Ups and downs of private labels

The share of private label in relation to sales volume increased in just four of the 14 European countries analysed. Of the other ten countries, two experienced significant downturns compared with 2014, according to the annual report of the PLMA, which is compiled annually from figures of The Nielsen Company, a market research organisation.
The biggest decline in private labels in relation to sales volume was in Portugal, where the market share was 49.2 per cent in 2015. Compared with the previous year (57.0 per cent) this equates to a 7.8 per cent drop. In second place was Hungary, where the proportion of private label products relative to sales volume declined by 5 per cent to 51.8 per cent in 2015. 
The country in which private label products account for the largest share of pet food sales is Germany, where the share of the market was 55.1 per cent, closely followed by Slovakia with 54.5 per cent. The biggest rise in the private label share compared with 2014 was 1.9 per cent in Denmark. The private label market also increased slightly in relation to the sales volume in Finland (0.8 per cent), Belgium (0.7 per cent) and Germany (0.6 per cent).

By contrast, the private label volume share increased in eight of 14 European countries. In the other six countries analysed, the decline varied from slight to considerable compared with the previous year, according to the PLMA.
The biggest decline in private label products was in Hungary, where the private label volume share was 62.4 per cent in 2015, a drop of 8.5 per cent compared with the previous year (70.9 per cent). This development is particularly interesting, as in 2014 Hungary saw the biggest rise in the private label market (4.1 per cent) in relation to volume in comparison with 2013. 
The second country to lose out in the private label market is Portugal. Here the share of private label products fell in relation to the tonnage by 7.8 per cent to 64.3 per cent. Italy also experienced a decline of 3.3 per cent, with the share of private label products falling from 36.4 per cent in 2014 to 33.1 per cent in 2015.

Spain was the country in which private label products accounted for the biggest share of the pet food market in 2015. Here the volume share was 68.7 per cent. The biggest…