-enriched snacks. But when consumers scan PL products and get “Item Not Found,” they stop engaging.

Foodgraph can help consumer users avoid getting 404s when they look up the newest and best-positioned products on the shelf.

For Retailers

Grocers pushing hard into PL are seeking an enduring edge in profit and shopper loyalty. Laggards face a strategic chasm that keeps growing. Getting a clear picture of PL innovators — such as Dollar General, Kroger, Sprouts, and Walmart — is necessary to keep the edge or create it.

Foodgraph’s catalog is built for benchmarking competitors’ PL mix and identifying opportunities for differentiation.

For CPG

CPG has always competed with PL in low-end products. But value-plays are yesterday’s game. Now, CPG is being Kirkland'ed into “manufactured by” status as retailers swarm their stronghold: premium PL products with strong brand identity.

Foodgraph's catalog tracks where retailers are quietly piloting long-tail innovations online — often as candidates for new PL products. This first-look gives CPG brands a window into the coming competition, before it displaces their products on the shelf.

For Financial Institutions

The rapid ascent of PL is all about grocers snatching profit from traditional CPG companies and increasing consumer loyalty to specific retailers.

Foodgraph's product data platform can provide an early view into the retailers who are most aggressively reshaping their assortments, before POS data trickles in over weeks and monthly reports show up later.

Private Label Rankings by Retailer: Spring 2026

Here’s the full breakdown of the figures summarized above, showing selected grocers and counts of new PL product introductions in spring 2026:

Rank	Parent Company	New PL Products
1	The Kroger Co.	712
2	Meijer Inc.	398
3	Walmart Inc.	366
4	Hy-Vee Food Stores Inc.	265
5	Target	211
6	Ahold Delhaize USA	167
7	Wegmans Food Markets Inc.	144
8	Albertsons Companies	130
9	Dollar General Corporation	104
10	BJ's Wholesale Club	65
11	H-E-B	65
12	Sprouts Farmers Market	65
13	Giant Eagle Inc.	39
14	Schnuck Markets, Inc.	38
15	Lunds & Byerlys	33
16	Wakefern Food Corp.	25
17	Raley's Supermarkets	18

See the Methodology section at the end for important details.

Example New Private Label Products

Here are some of the newest PL products among the 160,000+ store brand products captured in our latest catalog. Notice that these product types have broken out from value-play positioning.

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Further Reading

For more insights into Private Label's enormous growth, see our recent blog articles:

Foodgraph Next

Our next major catalog update will arrive in time for Back-to-School shopping.

How can we support your 2026 goals? Let's talk!

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Warm Regards,

David Goodtree

Founder and CEO, Foodgraph

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Methodology

This analysis focuses on new products that were introduced for post-Easter and pre-Independence Day shopping. Specifically, these products were:

introduced on retailers' websites in mid-Spring 2026.
- Product listings online may precede or follow their in-store availability, or never be offered in-store.
present within any of these CPG categories:
- food & beverage
- pet food & pet supplies
- household
- health & beauty
- alcohol
observed and captured by Foodgraph between April 14 and June 8, 2026.
selected from the Foodgraph v54 catalog, released on June 17, 2026.

Foodgraph does not represent, warrant or guarantee that our approaches to data collection, aggregation, or analysis are complete. Please contact us with any questions.

In our v54 release:

"The Kroger Co" includes products sold by any of its 17 banners
- including Harris Teeter, Kroger, QFC, and others
"Walmart Inc" includes products "Sold by Walmart"
- excluding Walmart Marketplace sellers
"Target" includes products "Sold by Target"
- excluding Target Marketplace sellers
"Ahold Delhaize USA" includes products sold by 4 banners
- including Food Lion, Giant, The Giant Companies, and Stop & Shop
- excluding Hannaford
"Albertsons" includes products sold by the Albertsons banner only
"Wakefern Food Corp." includes products sold by 6 banners
- including Dearborn Market, Fairway Market, Gourmet Garage, Price Rite, ShopRite, and The Fresh Grocer
- excluding Di Bruno Bros (<200 products online) and Morton Williams